<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/openbox.xml,v 1.6 2009/12/29 19:23:08 nightmorph Exp $ -->
<guide>
<title>The Openbox Configuration HOWTO</title>
<author title="Author">
<mail link="nathanzachary"/>
</author>
<author title="Author">
<mail link="nightmorph"/>
</author>
<abstract>
This guide shows you how to install the Openbox window manager, and references
many potential programs to be used in conjunction with an Openbox session.
</abstract>
<!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license -->
<!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 -->
<license/>
<version>1.5</version>
<date>2010-02-14</date>
<chapter>
<title>Introduction</title>
<section>
<title>What is Openbox?</title>
<body>
<p>
So, you've installed <uri link="/doc/en/xorg-config.xml">The X Server</uri> and
realised that TWM just isn't going to cut it for your needs. You may have also
had some experience with big desktop environments like <uri
link="/proj/en/desktop/kde/kde4-guide.xml">KDE</uri>, <uri
link="/doc/en/gnome-config.xml">GNOME</uri>, and <uri
link="/doc/en/xfce-config.xml">Xfce</uri>. One component of those larger desktop
suites is called the window manager (or WM for short). A window manager is
responsible for the appearance and placement of the containers (or "windows")
inside which programs run. Openbox is a minimalistic, no-frills-attached window
manager.
</p>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Why should I use it?</title>
<body>
<p>
Openbox, unlike the larger desktop environments, depends on very few libraries.
For that reason, it can provide a lightweight graphic environment that runs
very quickly, even on older hardware. Whether your hardware is old or new,
Openbox also provides a highly customisable and unobtrusive working
environment. That means that if you don't want or need a panel, taskbar, clock,
or any other program, those choices are yours to make!
</p>
</body>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Installation and configuration</title>
<section>
<title>Initial installation</title>
<body>
<p>
After you have emerged and configured <c>xorg-server</c>, installing Openbox can
be done in one simple command:
</p>
<pre caption="Installing Openbox">
<comment>(Use <i>emerge -av openbox</i> to preview which packages will be installed)</comment>
# <i>emerge openbox</i>
</pre>
<p>
Just like with other window managers and desktop environments, you will need to
tell the X Server to load Openbox automatically, by adding it to your
<path>~/.xinitrc</path>.
</p>
<pre caption="Adding Openbox to your .xinitrc">
$ <i>echo "exec openbox-session" >> ~/.xinitrc</i>
</pre>
<p>
This will automatically start your Openbox session when you type <c>startx</c>
at the terminal.
</p>
<impo>
As each user has his or her own <path>.xinitrc</path>, you need to make sure to
issue that command as <e>your user</e>, not as root.
</impo>
<note>
You can also replace the KDE, GNOME, or Xfce default window manager with
Openbox by following the <uri link="#inside-desktop-env">Openbox inside desktop
environments</uri> directions.
</note>
<p>
Now that you have emerged Openbox and added it to your <path>.xinitrc</path>,
go ahead and issue the <c>startx</c> command to see Openbox in action. As you
can see, the desktop is simply a cluttered mess! In following with the Openbox
philosophy, what you will see is a barebones environment from which you can
build your desktop completely to your liking.
</p>
<p>
Since you're looking at nothing more than a black screen, you may be wondering
where the menu is. If you click your right mouse button, you will notice that a
menu pops up in the location of your cursor. This menu is nothing more than an
example to illustrate the style of an Openbox menu. Since it <e>is</e> just an
example, none of the items in the menu will work unless you have actually
emerged those programs. In the next section, you will see how to create your
own menu that contains links to <e>your</e> programs.
</p>
<impo>
If you click to view the menu and notice that there is nothing legible,
you need to install some fonts. media-fonts/corefonts and
media-fonts/ttf-bitstream-vera are two common choices.
</impo>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Menu configuration</title>
<body>
<p>
Since the default Openbox menu is essentially useless to you for the reasons
mentioned above, it's time that we create one that will work. Everything in the
Openbox menu is written in the appropriately named <path>menu.xml</path> file,
which can be in the user-specific location of
<path>~/.config/openbox/menu.xml</path>, or in the system-wide location of
<path>/etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml</path>. By default, the only
<path>menu.xml</path> file that is created is the system-wide one which applies
to all users on the system.
