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#1 2009-01-13 07:11:42

Olnex
Member
Registered: 2008-04-10
Posts: 89

I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

Hello everyone, I am now using Gnome, but I want to try something lightweight.
My main concern here is the system tray which I rely heavily, there are several things importmant to me:
1 network manager. As I'm using gnome, I use gnome-network-manager to manage WIFI.
2 SCIM. I have to input language other than English, but I don't care if there is no icon in system tray
3 battery monitor and extras(e.g. volumn control, time, etc) which are not necessary, but would be good if there is replacement.

Is there any tutorial/guide for a building a system like this(without desktop environment) on Arch?
Thanks !

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#2 2009-01-13 07:41:41

slang
Member
From: Duisburg, Germany
Registered: 2009-01-10
Posts: 12

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

Hi Olnex,

I've been using Openbox3 for the past years (migrated from Fluxbox somewhere down the road), and i'm quite happy with it.
For Panel i'm using pypanel, which also has a system bar.
For Network Configuration i'm mainly using WICD, which has a nice graphical frontend which also resides in the system bar.
The nice thing with Openbox is the so-called Slit, which takes dockapps (small windowless applications) can be placed.
In it you could put (for example) wmpower, which supplies some great information on battery status.

But you know how it goes: Ask 10 people and you get 11 opinions ;-)

Regards,

Steffen


Life is too short to be taken seriously.
                --- Oscar Wilde

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#3 2009-01-13 07:50:47

Olnex
Member
Registered: 2008-04-10
Posts: 89

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

slang:
Thanks for your quick reply. I just installed openbox using pacman, I also installed pypanel and idesk, but they do not seem to be running, I think I need to configure and make the running, but I don't know how to do the configuration, is there a wiki about all these?
Thanks a lot!

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#4 2009-01-13 07:53:19

Olnex
Member
Registered: 2008-04-10
Posts: 89

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

And, for the removable devices, for example, if I plug in a USB stick, how to I use it(as in Gnome, a windows appears when you plug in a usb stick).
Another problem is, will qt and gtk-based applications run well?
And what file manager do you use?
Thanks!

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#5 2009-01-13 07:53:34

Mr Green
Forum Fellow
From: U.K.
Registered: 2003-12-21
Posts: 5,893
Website

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Openbox

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PyPanel

Will get you started, search for Openbox threads on forums and guides on the web too


Mr Green

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#6 2009-01-13 08:23:32

Olnex
Member
Registered: 2008-04-10
Posts: 89

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

Thanks a lot!
The last thing which troubles me is, I have to use some sort of power management on my laptop because I use it at university where battery is used frequently, and I want to suspend when I close the lid.

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#7 2009-01-13 08:27:35

slang
Member
From: Duisburg, Germany
Registered: 2009-01-10
Posts: 12

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

Hi Olnex,

Try running pypanel and idesk from the .xinitrc or .xsession file in your homedir.
Every application there should be executed when you start your window manager.
Don't forget to call them with an '&', so that the application runs in the background (e.g. pypanel &).

As a file manager i'm mainly using midnight commander in a terminal.
For USB managing i'm not a big help, i'm afraid.
I'm using hal/udev-rules for automount at the moment, and unmount drives manually. So i'm not familiar with any GUI for that.
Just search the forum a little, there is a lot of information in it.
Don't be afraid to try out new packages.

Regards,

Steffen


Life is too short to be taken seriously.
                --- Oscar Wilde

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#8 2009-01-13 08:29:34

slang
Member
From: Duisburg, Germany
Registered: 2009-01-10
Posts: 12

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

Just make sure that acpid is installed and running, suspend can then be configured by scripts in /etc/acpi


Life is too short to be taken seriously.
                --- Oscar Wilde

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#9 2009-01-13 12:19:30

SLKDK
Member
Registered: 2008-08-11
Posts: 61

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

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#10 2009-01-13 20:45:35

Olnex
Member
Registered: 2008-04-10
Posts: 89

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

I re-installed system with openbox and slim, I also installed pypanel and wicd, I added pypanel and wicd to .xinitrc, but they do not start:
exec openbox-session
exec pypanel &
exec wicd-client &
I also tried without "exec" and does not work
also, another problem is, when I click logout from right-click menu it does nothing, and there is no option to restart or shutdown the machine.

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#11 2009-01-13 20:52:38

SLKDK
Member
Registered: 2008-08-11
Posts: 61

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

Make your .xinitrc like this:

pypanel &
exec openbox-session


- exec must be the last thing in your .xinitrc.
Btw, I don't think you have to start wicd-client, it autodetects X and start the client.
Just make sure you have wicd in your rc.conf.

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#12 2009-01-13 22:25:08

celthias
Member
Registered: 2008-04-15
Posts: 83

Re: I want to try a window manager WITHOUT desktop environment

What SLKDK wrote isn't wrong, but if you just have

exec openbox-session

in your ~/.xinitrc openbox-session then runs any apps/commands listed in your autostart.sh, found in ~/.config/openbox. If you don't have one then copy the default from /etc/xdg/openbox or it will be run instead. I think it's the more "official" way of having apps run on startup in openbox, rather than listing them in ~/.xinitrc.

Further info: http://icculus.org/openbox/index.php/Help:Autostart

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