OpenBox Re-spin

[PPC]

As for OB being abandoned or 'functionally stabilized', I was not aware. That actually seems reason enough to move on to another wm (like iceWM which is still alive, so far as I can tell.).

Hi Manyroads!
iceWM (or my favorite Fluxbox) is a good wm to go, and also has a "plus" - it can make MX and antiX be more similar (both in: 1- the way antiX looks, making it more visually appealing to both new and currents users and 2- in the way Mx may use less resources, just like antiX).
My antiX with a Fluxbox that looks like MX (windows decorations and horizontal bar with quick launchers and quick buttons to eject usb devices, volume control and exit) uses about 120 meg of RAM on idle, less than 110 meg if no desktop icons/conky - sorry, not the exact numbers, I'm not on that pc right now...
Fluxbox as some "problems" like no notifications out of the box (you can work around that and install a system notifier).

EDIT 6/5/19 : instead of "system notifier" I should have said something like fluxbox "notification daemon", As far as I know that's the reason why Fluxbox does not, out of the box, show anything on screen when switching tasks, not even the windows identification... It's ok if you, like me have no more than 3 or 4 open windows... with more, it can be more productive just clicking the "windows name" on the task bar instead of using alt+tab, for example...
The only "notification daemon" I tested was Dunst. I don't even consider saying "system notifier" a mistake, just bad translation from my part, akin to the many typos I usually do :-( .
I dabbled a little on customizing my Distro, but that's as far as I go. I'm not a techie, despite using the CLI with some proficiency, I don't really understand the inwards of my OS, or even have a real desire to do so. We have a saying in Portuguese that goes something like "knowledge does not occupy space (in our brains)" meaning we can always learn more stuff, but getting even more detailed knowledge about any OS is something I want to do when I have some particular objective I want done in my computers...

P.

[manyroads]

As for OB being abandoned or 'functionally stabilized', I was not aware. That actually seems reason enough to move on to another wm (like iceWM which is still alive, so far as I can tell.).

Hi Manyroads!
iceWM (or my favorite Fluxbox) is a good wm to go, and also has a "plus" - it can make MX and antiX be more similar (both in: 1- the way antiX looks, making it more visually appealing to both new and currents users and 2- in the way Mx may use less resources, just like antiX).
My antiX with a Fluxbox that looks like MX (windows decorations and horizontal bar with quick launchers and quick buttons to eject usb devices, volume control and exit) uses about 120 meg of RAM on idle, less than 110 meg if no desktop icons/conky - sorry, not the exact numbers, I'm not on that pc right now...
Fluxbox as some "problems" like no notifications out of the box (you can work around that and install a system notifier).

P.

@PPC I agree. I'll play further to see what I can devise.

[skidoo]

Fluxbox as some "problems" like no notifications out of the box

Bear in mind that no "single, standard notifications mechanism" exists.
Here's a non-comprehensive list of the assorted mechanisms used by various applications:

bleachbit and guake use "python-notify"
ulauncher and quodlibet use "python-pyinotify"
(ulauncher also requires "gir1.2-notify")
radiotray and blueman use "gir1.2-notify"
hplip uses "python3-notify2"
fail2ban and git-cola use "python3-pyinotify"
zenity, thunar, psensor, rhythmbox-plugins, orage... "libnotify4"
smartmontools uses its own "smart-notifier"
pidgin uses its own "pidgin-libnotify"
claws mail uses its own "claws-mail-multi-notifier"
yakuake, kwalletmanager, kcalc, dolphin... require "libkf5notifications5"
ktorrent uses "klibnotifyconfig4"
virtualbox-guest-x11 requires "libnotify-bin"
banshee and docky use "libnotify0.4-cil"
sparkleshare uses "libnotify3.0-cil"
hexchat, file-roller, deja dup... "libnotify4"
firefox-esr, thunderbird, spacefm, tint2, openbox... use "libstartup-notification0"
evolution uses its own "mail-notification-evolution"

With that in mind, seems wrong to blame fluxbox for any "problem [..] out of the box".
With fluxbox as a base, a starting point, we preserve a wide range of choices and are fairly unhampered when choosing our favorite individual programs. To the contrary, with a "Desktop Environment" as a starting point we're subject to "lock-in" and locked out scenarios... aw, gee, sorry but xfce-battery-monitor only talks (notifications) to xfce panel. Kwalletmanager, outside its native "DE", may still function but requires (guessing, offhand) installation of an additional 100Mb+ KDE components.

you can work around that and install a system notifier

whatis a "system notifier"?
Something that monitors power-related events? A process monitor (e.g. mate-system-monitor)?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

As for OB being abandoned or 'functionally stabilized', I was not aware. That actually seems reason enough to move on to another wm

The openbox project is still maintained but it is considered feature-complete and so will not be developed any further, I would consider this to be a major advantage.