</p>
<p>
An easy way to get a basic menu file which you can modify is to use MenuMaker,
which will generate a <path>menu.xml</path> file based on the programs which
you currently have installed on your system. To do so, you must firstly emerge
it:
</p>
<pre caption="Installing MenuMaker">
# <i>emerge menumaker</i>
</pre>
<p>
Once it is installed, make sure to logout of root, and back into your user account.
You then instruct MenuMaker to create a menu specifically using the Openbox XML
syntax:
</p>
<pre caption="Using MenuMaker to generate a basic Openbox menu.xml">
$ <i>mmaker -v OpenBox3</i>
</pre>
<p>
The generated menu will be located at
<path>~/.config/openbox/menu.xml</path>. You can then choose to leave it as
your user-specific <path>menu.xml</path>, or to additionally copy it to the
system-wide menu configuration as well:
</p>
<pre caption="Overwriting the default system-wide menu.xml files">
# <i>cp .config/openbox/menu.xml /etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml</i>
</pre>
<impo>
It is a good idea to use MenuMaker to generate a default menu, as it will have
the Openbox root-menu items. These items include a virtual desktop switcher,
and the commands to restart and exit your Openbox session.
</impo>
<p>
When you open up the <path>menu.xml</path> file in your favourite editor (nano,
for example), you will notice that the XML tags used are very human-readable
and easily understandable. You may choose to modify the default file to fit
your needs, or you may want to write it from scratch (don't worry, it's really
not that difficult). The basic syntax for the menu XML is as follows:
</p>
<pre caption="Editing the menu.xml file">
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openbox_menu>
<separator label="NAME_OF_SEPARATOR" />
<menu id="IDENTIFIER" label="NAME_OF_MENU">
<item label="NAME_OF_PROGRAM">
<action name="execute"><execute>/LOCATION/OF/BINARY</execute></action>
</item>
</menu>
</openbox_menu>
</pre>
<p>
The above example will work for any applications that launch with standard
options in their own windows, but what if you need to append options to
the program at launch time? That is no problem either, but the syntax of
the menu item is slightly different.
</p>
<pre caption="Editing the menu.xml file">
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openbox_menu>
<separator label="NAME_OF_SEPARATOR" />
<menu id="IDENTIFIER" label="NAME_OF_MENU">
<item label="NAME_OF_PROGRAM">
<action name="execute"><command>/LOCATION/OF/BINARY --OPTION1 --OPTION2</command></action>
</item>
</menu>
</openbox_menu>
</pre>
<p>
Simply replace anything in CAPS in the above two examples with your information.
Alternatively, you can <c>emerge obmenu</c>, which is a graphical interface
allowing you to create your menus without having to manually edit the
<path>menu.xml</path> file. It is a very small application and offers a
nice amount of customisation without typing any XML.
</p>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Openbox theme and behaviour configuration</title>
<body>
<p>
Aside from being minimalistic and lightweight, Openbox is also surprisingly
customisable and flexible. As a user, you can easily change various settings
related to theme, appearance, window placement, docking, and more. There are two
options for configuring these settings within Openbox. You may either manually
edit <path>~/.config/openbox/rc.xml</path>, or you may want a GUI to help you
quickly change settings.
</p>
<p>
If you want to manually edit <path>rc.xml</path>, you simply open up your
favourite text editor and start making changes. You might want to make a backup
of the original file just in case, and store it in a location like
<path>~/.config/openbox/rc.xml.default</path>. There are plenty of comments
within the document itself that should help you with editing. Alternatively, you
may want to look at the <uri
link="http://icculus.org/openbox/index.php/Help:Contents#Configuration">Openbox
configuration guides</uri>.
</p>
<p>
If manually editing <path>rc.xml</path> doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you
may want to use the GTK+ application to manage your themes and behaviours in
Openbox. The application that you will use is called ObConf, and can be
installed on your system just as easily as was Openbox itself.
</p>
<pre caption="Installing ObConf">
# <i>emerge obconf</i>
</pre>
<p>
You can then open the configurator by typing <c>obconf</c> in your terminal.
