OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

hunterthomson · 2008-08-02 09:20:21

Well I was vary upset about the move to KDE4.1. I was a big fan of KDE3.5.9. I even started a "Mad" thread about it (that I regret doing). However, OpenBox has all the things I liked about KDE3.5.9 and more

Stability is the main thing for me. I don't wan't to see any bugs at all and this is one of the views of the OpenBox team as well. I also like to control every aspect of my box and OpenBox is all about this too. Simpel and Light are the two other things that are a must for me and OpenBox is just that.

Anyway, What are some cool things you could suggest I do to it/ install ? I first -Rnsc KDE then -S gnome to give it a base to run on but I boot into OpenBox not Gnome/OpenBox.

Last edited by hunterthomson (2008-08-03 21:37:52)

xd-0 · 2008-08-02 09:56:31

You don't need to install gnome to run openbox.

First write down a list of the applications you run and install them.
Then install openbox and change the menu file. Thats about it.

You should also check out conky, bmpanel, nitrogen (for backgrounds) and lxappearance.

chromatic · 2008-08-02 10:50:21

There's an excellent openbox guide here : http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/

hunterthomson · 2008-08-02 12:24:49

Ya, I know I didn't need to intsll gnome, dosn't really keep with the minimalistic wants, but I was haveing problems with with my sys after uninstaling KDE i.e. startx and OpenBox would not start... The EZist way out was just to install Gnome. Gnome comes is handy though. It handels my wallpaper and the way butons/ scrollbars look(theme Areo with Buuf-Deuce-Icons). I wish I could upload screen shots to archlinux-foums. So far I have tlida and screenlets (system mon) both with a cut of my wallpaper so they look trasparent. Pypanel, but I don't use it anymore now I just use stalonetray and the keybinding to select minimized widows/ desktops. Thunar as thunar --daemon in my all setup autostart.sh. OBmenu and set up my menu. Obconf and set up stalonetray and have Manum_openbox as my theme. All, Is looking really kool. Owe, Also I have Vieanna3 as my curser.

Using OpenBox as a DE seems like the way to go. I love the menu by just clicking on the desktop. I wanted to use it when I first swiched to Arch but I wanted to learn one new thing at a time.

Thankyou for the link that has a lot of good stuff

Last edited by hunterthomson (2008-08-02 12:33:51)

jealma · 2008-08-02 13:03:15

First of all, OpenBox is not a Desktop Environment (DE), but a Window Manager (WM), thats a big difference. To use startx with openbox, edit the file ~/.xinitrc to have the line "exec openbox" in it, all other lines must be commented. Then you can use startx to start OpenBox. To set a wallpaper, install eterm or feh. Eterm comes with a good wallpapersetter and feh is a wallpapersetter, almost as good as the one in Eterm. To use the wallpaper setter from Eterm, you have to issue Esetroot with some options (see manpage).

Factory · 2008-08-02 13:46:31

hunterthomson wrote:

Ya, I know I didn't need to intsll gnome, dosn't really keep with the minimalistic wants, but I was haveing problems with with my sys after uninstaling KDE i.e. startx and OpenBox would not start... The EZist way out was just to install Gnome. Gnome comes is handy though. It handels my wallpaper and the way butons/ scrollbars look(theme Areo with Buuf-Deuce-Icons). I wish I could upload screen shots to archlinux-foums. So far I have tlida and screenlets (system mon) both with a cut of my wallpaper so they look trasparent. Pypanel, but I don't use it anymore now I just use stalonetray and the keybinding to select minimized widows/ desktops. Thunar as thunar --daemon in my all setup autostart.sh. OBmenu and set up my menu. Obconf and set up stalonetray and have Manum_openbox as my theme. All, Is looking really kool. Owe, Also I have Vieanna3 as my curser.
Using OpenBox as a DE seems like the way to go. I love the menu by just clicking on the desktop. I wanted to use it when I first swiched to Arch but I wanted to learn one new thing at a time.
Thankyou for the link that has a lot of good stuff

So many things in this post are

But that's ok. You're new. Welcome to minimalism.

First off, you're saying you're using the gnome suite because "It handels my wallpaper and the way butons/ scrollbars look(theme Areo with Buuf-Deuce-Icons)." Both of these aspects can be controlled WITHOUT gnome. In gnome, Nautilus handles what wallpaper is set. Nautilus is a filemanager which also can control automounting of volumes and such. The reason I bring this up is because you're saying you ALSO run Thunar as a daemon. Why? If it is in order to automount volumes, you already have a program capable of doing this running.

But in general, using Nautilus (or Thunar if you stick with that (which I recommend)) to display the background will, if not configured correctly, disable the right click on the desktop. This is why it's usually a good idea to get a program that will only set your background and nothing more. The programs suggested by jealma are all viable, as is nitrogen, suggested by xd-0.

Second, gnome uses gtk2 to display the scrollbars, buttons, etc. known as widgets. You don't need gnome to use gtk2. Just install gtk2, then set your theme manually via your .gtk2-rc file, or via a program such as lxappearance (as suggested by xd-0. lxappearance will also allow you to set your icon theme.

