This How-To's intended audience is newcomers, but anyone who has not yet tried openbox might find some useful information also. My intent is to cover how to install and configure openbox on top of a clean Xfce installation and have it up and running in a usable fashion as quickly as possible. This is my preferred method and it's simple. The result will be a resource-sipping, yet aesthetically-pleasing system.
I used the Debian 6 net install cd for this guide.
After booting to the installation menu, do as follows:
-Advanced options/Alternate Desktop Environments/Xfce
-Choose Install Method and Proceed with installation
When you are offered the Software Selection Menu make sure you select at least the “Graphical Desktop Environment” and “Standard System Utilities” options. If it's a laptop, go ahead and select that option as well.
Once the installation is complete and you have logged in to your Xfce session, we can get the ball rolling.
Log into your terminal and take root. Just to be sure you are up-to-date go ahead and:
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aptitude update
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aptitude upgrade
Time for the basic packages... Open your terminal and take root, of course:
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aptitude install openbox openbox-themes lxappearance nitrogen xcompmgr obconf obmenu gmrun tint2
(If you want a panel applet for volume control and you run Wheezy or Sid, volumeicon-alsa is in the repos and works quite well. On Squeeze, you will have to manually install it. See http://softwarebakery.com/maato/volumeicon.html for details.)
Behold how boring this is!
As your user, copy the openbox config files to your home directory as follows:
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cp -r /etc/xdg/openbox/ /home/yourusername/.config/
It's also a good idea to back up all the default config files before proceeding. If not, you know where the defaults are stored in /etc/xdg/openbox/
All files should be edited as your user.
Time to customize the menu a bit.
Open /home/yourusername/.config/openbox/menu.xml with your editor of choice. Alternatively, you can simply use obmenu to make any desired changes.
Here is my recommended menu.xml to get things started:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<openbox_menu xmlns="http://openbox.org/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://openbox.org/ file:///usr/share/openbox/menu.xsd">
<menu id="root-menu" label="Openbox 3">
<item label="Run Command">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
gmrun
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<item label="Terminal Emulator">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
x-terminal-emulator
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<item label="File Manager">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
thunar
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<item label="Web Browser">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
firefox
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<separator/>
<menu id="Debian"/>
<!-- This requires the presence of the 'menu' package to work -->
<menu id="client-list-menu"/>
<separator/>
<item label="Nitrogen">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
nitrogen
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<item label="lxappearance">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
lxappearance
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<item label="obConf">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
obconf
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<item label="obMenu">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>
obmenu
</execute>
</action>
</item>
<separator/>
<item label="Reconfigure">
<action name="Reconfigure"/>
</item>
<item label="Restart">
<action name="Restart"/>
</item>
<separator/>
<item label="Logout">
<action name="Exit"/>
</item>
</menu>
</openbox_menu>
Note: Depending on your release, you may need to make one minor change to have a working Debian menu.
Original- Works with Squeeze, do not modify:
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<menu id="Debian"/>
For Wheezy or Sid, modify as follows:
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<menu id="/Debian"/>
The result:
Launch Nitrogen and select your own wallpaper. If it's a totally fresh install and you have none at this point, some debian artwork is in /usr/share/images/desktop-base/ as seen in the screenshot below.
Next, open autostart.sh in your editor. I nuke it and replace as follows (more or less):
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xcompmgr &
tint2 &
xfce4-power-manager &
nitrogen --restore &
xscreensaver -no-splash &
If you want to check your progress at this point, log out and back in. You should be presented with something like this:
You now have a panel and compositing, among other things.
Now open rc.xml
In this file you'll find theme settings, keybindings and window behavior for example. At a bare minimum, you should spend some time looking it over to learn the keybindings. If you want to take it a step further, gimp the ones you deem useful into a wallpaper until you know them by heart, or pull a crunchbang and throw a conky together with them in it. You can leave it alone if you like, but using the default and custom keybindings really make the experience a lot more efficient in my opinion. My rc.xml is pretty much default aside from assigning some keybindings for apps I use a lot- I guess I am lazy and/or don't need much more than this. Binding gmrun to W-space (for me) just about removes the need to even have a working Debian menu. Configure them to your liking. Just avoid creating any that conflict with defaults. If you look through the rc.xml, it should be apparent where these would logically be inserted, but I don't believe it really matters where you put them.
Note: “W” aka “Mod4” aka “Windows” key.
Some keybindings I use- just as an example:
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<!-- Custom keybindings for applications -->
<keybind key="W-space">
<action name="Execute">
<command>gmrun</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-z">
<action name="Execute">
<command>thunar</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-g">
<action name="Execute">
<command>geany</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-q">
<action name="Execute">
<command>xflock4</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-t">
<action name="Execute">
<command>terminator</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-f">
<action name="Execute">
<command>firefox</command>
</action>
</keybind>
You're pretty much done at this point. Welcome to openbox!
Below are a few more things I like to do on my setup.
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aptitude install terminator scrot murrine-themes xfonts-terminus irssi geany
Replace the default tint2 panel with my own.
