openbox in lucid

In Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid), I've kinda created a hybrid desktop with Openbox. I still have the default GNOME to log into if I want, and I also have LXDE installed (LXDE actually brought in Openbox), but most of the time I prefer to use an Openbox session.

I say "hybrid desktop" because in Openbox I have apps available from four desktop environments: GNOME, KDE4, Xfce, and LXDE. For example, Dolphin (KDE4) is the file manager I use most of the time; for screen shots, it's KSnapshot (KDE4). gnome-terminal and gedit, from GNOME, are my favored terminal and text editor, respectively. And my panel is xfce4-panel.

Right-clicking on the desktop brings up my customized Openbox menu. The Openbox menu also contains the Debian menu for a more complete listing of applications (added by installing the menu package from Synaptic).

However, for the menu on the panel, I'm using Ubuntu's applications menu (found at /etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu).

I pulled in xfce4-panel from Synaptic, then added xfdesktop4, which allowed me to add a menu button to the panel. I've used pypanel and fbpanel in Openbox in the past, but xfce4-panel feels like a better fit.

The overall result: A nice, clean, simple, fast desktop -- easy to configure, easy to use.