This is the old ROX web-site. Please use the new website instead.
These pages gives detailed installation instructions for installing ROX on various distributions.
I'm new to Linux... which distribution should I get?
There are many to choose from.
Mandriva (formerly Mandrake),
I'm new to Linux... what's a distribution?
See the Glossary.
If you find anything confusing, check the Mailing Lists, or add a question to this page. Someone else who uses the distribution may add an answer later.
The easiest way to install ROX is by downloading the ROX-All package. Alternatively, choose your distribution from the list below to get packages specially built for your system.
If you've managed to install ROX on some other system, please contribute some instructions (things like extra packages you had to install, how to use the system's default GUI to install the packages, etc).
We use the same scheme as Linux. 1.0.0 is the first stable release; releases with an even middle number (eg 1.2.0) are stable, the others (eg 1.3.0) are developer releases.
All releases are supposed to be relatively bug-free, but developer releases are released with less testing before-hand. If the latest version has been out for a while, you can assume it works pretty well.
Zero Install removes the need to install anything, letting you run software (typically packaged in application directories) directly from the author's site, including all dependant libraries. Caching makes this as fast as running software normally, but is much easier.
GoboLinux organises its filesystem into package directories, and these are easily turned into ROX applications.
RoxOS (in the early planning stages) aims to use ROX applications for everything.
LinuxSTEP is trying to achieve something similar, but not based on ROX. It is no longer under development.
There will normally be a menu of desktops on the login screen. After entering your username (and before entering your password) select the one you want from the menu.
If that doesn't work, you can rename the .xsession file in your
home directory to something like .xsession.backup.
(Do mv -iv .xsession .xsession.backup in your home directory.)
You can also run the KDE or GNOME panel from within ROX. Type 'panel' in the filer's 'Shell Command...' minibuffer to get the GNOME stuff, or 'kde2' to get KDE.
ROX-Session contains a file called RunROX which it executes to start ROX-Filer. Read the start of this file, it contains instructions on customizing the file.
#!/bin/sh # This gets run after ROX-Session is loaded and running as your session # manager, before Login is run. # # It is used to run ROX-Filer. If this process terminates, ROX-Session will # offer to rerun it. # # $1 is the ROX-Session application directory. # # If you want to modify this file, you should first copy it as # <Choices>/ROX-Session/RunROX so that upgrading ROX-Session will not overwrite # your changes. This also allows per-user modifications.
Besides the main ones listed above (which are best for beginners), some of the other more notable ones are:
Gentoo Linux is a great distro for the advanced user.Vector Linux uses ROX-Filer as its default file manager.Knoppix is a live CD; it boots directly into a Linux desktop without needing to be installed.
It doesn't have ROX, but it can be modified. It has very good automatic hardware detection.CoolLinux also boots directly from the CD, and it has ROX-Filer running by default.CRUX is ideal for people who want a fast and small Linux system but don't want to make a Linux from scratch.
ROX is included in the contrib section of the CRUX ports from CLC (CRUX Linux Community)LuitLinux A Live CD Distro < 50 MB, based on KNOPPIX and DSL uses ROX-Filer as one of its file managers. It has XFCE-4 as the Desktop Manager.