/home/username/.config/tint2/tint2rc
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#---------------------------------------------
# TINT2 CONFIG FILE
#---------------------------------------------
#---------------------------------------------
# BACKGROUND AND BORDER
#---------------------------------------------
rounded = 7
border_width = 2
background_color = #000000 60
border_color = #ffffff 18
rounded = 5
border_width = 0
background_color = #ffffff 40
border_color = #ffffff 50
rounded = 5
border_width = 0
background_color = #ffffff 18
border_color = #ffffff 70
#---------------------------------------------
# PANEL
#---------------------------------------------
panel_monitor = all
panel_position = bottom center
panel_size = 85% 30
panel_margin = 0 0
panel_padding = 7 0
font_shadow = 0
panel_background_id = 1
wm_menu = 1
panel_dock = 0
panel_layer = bottom
#---------------------------------------------
# TASKBAR
#---------------------------------------------
taskbar_mode = multi_desktop
#taskbar_mode = single_desktop
taskbar_padding = 2 3 2
taskbar_background_id = 0
#taskbar_active_background_id = 0
#---------------------------------------------
# TASKS
#---------------------------------------------
task_icon = 1
#task_text = 1
task_text = 0
#task_maximum_size = 140 35
task_maximum_size = 40 20
task_centered = 1
task_padding = 6 3
task_font = sans 7
task_font_color = #ffffff 70
task_background_id = 3
task_icon_asb = 100 0 0
# replace STATUS by 'urgent', 'active' or 'iconfied'
#task_STATUS_background_id = 2
#task_STATUS_font_color = #ffffff 85
#task_STATUS_icon_asb = 100 0 0
# example:
task_active_background_id = 2
task_active_font_color = #ffffff 85
task_active_icon_asb = 100 0 0
urgent_nb_of_blink = 8
#---------------------------------------------
# SYSTRAYBAR
#---------------------------------------------
systray = 1
systray_padding = 0 4 5
systray_background_id = 0
systray_sort = left2right
systray_icon_size = 0
systray_icon_asb = 100 0 0
#---------------------------------------------
# CLOCK
#---------------------------------------------
time1_format = %H:%M
time1_font = sans 8
time2_format = %A %d %B
time2_font = sans 6
clock_font_color = #ffffff 76
clock_padding = 1 0
clock_background_id = 0
#clock_lclick_command = xclock
#clock_rclick_command = orage
#clock_tooltip = %A %d %B
#time1_timezone = :US/Hawaii
#time2_timezone = :Europe/Berlin
#clock_tooltip_timezone = :/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris
#---------------------------------------------
# BATTERY
#---------------------------------------------
#battery = 0
#battery_hide = 98
#battery_low_status = 10
#battery_low_cmd = notify-send "battery low"
#bat1_font = sans 8
#bat2_font = sans 6
#battery_font_color = #ffffff 76
#battery_padding = 1 0
#battery_background_id = 0
#---------------------------------------------
# TOOLTIP
#---------------------------------------------
tooltip = 1
tooltip_padding = 2 2
tooltip_show_timeout = 0.7
tooltip_hide_timeout = 0.3
tooltip_background_id = 1
tooltip_font_color = #FFFFFF 100
tooltip_font = terminus 9
#---------------------------------------------
# MOUSE ACTION ON TASK
#---------------------------------------------
mouse_middle = none
mouse_right = close
mouse_scroll_up = toggle
mouse_scroll_down = iconify
#---------------------------------------------
# AUTOHIDE OPTIONS
#---------------------------------------------
autohide = 0
autohide_show_timeout = 0.3
autohide_hide_timeout = 2
autohide_height = 4
strut_policy = minimum
Configure terminator.
/home/username/.config/terminator/config
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[global_config]
handle_size = 1
focus = mouse
[keybindings]
[profiles]
[[default]]
scrollbar_position = hidden
show_titlebar = False
background_darkness = 0.7
scrollback_lines = 2000
cursor_shape = underline
cursor_color = "#e5db1d"
foreground_color = "#e5db1d"
background_type = transparent
[layouts]
[[default]]
[[[child1]]]
type = Terminal
parent = window0
[[[window0]]]
type = Window
parent = ""
[plugins]
Add a red root prompt to keep myself out of trouble.
I just put it at the bottom of /root/.bashrc
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#red root prompt
TERM_USER_HOST_COLOR='0;31m'
TERM_PATH_COLOR='0;31m'
TERM_PROMPT_COLOR='m'
TERM_USER_HOST='\u@\h'
TERM_PATH='\w'
TERM_PROMPT='\$'
export PS1=\
'\[\e['${TERM_USER_HOST_COLOR}'\]'${TERM_USER_HOST}'\[\e[m\]'\
' \[\e['${TERM_PATH_COLOR}'\]'${TERM_PATH}'\[\e[m\]'\
' \[\e['${TERM_PROMPT_COLOR}'\]\$\[\e[m\] '
After some tinkering:
Openbox links:
http://openbox.org/
http://box-look.org/
http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/
Other How-To's you may want to use:
Enable Autohinting System-wide
Allow users to shutdown computer from a window manager
Install ps_mem.py
That's all I have for now, but may be adding more information in the future. If you have anything you'd like to have added or spot an error please share in the discussion thread.