"Using OpenBox as a DE seems like the way to go." Careful who you say this around. Most OB zealots will throw a fit. I shuddered after reading it. See jealma's post.

"I wish I could upload screen shots to archlinux-foums." You can. Get the program "scrot" and learn how to use it (`man scrot` or just google search it). Then go to a free image hosting site, such as tinypic, imageshack, xs.to, photobucket, etc. and upload it there. Then paste the link here.

That all being said, welcome to the minimalistic world of Openbox.

arch0r · 2008-08-02 15:28:57

is there any difference between the support of gtk (gnome) and qt (kde) apps in openbox? i tried it on a fresh install of arch (working openbox + several gtk and qt apps): all gtk apps worked fine except those with dependencies to kde. with a working de and openbox as wm (kde/openbox) it works fine, but i want to keep my system quite small and simple (KISS ). i'm wondering if it's generally possible to run all kde apps in openbox!?

skottish · 2008-08-02 15:34:14

arch0r wrote:

is there any difference between the support of gtk (gnome) and qt (kde) apps in openbox?

There are far more stand alone GTK2 apps than QT apps (QT3 or 4). Huge numbers of QT apps require at least KDE Base. There are some GTK2 apps that want to pull in too much of Gnome (Brasero), but the lightweight pool is much larger.

hunterthomson · 2008-08-02 20:18:28

Just to clear up some things.... I know OB is not a DE I just was using DE as an adjective (Using OpenBox "AS A" DE). However, I guess I will not do that it is not all that clear. I also know I can start OB with "startx". My problem was after uninstalling KDE my CD tray would not open by pressing the hardware button, Startx only gave me a error.... and a few other things just would not work and were kind of strang as to why they didn't work. I also plain on using Gnome apps when ever posable. So, I figued I was going to pull down most of Gnome as dependincys anyway. But I guess that was not true. I didn't know most Gnome apps just nedded GTK. I am sure I will end up clearing out Gnome. BUT, I am still wrong I could have fixed all of these problems without installing Gnome. After dealling with KDE4.1'Beta' all week I just wanted my computer to work agin

I have fixed the transparent problem with tlida. I just needed to enable dubble buffering. So now it dosn't need that slice of my wallpaper. I am going to set up some PIpes menus now.

Last edited by hunterthomson (2008-08-02 22:12:36)

hunterthomson · 2008-08-03 08:35:48

Well, I was looking into -Rgs gnome. Screenlests will not work if I do that. So, I like superkaramba, how would I install the one for the KDEmod (would be better right)? Or is there something like that that I can intall that will not endup pulling down KDEbase or Gnome-desktop?

Last edited by hunterthomson (2008-08-03 08:37:05)

hunterthomson · 2008-08-03 12:01:17

Ok, I have gotten rid of Gnome Well, most of it I needed to keep Gnome-desktop to use gnome-python-desktop to use sereenlets.... But, the rest of it is gone. I got rid of Nautilus and just use Thunar now as a GUI File man and auto mount deamon. I use feh for my wallpaper. I use stalonetray transparent as a dock and lxappearance as a GUI for GTK. I am sure I still have a buch of crap left over from KDE I am going through my /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin now to weed out the junk(Using pacman to remove it of corse). I have already kicked the orphans to the curb and told them never to come back. I would have just reinstalled from scrach but I have gone pritty far with the fine tuning of my laptop. Almost every aspect of how stuff works is tweeked. I don't even remember half the stuff I have done. It should be time to make new .partimage files after a few more unwanted programs are removed.

Last edited by hunterthomson (2008-08-03 12:03:53)

hunterthomson · 2008-08-04 04:29:45

OK now I have gotten rid of the rest of Gnome All gone now. I am using conky insted of Gnome's screenlets. However, conky has a prblem with the downspeed. It seems to be Kb/s X 2.... so I labled it that . If you know the real speed or a fix to have it show Kb/s like it is supose to let me know. As of now I am just going to write a script to get the correct speed.

I must say screenlets uses like twice the CPUconky dose but it is much better. Screenlet's code is far more robust. Things move around so it all fits. If you mount a disk it will pop up on the System mon and things will move down to make room. The code is by far the best I have seen for any desktop wiget.

Owe I also added 3ddesk and set up key bindings just for a littel jazz.

I am trying to set up some if loops but I don't know what the syntax is??? Do you know?

Last edited by hunterthomson (2008-08-04 07:57:31)

hunterthomson · 2008-08-05 01:12:46

Screenshot

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-02 09:20:21

OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#2 2008-08-02 09:56:31

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#3 2008-08-02 10:50:21

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#4 2008-08-02 12:24:49

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#5 2008-08-02 13:03:15

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#6 2008-08-02 13:46:31

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#7 2008-08-02 15:28:57

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#8 2008-08-02 15:34:14

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#9 2008-08-02 20:18:28

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#10 2008-08-03 08:35:48

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#11 2008-08-03 12:01:17

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#12 2008-08-04 04:29:45

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

#13 2008-08-05 01:12:46

Re: OpenBox Way better then KDE4.... Better then KDE3 :) [COMPLETED]

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