Add Openbox to A debian/ubuntu based install

This will be two part: installing and configuring. 

***********************

INSTALL

***********************

Step 1: Install openbox. 

      sudo apt-get install openbox obmenu

Step 2: Install theme managers.

     sudo apt-get install obconf lxappearance

Step 3: Install a panel/dock. I prefer tint2, but other options exist such as pypanel. This walk through will be for tint2. 

     sudo apt-get install tint2

Step 4: Install feh. Openbox can't set a wallpaper, so feh will be used. 

     sudo apt-get install feh 

Step 5: Install gmrun. gmrun will allow easy access to launch programs.

     sudo apt-get install gmrun

Step 6: Install network manager. You are welcome to substitute the gnome network manager here, but I prefer WICD. If you install WICD you should probably remove network-manager. (sudo apt-get remove network-manager)

     sudo apt-get install WICD

Step 7: Install a file manager. You are welcome to substitute nautilus here, but I prefer PCmanFM. 

     sudo apt-get install pcmanfm

In summary:  

        sudo apt-get install openbox obmenu obconf lxappearance tint2 feh gmrun wicd pcmanfm

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CONFIGURATION

*********************

You'll be using the terminal for most of this so go ahead and open one. 

Step 1: Make a config folder for openbox in your home directory. 

     mkdir ~/.config/openbox

Step 2: Copy the default openbox config files into your home directory. 

    cp /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml ~/.config/openbox

    cp /etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml ~/.config/openbox

    cp /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh ~/.config/openbox

At this point you could log out and log back in selecting openbox session at the login screen, unfortunately you'd log in to a bare openbox session and would probably hate it. So we are going to go ahead and make some configuration changes now. 

Step 3: Edit autostart.sh (This file tells openbox what to run when you start an openbox session)

   Set Wallpaper:

    echo "feh --bg-scale ~/Pictures/wallpaper.jpg &" >> ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh  

     #Substitute the path to your wallpaper for the bolded text.

   Start tint2:

    echo "tint2 &" >> ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

     Start network manager:`

    echo "wicd-gtk &" >> ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh  

     #you can use network-manager here if you want.

   Start MintUpdate (if you are using linux mint):

    echo "mintupdate-launcher &" >> ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh 

   Start Volume Manager: 

      echo "gnome-volume-control-applet &" >> ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh 

Step 4: Edit rc.xml (This file does too much to detail here). We are going to change some key bindings.

   

   Open ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

    gedit ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

   

   Scroll down until you see: <!-- Keybindings for running applications -->

   

   Add a key binding for gmrun (under what we just looked for):

    <keybind key="W-r">
        <action name="execute"><execute>gmrun</execute></action>
      </keybind>

     Add a key binding for gnome-terminal:

      <keybind key="W-t">
       <action name="execute"><execute>gnome-terminal</execute></action>

           </keybind> 

     Add a key binding for firefox:

      <keybind key="W-w">
       <action name="execute"><execute>firefox</execute></action>

      </keybind> 

   Add a key binding for PCmanFM:

      <keybind key="W-f">
       <action name="execute"><execute>pcmanfm</execute></action>
      </keybind> 

   Add a key binding for gedit:

      <keybind key="W-e">
       <action name="execute"><execute>gedit</execute></action>
      </keybind>  

 

   Add a key binding for the openbox menu: 

           <keybind key="W-Space">
            <action name="ShowMenu"><menu>root-menu</menu></action>
           </keybind> 

Step 5: Edit menu.xml (The file that makes your pretty ob menu)

You can edit this file with a text editor. Or use menumaker. Or use obmenu. The key binding for gmrun will allow you to run programs by pressing the windows key + r, and typing the name of the program you want to run, and yes tab will autocomplete in the dialog box.

     

   Download menumaker here:  

     http://sourceforge.net/projects/menumaker 

   Extract menumaker: 

    tar -zxvf ~/path/to/the/file (or go to the folder and right click)

   Move the folder to your home directory.

   Rename the folder to make it hidden: add a period at the beginning of the name.

   Add an alias to ~/.bashrc to run menumaker:

    echo alias mmaker='~/.menumaker-0.99.7/mmaker -vf Openbox3' >> ~/.bashrc

     #if you download a different version or save it into a              different location change the path...

    

When you log in to openbox for the first time, open a terminal and run mmaker to create a menu. Then feel free to edit the .xml with obmenu or a text editor.    

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FINAL TOUCHES

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When you are at the log in screen select openbox session, instead of gnome session, and log in. You should see something similar to this, of course with your background and default tint2 and no running programs:

To change your gtk-theme and icons use lxappearance. Launch it with gmrun or a terminal. To change your openbox theme use obconf. Launch it with gmrun or a terminal. 

//If you know of a better way of doing things feel free to //comment. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Old Desktop + SSH = Priceless

     I've had an old Dell tower laying around for a while. A year or so ago I used it to test out distros without the fear of botching up my main PC, and for a minute I believed I might actually start using that lovely Pentium 4 again for daily tasks. Then I realized that I don't use desktops. I use laptops. VortexBox sounded like a great idea. For those who don't know, and are too lazy to click the link, you pop in a CD full of music and it automatically gets ripped and tagged. On top of that the cover art gets downloaded, and you have a lovely little multimedia streaming device. Then I realized that my 30GB hard drive wouldn't hold that many music files, especially music files that have .flac on the end. After a year of collecting dust the old relic has returned to life...as a server. 

