openbox keybinds

The Openbox keybinds are set in the ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml file. There's a GUI app to handle this, called obkey, but you won't find it in the Debian repos (in Arch, users can get obkey from AUR).

Changes made with obkey are saved to the ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml file unless a different file is specified.

To add obkey in Debian 9 ("Stretch") Openbox, first I went to https://github.com/nsf/obkey. I clicked on the "Clone or download" button. Clicked "Download ZIP", then "Open with unzip (default)".

This gave me the ~/obkey-master directory, which I moved to ~/source/obkey-master. Then I ran the following:

$ cd ~/source/obkey-master
$ ./obkey ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

That opened up the obkey GUI.

For my Openbox menu, I used the following command for starting obkey:

/home/steve/source/obkey-master/obkey

Here's a shot of the entry in the menu:

For a little more info, see: https://code.google.com/archive/p/obkey/

for simply converting and resizing

It's been about five years since I first mentioned ImageMagick (see: "resize an avatar"). Lately, I've kinda "rediscovered" it, and I've found its tools to be quite convenient for resizing images and for converting images to different formats. I haven't actually done much with ImageMagick besides those types of easy conversions, but there are many, many other things this software can do.

The magick and convert commands require the imagemagick package, as they are part of the ImageMagick suite of tools. For simple procedures like the ones being discussed here, either magick or convert will work. However, note the following about the convert command, from man imagemagick:

convert
 
Backwards compatiblity [sic] for ImageMagick version 6 "convert". Essentually [sic] an alias to a restrictive form of the "magick" command, which should be used instead.

FWIW, imagemagick is currently at version 6.9.7.4 in Debian Stable and in Ubuntu 18.04, and it's at version 7.0.8.12 in Arch. In any case, I think it's ok to use either one of the two commands. [Edit: Looks like the magick command can be used in the imagemagick version 7.0+ found in the Arch repos, but it doesn't exist in the 6.9 version found in the Stable repos; with that version, the convert command must be used.]




converting and resizing

To convert from jpg to png, run magick [oldfilename] [newfilename], making sure to change the file extension from .jpg to .png. For example:

$ magick /home/user1/image.jpg /home/user1/image.png

Here's an example of resizing an image to 1366x768 and also converting it from jpg to png, using magick:

$ magick /home/user1/image.jpg -resize 1366x768! /home/user1/image.png

(The "!" forces the conversion to the specified dimensions, ignoring aspect ratio.)

Doing the same thing using convert:

$ convert /home/user1/image.jpg -resize 1366x768! /home/user1/image.png


For more info, see man imagemagick, man magick, man convert, convert -help, etc.

Also see:
https://www.lifewire.com/convert-linux-command-unix-command-4097060
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php

...and, some fluxbox love

I added the fluxbox package to ArchLabs:

$ sudo pacman -S fluxbox

The default desktop looked like this:

I spent a good amount of time fixing things up; here are a few shots, from later:

ob-love!

Yesterday I downloaded archlabs-2018-07-28.iso to have a look at the latest from ArchLabs, the Arch-based, Openbox distro that offers a BunsenLabs/CrunchBang look and feel. I ran the live session from a flash drive. Here's a look at the Welcome window on the default desktop:

I thought everything looked good in the live session. I decided to do a hard drive installation; I found the "Run Installer" option right there in the desktop menu:

The installation was probably the most pleasant experience I've had building an Arch system. The installer walked me through everything, even offering other desktop environment/window manager choices, and handled the UEFI stuff on my HP 15 notebook perfectly.

The default ArchLabs desktop is quite usable "out-of-the-box". They went with a polybar instead of a tint2 panel, but a nice tint2 option was provided. ArchLabs has some interesting menu tools; the default menu is a "static" menu, but the user can switch to a "dynamic" menu. I found a good selection of default apps and tools.

In /etc/pacman.conf, I found the following repos enabled: [core], [extra], [community], [multilib], and [archlabs_repo]. And I found aurman included, for dealing with AUR packages. I checked to see how many packages were from that [archlabs_repo]:

$ paclist archlabs_repo
archlabs-aurman 2.17.2-1
archlabs-common 1.3.5-1
archlabs-dARK 1.0-1
archlabs-fonts 1.2-1
archlabs-homepage 1.2.1-1
archlabs-icons 1.2-1
archlabs-keyring 2018.06.09-1
archlabs-kickshaw 0.6.4-1
archlabs-networkmanager-dmenu 58.2-1
archlabs-ob-autostart 1.0-1
archlabs-obkey 1.0-1
archlabs-oblogout 0.2.5-1
archlabs-paranoid 1.2-1
archlabs-pipemenus 2.6.18-1
archlabs-polybar 3.2.0-1
archlabs-screenlock 2.10.3-1
archlabs-skippy-xd 1.0-1
archlabs-themes 1.5.1-1
archlabs-user-skel 1.7.21-1
archlabs-wallpapers 1.5.1-1
b43-firmware 6.30.163.46-1