EDIT: although Lubuntu are going to fork openbox and develop a Wayland-based version under the Mir display server, apparently.

Reference: https://lubuntu.me/lubuntu-development-newsletter-9/

[manyroads]

The openbox project is still maintained but it is considered feature-complete and so will not be developed any further, I would consider this to be a major advantage.

EDIT: although Lubuntu are going to fork openbox and develop a Wayland-based version under the Mir display server, apparently.

Reference: https://lubuntu.me/lubuntu-development-newsletter-9/

@Head_on_a_Stick I defer to your expertise in the OpenBox (OB) arena (given your considerable BunsenLabs experience). If you believe that the antiX/MX family of OSes ought to have an OB respin, then I don't mind giving it a go. I am clearly no expert in the OB realm. I will, at the very least, need "close scrutiny" of my work. :lipsrsealed:

[Head_on_a_Stick]

If you believe that the antiX/MX family of OSes ought to have an OB respin

Not sure about that one, tbh.

MX is aimed at people who don't have either the time or the inclination to mess about with text file configuration and those who prefer GUI tools (AFAICT) but openbox & tint2 don't really fit that paradigm in the same way as XFCE.

And antiX aims for very low resource usage and their chosen window managers do a better job of that than openbox can manage.

BL, #!++ and Star (zephyr's Devuan-based openbox/tint2 distribution) seem to cover their target audience pretty well already.

But don't let me discourage you, tinkering is great fun

[manyroads]

@Head_on_a_Stick I'll have to try the Devuan OpenBox variant Star...

In the meantime... I think I'll continue off & on tinkering with OB, and more arduous support of the new antiX v 19 roll-out.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I'll have to try the Devuan OpenBox variant Star

Correction: Star is made by ozi.

CROWZ is zephyr's project, also awesome.

[JayM]

[...]
I'm very interested in running this on my old netbook if either a 32-bit version is in the offing or if there's a script that I can run on the stock 32-bit MX installation that's on it to turn it into this Openbox spin. Thanks.

Hi @JayM, I am using my minimal script to strip down MXLinux and then adding OpenBox.

Here's the stripping commnds:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt-get remove --purge aisleriot asunder chromium-bsu chromium-bsu-data clementine clipit dconf-editor dict fbreader featherpad feh firefox galculator geany geany-common gimp gimp-data gmtp gnome-hearts gnome-mahjongg gnome-ppp gnome-schedule gscan2pdf gsmartcontrol gtkhash gtkhash-common guvcview* hexchat htop lbreakout2 lbreakout2-data libreoffice* lightning luckybackup luckybackup-data mc mc-data nomacs nomacs-l10n onboard onboard-common onboard-data orage pdfshuffler peg-e pppoeconf qpdfview* samba samba-common samba-common-bin samba-libs simple-scan smtube swell-foop thunar-gtkhash thunderbird vlc xfce4-notes xfce4-notes-plugin xfce4-sensors-plugin xfce4-taskmanager  xfce4-dict
#
sudo apt autoremove --purge

Here's the rest of what I'm using... notes & all.

Code: Select all

OpenBox dependencies:
build-essential
pkg-config
libpango1.0-dev
libglib2.0-dev
libxml2-dev
libxcursor-dev
libimlib2-dev
libstartup-notification0-dev
xlibs-dev
libxext-dev
x11proto-randr-dev

For Debian menu use:
menu
menu-xdg

Building and installing the program
Once you have the above dependancies installed, you are ready to build Openbox. You can obtain the source code from github.com (or as through tar archives (eg. linux from scratch)):

$ git clone https://github.com/Mikachu/openbox.git
Run bootstrap script to obtain configuration scripts

$ ./bootstrap
Then run:

  $ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
	...configure detects the build evironment...
 $ make
	...openbox builds...
  $ sudo make install
	...openbox installs...
If you do not want to install to /usr, then you should use ./configure --prefix=<whatever you want> --sysconfdir=/etc --datarootdir=/usr/share. If you don't do this, the Openbox log in options will not be available, because they need to be installed to /usr/share/xsessions.

If the configure command fails and the reason is not obvious, you should look in the generated config.log file to discover the cause of the problem.

For 64-bit distributions
When building Openbox on the 64-bit versions of Debian or Fedora, use:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --libdir=/usr/lib64
$ make
$ sudo make install

I hope this helps you out.

Thanks, Manyroads. Openbox failed to build for me though. I found that I also needed to install autopoint, libtool and libxcbrender-util0-dev to make $ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc work, but afterward make always failed to build with an error that I forgot to write down.

Oh, well. I was only interested in a 32-bit Openbox spin as a way of speeding up MX on my netbook, but now that I've been able to double its RAM (and I have an SSD for it enroute) I won't bother and will just keep the Xfce version on it as it's no longer laggy. But thanks again for the script and instructions.

[anticapitalista]

Someone has offered antiX with openbox - and is looking for feedback.

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/antixlabs/