Next, you can go and add an entry for ObConf into your <path>menu.xml</path> so
it will show up in your Openbox menu. If the "editing the menu.xml file" code
listing above seemed too vague to be helpful, we'll use ObConf as an example of
a menu entry:
</p>
<pre caption="Editing the menu.xml file">
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openbox_menu>
<menu id="1" label="Configuration">
<item label="OpenBox Config">
<action name="execute"><execute>/usr/bin/obconf</execute></action>
</item>
</menu>
</openbox_menu>
</pre>
<p>
While ObConf is a great GUI tool for editing many behaviour-related settings
for Openbox, it doesn't allow one to manipulate nearly as many settings as
are presented in the <path>rc.xml</path> file itself. If you are having
trouble finding a particular setting which you would like to change, please
consult the <uri link="http://openbox.org/wiki/Configuration">Openbox Wiki</uri>
for more information.
</p>
<note>
In recent versions of Openbox (namely >3.4.7.2), one may experience a delay
in the submenu opening. This setting was introduced into the rc.xml file, and
is listed as <submenuShowDelay>100</submenuShowDelay>. Simply
choose a lower number that suits your needs.
</note>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Autostart configuration</title>
<body>
<p>
As mentioned above, you don't see a whole lot when you issue the <c>startx</c>
command for the first time after installing Openbox. In addition to customising
your menus and changing the behaviour of the window manager, you will probably
want to have some programs automatically start with your Openbox session. There
is an easily-editable <path>autostart.sh</path> script that allows you to do
just that. Just like with the <path>menu.xml</path> file, there are two
different locations of the <path>autostart.sh</path> script--the system-wide
(<path>/etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh</path>), and the user-defined
(<path>~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh</path>).
</p>
<p>
In the default <path>autostart.sh</path>, you will notice a bunch of lines
calling for programs like the gnome-settings-daemon, XDG, and others. These
lines will generate errors upon logout if you don't have the programs installed
and configured. The easiest thing to do when getting started with Openbox is to
just comment out these lines by using the # symbol.</p>
<pre caption="Commenting out lines in autostart.sh">
# Run XDG autostart things. By default don't run anything desktop-specific
# DESKTOP_ENV=""
# if which /usr/lib/openbox/xdg-autostart >/dev/null; then
# /usr/lib/openbox/xdg-autostart $DESKTOP_ENV
# fi
</pre>
<p>
In the above example, the comment symbol (#) was added before each line. The
commenting method is preferred to just deleting the lines because you may want
to add support for some of those startup items at a later time. Thus, leaving
the default lines in place could ease that process.
</p>
<p>
Adding your own programs to the <path>autostart.sh</path> script is as easy as
writing in the program name for many applications. For instance, if you have
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-admin/conky">Conky</uri> (a
lightweight system monitor) installed, and want it to start automatically with
your Openbox session, you simply add the following line to your
<path>autostart.sh</path>:
</p>
<pre caption="Adding Conky to your autostart.sh">
conky &
</pre>
<p>
The ampersand (&) after the command allows that application to load up in
the background. You will most likely want to load all the applications in your
<path>autostart.sh</path> script in the background because doing so will let
Openbox and other programs load without the previous one finishing.
</p>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Setting the background</title>
<body>
<p>
Some things that you might take for granted in bigger desktop environments are
not included by default in Openbox. One such thing is setting your desktop
background. In order to place an image as your wallpaper, you will need to
emerge a program like <uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-gfx/feh">feh</uri> or <uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/nitrogen">nitrogen</uri>.
<c>feh</c> is a simple image viewer that can also set the background, <e>and</e>
it can easily be put into the autostart script. Once you have emerged
<c>feh</c>, you can issue the following command to set the background:
</p>
<pre caption="Using feh to set the background image">
<comment>(feh has many other options instead of --bg-scale,
which will scale the image to the screen dimensions.
Consult the feh documentation.)</comment>
$ <i>feh --bg-scale /path/to/image.jpg</i>
</pre>
<p>
Once you have set the background manually, a file called <path>.fehbg</path>
will be created in your home directory. This file simply contains the above
command that you just entered in the terminal, and is automatically updated
when you issue a different background command. Now, to set your background
automatically upon login, you can add the following line to your
<path>autostart.sh</path> script:
</p>
<pre caption="Using feh to set the background image">
source $HOME/.fehbg &
</pre>
<p>
If you don't particularly care for the idea of having to issue a command in the
terminal in order to set your background, you can alternatively use
<c>nitrogen</c>. It will allow you to set a folder for your background images,
view thumbnails of those images, and fit, stretch, or tile them to your
desktop.
</p>
<p>
Installing <c>nitrogen</c> and getting it into your Openbox menu requires a few
more steps than are readily apparent. First, you need to <c>emerge nitrogen</c>.
