Tuning fonts

Not an essential thing - but..., well, better picture looks better.
Now, I did most tweaking in Slackware, and Debian differs.
Mind, very much of fighting with fonts is try-and-test. No 100% recipes here.

'Fontconfig warning: '/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 14: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated.'
When starting some app from terminal, the previous message is not uncommon.
Essentially, it doesn't mean anything practical - for now. Simply, somewhere in future, fontconfig starts to search for things somewhere else. /etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf specifies those 'future folders'. At least currently Slack doesn't have those folders. But whatever.

Here come some very useful links:
Console and more (Slackware)
Desktop and font substitution - both links are from Ubuntu, but it mostly is universalish... It's always a good idea to look into Archwiki.

# Console, and I am following the text of Slackware-link provided above:
Terminus font is good, do it. Console text gets ... much fuller-looking.
In netinstalled Debian, terminus is not installed by itself. But it is in repo.
I am not sure if Slacks' .bashrc  piece works in Debian... There are two other options: see here, or run following and make your choices:
dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

For checking what's your dpi: xdpyinfo | grep resolution
- I have gdm in Slack, so I added
0=/usr/bin/X11/X -dpi 96
to [server]-part of my /etc/gdm/custom.conf . Better (easier) to reboot for effect. And it worked.
As a comment - I had my Slackware console looking a bit ... chewed - textwise. It was exactly that dpi (somehow) was not proportional. The same (but worse) goes for Debian Sid.
- In Debian /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf are the patients:
The first one - outcomment and add to the end
xserver-command=X -dpi 96
The second one - has to have this:
xft-dpi=96

Adding more fonts (into separate folder): good, even super advice - do it like that in Slackware, it works. I haven't tried this in Debian(!).
Webcore-fonts and google-fonts are quite must - if nicer look is what you want.

# I am not vouching for various subpixel rendering stuff in this tutorial - I didn't try it yet. The same with 'Miscellaneous'. But - You try it it and advice me.

# Font substitutions. Following tutorial in Ubuntu forum I swapped Helvetica Neue to Lato (latofonts.com, its free). It worked for me, kinda (means, I am not very happy with this particular swap).
In Debian Sid you can't use ~/.fonts.conf, instead, the same stuff goes to /.config/font-master/local.conf
In Slack it can be in ~/.fonts.conf

# Fonts used on OB 'desktop': Two GUI-options are available, Obconf for menu and window titles, and Lxappearance for what is in those windows'.
After various combinations tried, I have settled with DejaVu , Droid and Arial (except terminal).
This, of course, is individual thing. Feel free to experiment.
It IS possible to get desktops' textwise appearance better.
The same with console - especially vanilla netinstalled Debian looks like shit in this department.

Tint2 launcher, screwed

... and Conky screwed too

So I played with wallpapering Openbox, one thing led to another and I decided to amuse myself with panel-decorating, bitmapwise.
Tint2 doesn't support adding image as a panel background and consequently - only option is to stick 'panel' onto wallpaper. Easiest to do it is with layered Gimp file - so you can shuffle your wallpapers under panel and then export them as paneled wallpapers.
Now, what I wanted to do, was very slightly steampunkish appearance. Nothing overwhelmingly fancy like brass pipes, cogwheels, rayguns etc. 'Classic' SPs enormously overstuffed spaces are not my cup of tea.
I am not going to explain my confs' parameters here. Tweaking is reasonably easy thing to do - if using material here (tint2), and here (conky), and here (conky).

It came out like that:

-- wallpaper and 'panel'-ribbon below tint and conky are one jpg.

-- Left side, width 71% - is Tint2. All on-top backgrounds and borders are done by tint and so, easily tunable. Launcher has 5 png-icons.
- Left screw in launcher opens Openbox menu (xdotool key super+q
as exec in obmenu.desktop). Desktop file has to be made. Keybind itself has to be also defined, of course, in rc.xml (for 'root-menu', and here the same key is 'W-q'). Xdotool might not be installed by default (it is in Crunchbang and Vsido). In Slackware it is not installed, but can be made from SBO .
- Right screw is 'show/hide desktop', also through xdotool, key 'super+d'('W-d' in rc.xml).
As both those actions are quite pointless (why not to use keybinds stright...), then other tasks can be put here - exit script, weather conky, or whatever.
When making screws or other tiny icons - make png-s bigger with transparent padding, it gives bigger clickable area. Those here are 16px visible, but 24px with transparency.
Whole tint-tuning is simple playing around with numbers and colors (gcolor2 helps with choosing colors). Though, this play-around takes considerable amount of time...
... Of easy tunability - I haven't yet found error-proof way to restart tint (to see changes). For example:
'killall tint2' and start = corrupted taskbar/tasks (double?)
'kill -9 tint2' and start = no systray items
'killall -SIGUSR1 tint2' and start = corrupted systray (double?)
So, after a while I end up doing logout/login, and then decide that's enough of tint ...


