My experience with Openbox as a 'desktop environment'

My Openbox with Tint2

I was quite surprised after talking with Laura, I decided to try open box (I had the experience of having used flux box but this was quite different), a very light window manager that, by itself, can be used as a desktop environment.

I had been fascinated, still in love with tint2, the bottom window pane, but was not convinced to use such a clunky desktop environment, I remembered flux box and it didn't seem like a good idea.

But actually, testing it (had LXDE previously) I realized that everything was in place and worked quite well.

In principle and, like its derivatives and ascendants, it does not have icons on the desktop, everything depends on its context menu (in simple terms, the right-click menu) with which you have access to everything.

The current editions have quite attractive themes and Openbox by itself is available in any distro that is considered serious. To use it, the best thing is that it is not necessary to do anything more than download it from the repositories and start a new session with it.

Facts about Openbox

It does not have a suite of programs for itself, but if you want ad-hoc programs with it, you can use for example:

  • leaf pad as a text editor.
  • LXTerminal as a console.
  • VLC as a media player.
  • etc ...

It does not have a toolbar but you can have it with tint2 that gives it a very modern 'look'.

Its specific configuration programs (essential I would say) are:

  • obconf = Configure the appearance of Openbox
  • MenuMaker = Configure the contextual menu (the one that you can also edit to pure text if you have time and desire)
  • LXAppearance = To configure the appearance of GTK applications

Your applications file at startup is at

$ /.config/openbox/autostart.sh

and it is important for the customization of the system, for example if we want to put icons on the desktop.

Laura wrote a tutorial for customize Openbox with desktop icons where the use of autostart.sh is elementary.

Do you like Openbox?
Rough or minimalist?
Tips?


18 comments, leave yours

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: AB Internet Networks 2008 SL
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.

  1.   X3MBoy said

    A bit minimalist, but with a little time to set it up you can make it a powerful desktop. The good thing is that it does not consume many resources.

    I have Openbox running on an 800 MHz Pentium III with 256 MB of RAM with Ubuntu 8.10 and it is doing great. I want to see the MenuMaker because I used to edit the menu "in plain text" and it really takes time.

    Greetings from Venezuela

  2.   thalskarth said

    I have been using it for many months now as a desktop for my PC and like Javier, I recommend sakura as a terminal.

    And a must-have, it seems to me that it is GmRun, a launcher for alt + F2

  3.   Alex said

    I always liked Openbox since I saw some screenshots on Arch forums, with so much customization and whatnot. Although I have not seriously launched into Openbox (I have had it installed, and used it several times), I have always wanted to do it, but I am not a person who gives much to customize.

    Another thing that I have always wanted to try is xmonad, which I have also seen some screenshots of it, and it looks very nice, although it is more terminal oriented, it is really nice.

    By the way, one thing that has always been beautiful in a minimalist environment is Conky with proper configuration, with which you can see the time and time, to see the status of hard drives, or the status of a media player.

  4.   Laura S.F. said

    @Thalskarth @javier did not know sakura, I take note ... xD

    @Nacho thanks for the «tips» :) hehej my post helped you but your comment to me, I did not know the pipemenus. By the way, moc reminds me of the player ... what do you mean? XD

    @Hygo, yes too but I think it's more like kwin (kde), metacity (gnome) or xfwm (xfce) it just controls the position of the window, its size, etc ... it doesn't have panels, icons, etc, you have to add them .
    It is the one used by LXDE, if you want to use it with gnome, openbox would replace metacity, now, if you use compiz, well compiz, of course xD

    Greetings: P

  5.   Javier said

    I have an improvement
    sakura as terminal
    http://people.linux.org.tw/~andrew/debian/lxde/

    it's quite nice

  6.   fausto23 said

    Openbox will always be my second option, because it is easy to configure, it is light, and it adapts very well to any machine.

    When I use openbox I complement it with:
    Tint2, gmrun, xbindkeys, esetroot, xcompmgr (for composition) and skippy-xd for expose effect.

    regards

  7.   Nacho said

    mmmmm

    a) xcompmgr for transparencies and simple shadows, together with transset it does some very «compizeras» little things

    b) moc as a command menu from the menu itself, it is very practical

    c) obmenu and passing from the menumaker, the debian menu is added and the rest of the folders are made by you, with what you use and want to have. Better a functional menu than one like knoppix's that you can't find anything.

    d) Pipemenus !!!! They are brutal and solve many things that require panel or commands

    I am the "desk" that I use, for everything. Simple, with some nonsense like yakuake (I love it, ^^ U) and after Laura's tuto, finally with rox completely.

    Regards!

  8.   Hygo said

    I don't really understand what OpenBox is. You say it is a window manager, so it does not replace Gnome but Compiz. I am right?

  9.   Sheng said

    Since my PC is not very powerful, I have found myself in the almost obligation to install LXDE, since the KDE4 in mandriva was very slow ... when I installed it, I realized that in the KDM, apart from the LXDE option, OpenBox appeared , I gave it to try it, and (although I had to remove Compiz) it seemed excellent, so much so that I don't even need a panel, well yes, I put the FB panel (because in the FB MEnu there are programs that do not appear in the OpenBox menu) but at the point of right click (for the menu) and central click (to change the application) I have had a great time with OpenBox, yes, a black screen and now ...