Second, you need to run <c>nitrogen</c> with your backgrounds folder appended:
</p>
<pre caption="Starting nitrogen with your image folder">
$ <i>nitrogen /path/to/your/backgrounds/folder</i>
</pre>
<p>
Third, you can set your background image, but it will not be there after you
logout. Just as with <c>feh</c>, you need to restore your background by editing
your <path>autostart.sh</path> script to have the following line:
</p>
<pre caption="Restoring your background with nitrogen">
nitrogen --restore &
</pre>
<p>
This will cause nitrogen to load automatically when you start your Openbox session,
and that can lead to a slightly slower load time than using feh.
</p>
</body>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Programs to use with Openbox</title>
<section>
<body>
<p>
The following is a list of some programs which you might want to use within your
Openbox environment. While the list contains numerous terminal emulators, file
managers, panels, and more, it should by no means be considered exhaustive. If
none of the programs listed fit your needs, please check the appropriate
categories in Portage for more options.
</p>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Terminal emulators</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/lxde-base/lxterminal">LXterminal</uri>
is the default terminal emulator for LXDE. It is very lightweight, and based
on VTE. While EvilVTE offers many more customisation options (including
transparency), LXterminal has a graphical interface for some of the more
common options (font, colors, et cetera).
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-terms/evilvte">EvilVTE</uri> is
an extremely lightweight terminal emulator based on (you guessed it) VTE. It
supports tabs, multiple encodings, as well as an easy and extensible
configuration file.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-terms/mrxvt">Mrxvt</uri>
is a multi-tabbed rxvt clone with XFT, transparent background and CJK
support. It also features session support for each tab.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-terms/aterm">Aterm</uri>
supports transparency and backwards compatibility with rxvt. It was
originally designed for the AfterStep window manager, but easily integrates
with other environments.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-terms/eterm">Eterm</uri>
is a terminal based on vt102 and designed to be a more feature-rich
replacement for xterm.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-terms/rxvt-unicode">Rxvt-unicode</uri>
is a clone of rxvt that supports Unicode, daemons, embedded perl, and
multiple fonts simultaneously.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-terms/terminal">Terminal</uri>
is the VTE-based default for the Xfce desktop environment, so it does
require some Xfce libraries to run. However, it is still fairly speedy, and
supports transparency and is easily customised.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>File managers</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/pcmanfm">PCManFM</uri> is
the lightweight filemanager from LXDE. It supports tabbed browsing, drag and
drop, thumnails for images, bookmarks, volume management, searching, and
more. It also provides supports for managing the desktop background and
drawing desktop icons (both optionally).
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/xfce-base/thunar">Thunar</uri>
is the standard file manager from Xfce. It features a bulk renamer,
user-customisable actions, and an extension framework, along with many
optional plugins, such as media tag editing. It depends on several Xfce
libraries, but it's still slimmed down compared to other file managers like
Nautilus (from GNOME), and Konqueror (from KDE).
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/gnome-base/nautilus">Nautilus</uri>
is the powerful file manager from the GNOME desktop environment. It features
volume management, thumbnails for images, searching, and some system
configuration. As it depends on many of the GNOME libraries for proper
function, it can seem a bit heavy compared to some of the other file
managers.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-misc/gentoo">Gentoo</uri>
(no relation to this glorious Linux distribution) is a two-pane style file
manager. It is incredibly lightweight, but lacks a some features now
prominent in modern file managers. It should definitely be considered for
older hardware, or if you are wanting a barebones setup.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-misc/emelfm2">emelFM2</uri> is
another file manager in the vein of Midnight Commander. It features a
two-pane window. As with the Gentoo file manager (listed above), it is
barebones and does not include many features prevalent in newer file
managers. However, it also offers a few features not found in other file
managers, such as a built-in commandline in a separate pane.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Desktop management</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
Though <uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/pcmanfm">PCManFM</uri> is
mainly a file manager, it also gives you the option to manage the desktop
background (instead of using <c>feh</c> or <c>nitrogen</c>) and draw
desktop icons. It should be noted that with the current release (0.5.x), it
is not readily possible to get rid of the default "My Documents" icon on the
desktop.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/idesk">iDesk</uri> is
a simple program used to draw desktop icons. It supports shadowed and