-- Right side, 477px wide - Conky. Conky supports background images. So this dark-brown background-with-screws png-file sits in Conky.
I have to say - it took me some time to get Conkys' conf right. Partly because Conky (also) is not loading everything anew when conf is saved and Conky refreshes. Took me some time to realize that... Better to go for killall-method.
Key thing here is to comment those
#own_window_argb_visual yes
#own_window_argb_value 0
#own_window_colour 534821
and leave the next one working and 'yes'
own_window_transparent yes
Beacuse 'argb' things make your image transparent too...

Tuning conky is a bit trickier than tuning tint2. When pressed to this narrow form, quite many numbers have to be expressly '0', like border_inner_margin 0 for example. And see CPU-usage - it has to have spare space to expand. When numbers get into tens, you don't want your whole conky jumping bigger and hitting volumeicon or whatever.
Oh, and those screws here are just decorations.
What complicated things for me was - I didn't want to add panel to every wallpaper. So it turned to balancing act between tint on relatively light panel and tint on relatively dark wallpapers. It boiled down to playing with colors, and using upper layer (tint, conky) backgrounds without very much of transaparency.

And conclusion: oldish-90s-looking panel can be done with tint and conky. Also, I really like the idea of using screws as launchers. :)
Oh, and - do really use those tint and conky links, and info there - as all possible commands are NOT included in default conf files.
| NB! As it was my first time to include pics, I was quite annoyed when I got persistent error with inserting pics (impossible to insert)... Turned out that Googles' spymasters want popups and all cookies enabled... So I installed separate browser, all security-panties down, just for 'insert pic', and nothing else. But cookies will be deleted afterwards anyway. Quite, quite irritating. |

Openbox and wallpaper

This topic kinda intriqued me - after relatively easy installs in FB - and I tried out some 10 different versions of scripts I found through links here.

Basically, there is two different kind of change - one that swaps wallpapers after some amount of time, and another that swaps wallpaper together with desktop change.
Scripts are the same but timed ones - obviously - have to have time-trigger.
For this, there also are two options: crontab or Conky (howtos can be found by those same already-mentioned-links).
I definitely do not want spastic desktop, so I went for new-desktop-new-wallpaper kind. This type needs desktop/execute type combo keybind.

The result of my experiments was kinda depressing fail but also ultimately victorious: Most of found scripts didn't work (in my environments), and one that did, went with Nitrogen in Debian, but had to have Feh in Slackware. Problem probably was version of Nitrogen in Slack - an investigative hour wasted nevertheless (no, not really - I got results). But after that I didn't feel anymore like shitting around with new compile, flags, optional dependencies etc.
So it's nitrogen in Debian and Feh in Slack. The friendly scriptlet is like that:
#!/bin/bash
## very simple random wallpaper picker, uses nitrogen or feh
## From Crunchbang forum ##

# directory containing images
DIR="/home/user/picsdir/wpdir"

# select a random jpg from the directory
PIC=$(ls $DIR/*.jpg | shuf -n1)

# use nitrogen to set wallpaper
nitrogen --set-scaled $PIC
# or comment prev nitrogen and outcomment next for feh
#feh --bg-scale $PIC

# and just for terminal fun
echo "$PIC"
exit
To mention - scripts should be executable (chmod +x) and preferably on PATH.
I used two of them, smartly named as randwp1.sh and randwp2.sh, with wpdirs like wp1 and wp2, and keybinded them to W-Left and W-Right.
Two because then I can have two different sets of 'randoms' - like steampunk/fantasy or pr0n1/pr0n2.
Why not to combine action with ready binds of 'GoToDesktop'-type? As much as I tried, this combination didn't work... I was even so crazy that I made 'execute' of GoToDesktop with xdotool (to have 2 similar executes) - and that was success alright... only... then I used xdotool'ed icon on my tint panel, and tint hung totally.
Out it went and in came that, and these entries have to be created:
    <keybind key="W-Left">
    <action name="Desktop">
    <desktop>1</desktop>
    </action>
    <action name="Execute">
    <startupnotify><enabled>true</enabled>
    <name>wp1</name></startupnotify>
    <command>sh /home/user/bin/randwp1.sh</command>
    </action>
    </keybind>       
    <keybind key="W-Right">
    <action name="Desktop">
    <desktop>2</desktop>
    </action>
    <action name="Execute">
    <startupnotify><enabled>true</enabled>
    <name>wp2</name></startupnotify>
    <command>sh /home/user/bin/randwp2.sh</command>
    </action>
    </keybind>

That works for me. No hangs. And jumping back-and-forth, new wallpaper every time!
Oh, and moral: you never know what works; when messing with scripts, bash for beginners is quite must... Me, have to dig in, seems, for less waste of time, less failures.
Merry Christmas.