     I considered a LAMP server, then I realized I don't need a LAMP server. What I do need is a place to store 15 or 20 distributions that I keep hopping and a handful of files I'd really like to back up in a secure-ish place. Ubuntu Server made it pretty mindless. And now for a pretty abstract step by step. 

1. Download Ubuntu Server
2. Install Samba and OpenSSH (and CUPS if you want)
3. Make IP address static. 
4. Filezilla. 

     For now I'll leave it at this, and let you learn the power of www.google.com

CTKArch

CTKArch Website

CTKArch on DistroWatch

CTKArch highlights:

• A very light footprint and is lightning fast.
• One utility per function.
• Doesn't autostart anything (including Wicd)
• Comes with FBpanel and Tint2
• A great community (if you speak French)
• rxvt as the stock terminal emulator
• Is an Arch Linux derivative
• Uses pacman for package management

I'll start of with exceptions to the highlights. The philosophy of CTKArch (according to the distribution's website) is to use one application per function. This makes a lot of sense, and for the most part holds true, the only real exception I found was in the web browser category, as Arora and Midori were both present. This isn't detrimental to the quality of the distro by any means, it just caught me a little off guard. For everyone that loves Google Chrome or FireFox, which includes me, you'll need to install those yourselves. Again, not a deal breaker by any means, just a bit of a headache if you aren't familiar with pacman or installing from source. One more note about web browsers: Arora is a great browser and if you haven't tried it I recommend you do so.

Other "Network" programs that come stock include:

• Pidgin
• Sylpheed
• XChat
• gFTP

On to the second most important category of programs commonly included in a distro, the office utilities. You won't find OpenOffice or LibreOffice by default, which is great if you don't use them. You still get a word processor, spreadsheet editor, and PDF viewer by means of:

• Abiword
• Gnumeric
• ePDFviewer

This shouldn't be a problem for anyone, Abiword and Gnumeric do a great job, and if you really want to install OOffice or LibreOffice you can always use pacman or isntall from source. CTK also had GIMP waiting for me in the menu, which was a bit surprising considering the size of the .iso. I personally don't do much image manipulation, but for all of you artistic people I assume that GIMP is a good thing.

In the looks category I give a 5-star rating. It looks a lot better, please remember that this is subjective, than ArchBang. If you don't like the look of CTKArch, or you want to tweak it ever so slightly, you have easy access to lxappearance and obconf via the menu launcher.

Which reminds me, suspend to ram (and disk) are available in the menu. This a nice feature to come out of the box that a number of openbox distros don't have. I had no issues booting back into my session from ram or disk, the only concern I had was needing to go reconnect to my wireless connection.

BUG ALERT

The only bug I experienced was xwindows crashing when I ctrl+alt+F1 into a terminal, and try to get back into my X session.

Now that I have that bug off my chest, I can get to the summary.

CTKArch is a well put together, aesthetically pleasing, lightweight openbox, Arch derivative distribution. It definitely gets an A rating considering how young it is. If you aren't familiar with pacman, I'm going to suggest using Chakra first which I feel is a bit more user friendly. BUT, if you absolutely love openbox, CTKArch might not be a bad place to get your feet wet.

If you choose to install CTKArch know before hand that the installer isn't graphical. It is pretty user friendly if you know what partitions are, what UTC time is, and can read. If you haven't installed anything other than Linux Mint*, I recommend taking your time and being very sure of what you are doing, or installing it on a machine you don't use everyday.

I'm not going to hop immediately out of CTKArch like I normally would when I'm in a distro-hopping mood. All in all it is exactly what I want from a distro as I look for alternatives to CrunchBang. I'm also quickly becoming a fan of pacman for package management. I'll give it a week and then give a real review, not just highlights. 

*Linux Mint is used here because it has what I feel is the easiest install process/liveCD experience. Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSuSe are all relatively easy installs too, so this applies to people that only have experience installing them as well.

FreeBSD

I don't know much about FreeBSD, or any *BSD for that matter, but I do know it is a UNIX-based cousin of Linux. I'm assuming (based on the list of packages that come with a FreeBSD install) that is pretty easy for a Linux user to transition to it. The only thing I really see missing is a Linux kernel. To understand why there is no Linux kernel we need to talk about the history of Linux and the history of BSD which is pretty tangential to this post.

I've never tried *BSD but I'm planning on doing so as soon as I finish posting this. I reckon it can't be too bad to install, despite the rather ominous sounding install notes found on the FreeBSD website.

Next time we can all take a look at some pretty FreeBSD screenshots, talk about how easy it was to install, and examine how it compares to a few Linux distros.

Edit: After a great deal of reading, I realized that I was most likely going to tank my system. I don't feel like taking the time to fix it, so *BSD will have to wait until I have time to pull out the old desktop. CTKArch will get the spotlight next time.

Useful Hypers:

The FreeBSD Website

The FreeBSD page on DistroWatch