anti-aliased fonts, PNG images, "snap-to-grid" placement, and changing the
desktop background.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Panels</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
<uri link="http://code.google.com/p/tint2/">Tint2</uri> is a simple panel
and taskbar (based on the ttm code). It supports color/transparency, a
clock, and drag and drop between virtual desktops.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/pypanel">PyPanel</uri> is
an easily customised panel written in Python and C. It features
transparency, shading, tinting, location and layout configuration, font
type, autohiding, application launcher, clock, and more.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/lxde-base/lxpanel">LXPanel</uri> is
the default panel and taskbar from LXDE. It features a launcher, menu,
clock, and a GUI-based configurator. It is feature-rich while depending on
very few packages, making it a good choice for a lean system.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/xfce-base/xfce4-panel">Xfce4-panel</uri>
is the default panel from the Xfce desktop environment. It supports
application launchers, detachable menus, a pager, tasklist, clock, applets,
and more. It does, however, require a few of the Xfce libraries which are
not dependencies of some other panels.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/fbpanel">FBpanel</uri> is
a simple, extremely lightweight panel that supports window lists, launchers,
a clock, and a few other goodies. It's not the most featureful panel, and it
can be cumbersome to configure, but it needs only GTK+ to run.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Pagers and systrays</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/netwmpager">NetWMpager</uri>
is an EWMH-compliant pager that integrates nicely into any of the *box
environments. It is not as obtrusive, and is much more readily customisable
than many of the other available pagers.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/bbpager">BBpager</uri> is
a desktop pager that was originally written for BlackBox, but works nicely
with Openbox as well. It does have some BlackBox dependencies though.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-plugins/docker">Docker</uri> is
the system tray that is made especially for Openbox. It has no extra
dependencies, and gives you the ability to view and use tray icons for
supported GTK and QT-based applications.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/trayer">Trayer</uri>
is a system tray that was modified from the FBpanel code, and is often used
with FVWM. One of its perks is that it supports transparency.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Session management</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/lxde-base/lxsession">
LXsession</uri> is the stripped down session manager from LXDE. It is
designed to remember applications that the user was running at the last
logout, and to automatically restart those programs. It also supports the
HAL daemon.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/xfce-base/xfce4-session">
Xfce4-session</uri> is the session manager from, you guessed it, Xfce. It
is capable of saving several sessions, and provides methods for logging out,
rebooting, and suspending your computer. It does, however, have many Xfce
dependencies.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Configuration tools</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/obconf">ObConf</uri>
is a GUI application allowing you to customise the Openbox window manager
without manually editing <path>~/.config/openbox/rc.conf</path>.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/lxde-base/lxappearance">LXappearance</uri>
is a GTK theme and icon configurator used with LXDE. It provides a nice
graphical interface for setting the theme and icons, while depending on very
few extra libraries.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-themes/gtk-chtheme">GTK-ChTheme</uri>
is a simple application allowing for easier switching of GTK themes and your
font. Currently, it does not allow for the switching of icon themes.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-themes/gtk-theme-switch">GTK-theme-switch</uri>
is another simple application that lets you change your GTK theme.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Miscellaneous</title>
<body>
<ul>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-admin/conky">Conky</uri>
is a lightweight system monitor that can display over 250 objects, including
date and time, CPU usage, memory usage, IMAP/POP3 email, top processes,
hardware sensor data, and even info from your music player. It is highly
customisable both in appearance and data display. We also have a <uri
link="/doc/en/conky-howto.xml">Conky configuration guide</uri> available.
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-editors/leafpad">Leafpad</uri>
is a simple text editor. It is very lightweight, but includes features like
codeset options, and the ability to undo/redo without limits.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-gfx/feh">feh</uri> is a
simple image viewer that runs from the terminal, but it also has many other
features. It can display a slideshow of images, create an index print,
dynamically zoom, and set the desktop background (detailed instructions
above).
</li>
<li>
<uri
link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/media-gfx/gpicview">GPicView</uri>
is a GUI-based image viewer. Though it has more dependencies than
<c>feh</c>, it is incredibly quick to load and run.
