Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

Perre · 2008-02-23 21:01:23

Hi!

I'm doing some research on openbox just to be as ready as possible when I try it out. Going from ubuntu
to arch with xfce wasn't too big of a deal, but openbox is another story (as far as I can see ). I'm used
to having a complete DE so I've got a couple of questions concerning using a WM. I'm also aiming for a
lightweight system that looks good.

This is the list of apps I'm planning to use. I know openbox doesn't have a session manager, but some
kind of autostart thingy. Is there any session manager apps or will the autostart script be enough?
Anything else that is critical when I'm using openbox?

* mpd/sonata
* hellanzb
* flyback
* Conky
* mplayer
* abiword
* gnumeric
* moblock
* deluge
* adesklets - yab
* Nero Linux
* sakura
* openbox
* pypanel
* mousepad
* orage
* squeeze
* thunar archive plugin
* thunar-thumbnailers
* volWheel
* thunar
* feh
* ePDFView
* scrot
* zim
* linuxdc++
* opera
* nano
* smplayer
* freevo
* galculator
* tracker
* obconf
* obmenu
* volman-plugin

Thanks!

xdeusx · 2008-02-23 21:09:38

well... i would say nothing is critical until you really need it
just start using your system, programs come and go as you need them...
your list looks pretty complete though...

the autostart script in openbox is enough for me... it starts programs

Perre · 2008-02-23 22:20:13

Ok, I'm glad to hear!

So with the "extra" apps like pybar, volwheel, feh etc. I'll be able to set up a desktop that acts and feels
like a complete DE? I'm a big fan of tidiness and lightweight(ness ) on my computer, but I still want a
nice gui and eyecandy (not too much though).

bionnaki · 2008-02-23 23:01:43

moblock is a waste of time - just all blocklists.

and if you're going minimal, just use calc for a calculator - it's commandline and works good.

nero linux? why?

deluge is good, but you should just use rtorrent.

lman · 2008-02-23 23:06:43

I'd add gmrun to the list, too.

lman · 2008-02-23 23:10:17

BTW, I don't think opera is enough. Flash isn't working there. At least for me.
Try firefox3, it's really fast.

bionnaki · 2008-02-23 23:26:55

when I do an openbox install, this is what I use:

obmenu/obconf (but mostly I just modify rc.xml & menu.xml directly)
conky
abiword
rubyripper
moc
rtorrent
screen
urxvt
thunar
thunar-volman
pidgin
firefox
rubytorrent
mplayer
gcolor2
gimp
pyburn
epdfview
mirage
leafpad
htop
irssi
elinks
calc
feh
gmrun
pypanel
xbindkey

I also use hal & fam and I log in with startx using .xinitrc - i dont like log in managers.

Last edited by bionnaki (2008-02-23 23:33:02)

Perre · 2008-02-24 09:09:53

Thanks for al the replies!

Bionnaki: Is moblock rellay a waste of time? If it is I'm happy to hear.

Linux nero is 'cause I'm a big fan of nero and I really like a full featured and "quick & easy" burning app.
Deluge is a bit heavier than rtorrent, but the nice gui makes me go for it.

Iman: Opera is my absolute favorite web browser. I think the flash probs are fixable so I'm going to stick with it.
Never got used to firefox...

I look into gmrun too. Your list is really nice and I'll have to do some research later today. Thanks!

bavardage · 2008-02-24 10:23:10

I had been an opera user for the past two years, after finding firefox2 clunky. I recently decided to give firefox3 a go, and haven't looked back. Also nice that it integrates with gtk themes, so looks nicer than opera. No need for nasty qt libs.

th · 2008-02-24 11:10:32

bionnaki wrote:

I also use hal & fam and I log in with startx using .xinitrc - i dont like log in managers.

When logging in via startx, locking your screen with xlock, slock etc. is quite useless. Just switch to the terminal where you launched startx, press CTRL+Z to put the current process into the background, kill the lock process and your desktop is unlocked. ZSH users can avoid this by starting X like this: startx &! exit

faelar · 2008-02-24 11:34:09

You need ssh and htop
If you want flash and opera, it works with the beta 9.50 [unstable]. But I suggest you to uncheck "enable java" in the options. I'm on FF3b3, it is nice, more stable than opera's beta version, flash+java is ok, gtk theme is nice (no QT anymore )
Oh, and, I don't see the archive manager (for thunar volman), I'm using squeeze

Jack B · 2008-02-24 12:09:07

Going a little OT here, but:

th wrote:

bionnaki wrote:
I also use hal & fam and I log in with startx using .xinitrc - i dont like log in managers.
When logging in via startx, locking your screen with xlock, slock etc. is quite useless. Just switch to the terminal where you launched startx <snip>

IIRC that's not quite true, you can set options in xorg.conf to prevent Ctrl+Alt+F{1-7} switching, and Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to kill X, so you can't drop back to the virtual console. Not sure if it's secure though, there might be other ways to kill X or return to VC.
Jack

PJ · 2008-02-24 12:09:38

th wrote:

When logging in via startx, locking your screen with xlock, slock etc. is quite useless. Just switch to the terminal where you launched startx, press CTRL+Z to put the current process into the background, kill the lock process and your desktop is unlocked. ZSH users can avoid this by starting X like this: startx &! exit

I am not sure about this but I think 'exec startx' should be enough.