    I know it has a very high level of customization, but I prefer to leave my screen black with the programs running at 1000% speed. Hehe, anyway, I still use LXDE as my default desktop and OpenBox as the second one.

  10.   LJMarín said

    In debian I changed the installation I had of kde for one with lxde and the difference is noticeable, then I tried a session in openbox and uff even better.
    Still I can handle almost everything with the openbox menu, making a menu with obmenu is easy.
    The terminal «Sakura» did not know it, I have been using «Mrxvt» it is very light the only thing is that it does not allow to do C&P xD
    @Sheng
    You can still have a desktop background and have the programs running at 1000% speed, with feh you can do it, in short, it is also a matter of taste xD

  11.   Alex said

    Since my PC is not very powerful, I have found myself in the almost obligation to install LXDE, since the KDE4 in mandriva was very slow ... when I installed it, I realized that in the KDM, apart from the LXDE option, OpenBox appeared , I gave it to try it, and (although I had to remove Compiz) it seemed excellent, so much so that I don't even need a panel, well yes, I put the FB panel (because in the FB MEnu there are programs that do not appear in the OpenBox menu) but at the point of right click (for the menu) and central click (to change the application) I have had a great time with OpenBox, yes, a black screen and now ...
    I know it has a very high level of customization, but I prefer to leave my screen black with the programs running at 1000% speed. Hehe, anyway, I still use LXDE as my default desktop and OpenBox as the second one.

    Actually, LXDE and Openbox are the same. Only that LXDE already comes with other applications attached, and preconfigured.

  12.   vincegeratorix said

    @Hygo, yes too but I think it's more like kwin (kde), metacity (gnome) or xfwm (xfce) it just controls the position of the window, its size, etc ... it doesn't have panels, icons, etc, you have to add them .

    Exactly, a time I used openbox in gnome, basically because of turning the mouse wheel to go from virtual desktop and keeping it light

    I personally do not like (openbox, fluxbox, which are half the same) because a can to find everything ...
    I use gnome with 2 panels (top and bottom) but the top one is hidden xD

    LXDE uses GTK + so I guess any application made for GTK + would work fine… (Xfce, lxde, gnome, no schemas use GTK +)
    different is kde ...

  13.   Duck said

    I'm sorry I can't contribute anything useful to this post, since I've never used openbox, at least consciously: p
    I tried Xfce, Eligthment, KDE and of course Gnome ... I even had a "Buntu" without a graphical environment running all the time in text mode (terminal powa) ... And with Arch the same, until I put the, for me, slow KDE 4.3
    Of all this time "invested" in knowledge, my favorite in terms of lightness and elegance is the travalengüístico Lightning, but it still lacks robustness since it is a project still in full evolution and it is not stable at all (although "stability" is not something that worries us much, from what I see xD)
    But in the end, when I want one of my PCs to run stable and perform at its best, I always end up going back to hell. Gnome...
    As a personal reflection, and after seeing a thousand screenshots of various graphical environments and / or screen managers, I come to the following conclusion: They all look beautiful with a good wallpaper photo (like the example that illustrates this article), and with a couple of hours of "sheet metal and paint" with the right tools, everyone does exactly what we want them to do. Once again, we find ourselves with the usual ... For the likes of Linux distros with their thousands of variables (window managers, graphical environments, more or less configurable terminals, more à la carte menus than in the Gusteau's RestaurantHundreds and hundreds of different programs to play videos, music, "burn" optical media ... and such a long etcetera that it would never end, because in addition, news continues to appear practically every day ...)
    I still remember when I read and heard around, that one of the "disadvantages" of Linux was that it had much less software than Windows ... ofú ofú, how the movie has changed.
    Eah, I don't roll over to not say anything really ... xD
    Greetings to everyone, from the psychiatric hospital, still convalescingDuck…: OP

  14.   Nacho said

    Well, to a folder in the menu from where you control playlists with a click, play. pause, go ahead ...

    Yes, I was referring to the player, I used to do it with xmms2 but moc is more practical for me ^^

  15.   Ramon said

    I have only been using Openbox for a few days as "Environment" in Archlinux and I can't be happier. The performance is brutal compared to GNOME, even with XFCE which is the one I used previously.

    Some of the applications that I use to complement are:
    - MPD (Sonata)
    - Sakura
    - PCManFM
    - Feh
    - GmRun
    - Pypanel

    I still depend on applications such as emesene, opera, wicd, vlc that for me have no replacement.

  16.   Nikita said

    I have installed openbox since I started with Linux, I love it, it is highly configurable, lightweight, and does not give as many crashes as kde or gnome, which tend to crash more times. Right now I have a pretty powerful machine, but I still opt for openbox.

  17.   Julio Jose Nadal Baron said

    a shit seemed to me openbox.

  18.   rasmata said

    I am recently testing it in a msi; I had to install without a graphical environment and then install the graphics drivers and although it works perfectly, there are some things that I don't know where they are, but it must be because of the distribution, first install an Ubuntu alternate and when customizing some things it breaks I used xubuntu, I even tried lubuntu, but I like that a little more and of course I have what I need and from the panel I put xfc4-apnel, but apparently it does not work as it should, although it is within what I can configure and try to go best.