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://packages.gentoo.org/package/x11-misc/slim">SLiM</uri> is
the Simple Login Manager, which allows you to login to your Openbox session
via a graphical interface instead of the terminal. It has very few
dependencies, and supports many themes, but should not be used on machines
that require remote logins.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter id="inside-desktop-env">
<title>Openbox inside desktop environments</title>
<section>
<title>LXDE</title>
<body>
<p>
If installing each component of a working environment sounds like a little
<e>too</e> much customisation, but you still want the flexibility of Openbox,
you may want to look into a desktop environment that uses Openbox as its default
window manager. That environment is <uri link="http://www.lxde.org/">LXDE</uri>,
the Lightweight X Desktop Environment. Designed to require even fewer system
resources than Xfce, it is built around Openbox.
</p>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Openbox inside GNOME</title>
<body>
<p>
If you already have a GNOME environment installed, you may just want to replace
the Metacity window manager with Openbox. Fortunately, this is quite a simple
task! You will need to fire up your favourite editor, open your
<path>~/.xinitrc</path> file, and put the following command inside it:
</p>
<pre caption="Adding an Openbox-GNOME session to your .xinitrc">
exec openbox-gnome-session
</pre>
<p>
If you use GDM or another graphical login manager, you will see a new
"GNOME/Openbox" option in your session menu. You can simply select that option
instead of manually editing your <path>~/.xinitrc</path>.
</p>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Openbox inside KDE</title>
<body>
<p>
Say you have KDE installed and like it, but you want more flexibility with your
window management than KWin offers. You can use Openbox as your window manager
inside of KDE by simply editing your <path>~/.xinitrc</path> file, and
replacing your current exec command with the following:
</p>
<pre caption="Adding an Openbox-KDE session to your .xinitrc">
exec openbox-kde-session
</pre>
<p>
Now when you issue <c>startx</c> you will see KDE, but instead of KWin, you
will have the customisability of the Openbox window manager.
</p>
<p>
If you use KDM or another graphic login manager, you will see a new
"KDE/Openbox" option in your session menu. You can simply select that option
instead of manually editing your <path>~/.xinitrc</path>.
</p>
<note>
This method of using Openbox with KDE has been tested with the KDE 3.x
releases. While it seems highly likely that it will work with the KDE 4.x
series, it has not been thoroughly tested as of yet.
</note>
</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Openbox inside Xfce</title>
<body>
<p>
If you use Xfce4 and would like to replace xfwm4 with Openbox, you will need to
go about it a little differently than with KDE or GNOME. First, you need to
start your normal Xfce session, and open up a terminal. From the terminal,
issue the following command:
</p>
<pre caption="Killing xfwm4 and replacing it with Openbox">
$ <i>killall xfwm4 ; openbox & exit</i>
</pre>
<p>
Second, you need to exit out of your Xfce session, and make sure to tick the
checkbox that says "Save session for future login." This will keep Openbox as
your default window manager. Third, you will notice that you can't logout
properly when using the default menu action. To fix this problem, open up your
<path>menu.xml</path>, and locate this line:
</p>
<pre caption="Finding the exit action in menu.xml">
<item label="Exit">
<action name="Exit"/>
</item>
</pre>
<p>
Change it to this:
</p>
<pre caption="Replacing the exit action in menu.xml">
<item label="Exit">
<action name="Execute">
<command>xfce4-session-logout</command>
</action>
</item>
</pre>
<note>
With Xfce4, the root-menu provided by Xfdesktop will be used instead of the
Openbox root-menu.
</note>
</body>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Further documentation</title>
<section>
<title>External resources</title>
<body>
<p>
While this document will easily take you through the inital installation and
customisation of Openbox, it is by no means the only reference on the topic.
There are several other resources that will aid you in creating your perfect
Openbox setup. Some of them are listed below:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
On <uri link="http://openbox.org/">The Official Openbox website</uri>
you will find more detailed information regarding theming, creating menus
(including pipe menus), autostart scripting, and much more. This site also
has information regarding new releases, upgrades, and instructions on how
you can contribute to development.
</li>
<li>
The <uri link="http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/">Urukrama's
Guide to Openbox</uri> blog contains a plethora of information about
switching GTK+ themes, setting up keybindings, desktop effects, and other
programs to use in conjunction with Openbox. Though the tutorial was
originally written for use with Ubuntu, everything is applicable to Gentoo
(and other Linux distributions for that matter).
</li>
<li>
<uri link="http://www.box-look.org/">Box-Look</uri> provides numerous
themes, icons, wallpapers, fonts, and tools to be used with Openbox (as well
as the other *box window managers like Fluxbox, Blackbox, PekWM, etc.)
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</section>
</chapter>
</guide>