While the default setup looked good, Openbox is for tweaking; I've changed a lot of things and added some of my favorite apps. A few shots of my rearranged ArchLabs desktop:

Overall, one of the best distros I've seen. A couple of links for ya:

ArchLabs home page - https://archlabslinux.com/
ArchLabs at DistroWatch - https://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=archlabs

review and tweak

Here's a fairly detailed review of BunsenLabs 2.0 ("Helium"), done by Ordinatechnic: https://www.ordinatechnic.com/distro-reviews/BunsenLabs/bunsenlabs-helium-review

I have not yet installed Helium, but I'm still running BunsenLabs "Deuterium", which is like a point release of BunsenLabs "Hydrogen". Deuterium is based on Debian "Jessie" (now "oldstable"). I haven't tweaked the installation much. I'm using a left-side, vertical tint2 panel, of course:

The author of the review above talked a lot about the lack of a "dynamic" menu in BunsenLabs; I added the LXDE Activities menu (see http://monksblog-malspa.blogspot.com/2018/09/lxde-applications-menu-in-openbox.html) to Deuterium:

Ordinatechnic also described the dmenu app launcher (see: https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/). For more info about dmenu, here's an excellent article: http://www.adercon.com/ac/node/25. Also be sure to check man dmenu. dmenu can be installed in Debian as part of the suckless-tools package. Here's a shot of it in action in Deuterium, along the bottom edge:

That's a very cool app launcher. My entry for dmenu in the Openbox menu runs the dmenu_run -b command.

Later, I added a keystroke for dmenu by adding the following lines to ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml:

    <!-- Added by Steve for dmenu -->
    <keybind key="W-space">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>dmenu_run -b</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>      

With that, Super(Winkey)+Space starts dmenu.

I'm not sure how long I'll keep Deuterium, but the current "oldstable"should be good thru mid-2020, I'm guessing. And BunsenLabs Deuterium definitely ain't broke, so... (lol).

seventeen-point-one

After seeing the review of MX-17.1 mentioned in my previous post, I decided to download the latest snapshot, MX-17.1_August_x64.iso. Following are a few shots from the live session.

At first boot:

The empty desktop:

xfce4-terminal showing the output from a couple of commands (the distro info here doesn't quite match the name of the iso, though):

The Whisker menu is accessed from the panel:

But a traditional Xfce Applications menu can be accessed by right-clicking on the desktop:

MX-17 ships with the nomacs image viewer, the featherpad text editor, and (of course) the thunar file manager:

The full package list for MX-17.1 can be found here: https://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mx&pkglist=true&version=17.1#pkglist

"pleasant, easy-to-install"

A fairly detailed review of MX Linux 17.1: "Hands-on with MX Linux: A pleasant, easy-to-install Linux distribution"

lxde applications menu in openbox

In Openbox, I like to set up a "static" menu by editing the ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml file manually or by using the obmenu GUI. But I do like the "dynamic" LXDE Applications menu that's used in SalentOS (website: https://www.salentos.it/); I decided to try adding that  to a couple of my other Openbox desktops.

I found helpful information in post #2 of the "Dynamic menus on BunsenLabs - a comprehensive guide" thread at the BunsenLabs forums (here's a link: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=3387).

In the shot below, the LXDE Applications menu is added directly above the Debian menu; this is in my Openbox desktop on a Debian Stretch system that had KDE Plasma installed first (note the KDE apps in the menu):

I had to install the lxmenu-data and openbox-menu packages, then I edited ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml, adding the following just above the <menu id="/Debian"/> line:

<menu execute="openbox-menu lxde-applications.menu" id="apps" label="Applications"/>

Saved the file and did a "Reconfigure" in Openbox for the changes to take effect (might be necessary to Restart Openbox as well).

I followed the same steps for the Openbox desktop in another Stretch installation (this one has no desktop environment installed, though), except I also added the lxappearance and lxappearance-obconf packages in this case:

This gives me the "dynamic" Applications menu from LXDE as well as the "static" menu entries that I'd already set up myself (under the web browsers, file managers, utilities, etc., submenus). That's more of a menu than I really need; if I get around to it, I may trim things down and go with a simpler menu like what I'm using in SalentOS. Here's a shot of that Openbox desktop:

devuan "ascii" live -- impresssive

A couple of shots from the live session of Devuan GNU/Linux 2.0 "ascii":

The live session is as nice as any I've ever seen, and I think it's actually better for my purposes than what has been up until now my favorite distro for live sessions: MX Linux. Ships with Xfce, Firefox ESR, the full LibreOffice suite, GParted, Synaptic, GNU Image Manipulation Program, VLC media player, and much more. I found that sudo works by default from the live session when I installed inxi with the sudo apt install inxi command. I even like the black and gray default theme! No problems accessing the partitions on my hard drive from the live session. Very quick and crisp with everything I tried on the desktop.

Looks like a very polished release. I'm impressed.

Devuan's home page: https://devuan.org/
And, a link to the Devuan page at DistroWatch: https://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=devuan