Last edited by PJ (2008-02-24 12:11:21)

xd-0 · 2008-02-24 19:21:00

mousepad - > geany
mpd sonata -> moc
pypanel -> bmpanel (in the aur)
thunar -> pcmanfm, have been heavily developed lately and newly released a stable release.
nitrogen: to set your wallpaper (even on different screens).

bionnaki · 2008-02-24 19:34:03

Perre wrote:

Thanks for al the replies!
Bionnaki: Is moblock rellay a waste of time? If it is I'm happy to hear.
Linux nero is 'cause I'm a big fan of nero and I really like a full featured and "quick & easy" burning app.
Deluge is a bit heavier than rtorrent, but the nice gui makes me go for it.

blocklists are indeed a waste of time. it's a false sense of security that mostly blocks normal individuals from joining the swarm. it has been proven that the anti-p2p people use home connections these days. blocklists might have been effective in 2004, but they have since adapted.

if you want bittorrent security, use encryption + a private tracker...and avoid the public trackers. you'll never have any trouble if you remain private.

Perre · 2008-02-24 19:49:53

Moblock is off the list then!

And maybe firefox 3 is replacing opera for me then. Qt is very baad.

Anyone besides xd-0 tried pacmanfm? And thanks for the tip on bmpanel, it looks great!

Configuring my own system is my new hobby. No more bloat, no more unwanted apps!

toofishes · 2008-02-24 21:06:56

I just used openbox for my minimal setup on an Eee PC. As you can see, I didn't even bother with a panel:
http://toofishes.net/media/extra/Arch_o … b_2008.png

Other apps I've been using- Sonata, Firefox, Urxvt (which pretty much opens doors to everything else I need). That is really about it.

bionnaki · 2008-02-25 05:30:24

it's the damen blueline! I take that train everyday & live right around the corner.

Last edited by bionnaki (2008-02-25 05:31:47)

stojic · 2008-02-25 09:02:58

Jack B wrote:

Going a little OT here, but:
IIRC that's not quite true, you can set options in xorg.conf to prevent Ctrl+Alt+F{1-7} switching, and Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to kill X, so you can't drop back to the virtual console. Not sure if it's secure though, there might be other ways to kill X or return to VC.
Jack

You can unbind Control keys when locking and rebind it after unlocking. This is how my ~/bin/SLock looks like:

#!/bin/bash
xmodmap -e 'keycode 37=' -e 'keycode 109='
slock
xmodmap -e 'keycode 37=Control_L' -e 'keycode 109=Control_R'

Now if you also disable sysrq, you have a pretty locked screen.

There are also two X resources for xlock that you can use to achieve the same. In .Xdefaults:

XLock.startCmd: xmodmap -e 'keycode 37=' -e 'keycode 109='
XLock.endCmd:   xmodmap -e 'keycode 37=Control_L' -e 'keycode 109=Control_R'

/ot

Mr.Elendig · 2008-02-25 10:39:29

I woud suggest claws for email. Light, fast and feature ritch.
And also, uxterm or urxvt

muunleit · 2008-02-25 15:06:15

I use Kazehakase for web-browsing.
If you want to change the GTK-Theme to make your openbox look more beautiful, look here.
alsa(mixer) for sound-configuration.
If you like minimal (with gui), you can burn with Bashburn.

Perre · 2008-02-25 15:32:55

muunleit wrote:

I use Kazehakase for web-browsing.

Ahh, I always thought Kazehakase was qt but now I see it's gtk2!

How does it compare to firefox 3? Anyone tried both?

Robertek · 2008-03-15 09:07:02

Here is my favourite progs: maybe you find there something usefull

Fluxbox + wmctrl (to handle drop down console)

Firefox3b4/Elinks (have used opera on my P3 note but change to F3beta)
Claws-mail
Abiword, Gnumeric, Lyx, (also have installed OO but dont use it so much)
conky
fbnews (rss in menu)
graveman (have installed but dont use it so much in favour of mc)
bluefish (web edit)

now console: (the most important)
rxvt-unicode (urxvtd, urxvtc)
mpd + mpc + ncmpc (in one of the dd-console) (moc on notebook)
mcabber (jabber, icq) (another dd-console)
mc (nearly for everything: file, ftp, ssh browser, cdburner, (un)packer, editor.....)
mplayer (also use oggplay, mpg123 on note with mc)
screen
calc (have also galculator)
htop
getmail
mutt (have installed but I never learnt it so much to start using it in real life)
and lot other in console (I dont mention a lot of common system tools)

Anything I seek for is some good lightweight GUI editor, with highliting (fluxbox, xml, sh, ...), because console editors are sometimes not so good (for me) while editing files with longer lines, paste from for example browser etc. I meen mcedit is not good in this way, and I think its still good enough for me to swich to some nano/vi etc.

Raisuli · 2008-03-15 14:02:31

+1 for claws-mail. It's not only light, but fully featured.
Would also recommend Bashburn for cd-burning, if k3b or Nero Linux feel too heavy.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-23 21:01:23

Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#2 2008-02-23 21:09:38

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#3 2008-02-23 22:20:13

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#4 2008-02-23 23:01:43

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#5 2008-02-23 23:06:43

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#6 2008-02-23 23:10:17

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#7 2008-02-23 23:26:55

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#8 2008-02-24 09:09:53

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#9 2008-02-24 10:23:10

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#10 2008-02-24 11:10:32

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#11 2008-02-24 11:34:09

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#12 2008-02-24 12:09:07

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#13 2008-02-24 12:09:38

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#14 2008-02-24 19:21:00

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#15 2008-02-24 19:34:03

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#16 2008-02-24 19:49:53

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#17 2008-02-24 21:06:56

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#18 2008-02-25 05:30:24

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#19 2008-02-25 09:02:58

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#20 2008-02-25 10:39:29

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#21 2008-02-25 15:06:15

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#22 2008-02-25 15:32:55

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#23 2008-03-15 09:07:02

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

#24 2008-03-15 14:02:31

Re: Complete setup with openbox. Do I need more apps?

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