Fluxbox vs Openbox, chaotically compared

Patients: FB + lxpanel + (nitrogen, compton)  vs OB + tint2 + (nitrogen, compton)

I installed Vsido 3. And there is really nothing new to nag or praise over (see review-like of ver 2). ... Only change worth to mention is that Fluxbox is now sole installed WM. See release announcement.
Means - not a big excitement - but, for squeezing some profit out of my install, I spent some (many) hours poking in Fluxbox and comparing it to my beloved Openbox. Here are results:

## lxpanel vs tint2

0 Takes less recourses. But who cares about 10-20 megas of RAM. I don't ... if we talk of two different environments.
- Appearance is markedly less configurable than tint2.
+ At the same time, you can get those fewer options in nicy right-click-on-panel menu.
+/- has panel plugins, tint2 doesn't. How useful they are ... depends on use, and if they function (in Vsido, at least, pagers refused to work. One of them demanded Openbox, other simply crashed the panel). There are bunch of system and hardware monitors - but those would look better in Conky. There is show/hide desktop plugin ... which can be considered useful or not. There is volume control and clock - which are useful alright. I have clock in Conky, though...
+ can create more panels from menu. In tint2 you have to start separate tints for that.
Conclusion: Lxpanel wins in ease of usability. Tint2 wins in looks and flexibility.
I quite like lxpanel - but no swap, I stay with tint2.

## FluxBox vs OpenBox
FB one , two; OB one, two.

- dragging windows's around is strange ... sluggish - cursor moves, but window lags way behind. When releasing mouse button, window jumps. Never observed suchlike in OB. Googling also gives not-a-few mystery lag-problems. No solutions, though.
- window resize is only possible from bottom grips.
- certain theme changes need FB restart. And that's quite annoying - one starts to look for (unexisting) over-rides and ...$$%^$ ... so on.
+ apps' window positions, dimensions, workspaces etc etc: Compared to OB, FB has upper hand here - more options, and those are easy to use by right-clicking window title... plus editing files. There isn't such right-clicky-thing in OB. It is bloody convenient thing to have.
- themes: fewer configurable options. There is 'window.roundCorners' parameter (no such thing in OB) - but this 'roundness' is so pixelated that it looks like major crap.
+ themes: Has ~/.fluxbox/overlay file where it's possible to define your default fonts. Over-rides themes' parameters and gives consistent text-look when using different themes.
+ Menu creation: Manual way is definitely syntactically shorter than in OB. And maybe FBs' menu editor is a bit better than Obmenu.
+ Tabs  - there isn't such thing in OB. However, how needed the feature is, depends again on way-of-use.
0 Wallpaper and changing it. Not an important theme at all - but I decided to investigate/install. Here, both WMs have to use helpers - as they are not DEs.
    Fluxbox first: One way is here.   Then Wally, it's GUI and can get pictures from different sources. Wally needs qt4 installed.
Fluxter: different wallpapers in workspaces plus pager - but it's dead code. That was precisely only way I managed to get it compiled and working. Different wallpapers for workspaces can be set also - and more easely - with FB changeworkspace entry and fsetbg or feh.
    OpenBox wallpapering: with those links here, you can find a bunch of different scripts for random change and/or for different desktops. ...Wally is not OB compatible, though.
AND - I also committed myself with this - see here, a story, with code!
0 Slit, dock-like thing, needs specific dockable apps (above-mentioned fluxter is one). Googling leaves the impression that it's essentially dead. So no pluses or minuses here.

Conclusion.
As I have noticed, there are people who salivate very much over FBs Tabs - so that might be the only real winning feature of FB - if you happen to like/use it. Right-click-title-menu is nice...
At the same time, at least for me, window-drag-lag and bottom-grip-resize are quite unpleasant. I don't use Tabs (honest, I thought about it - and no, I don't know why I should).
Add fancy refresh problems with themes... leads to: No, I am not going to swap to Fluxbox. But it certainly is the second best WM after Openbox.
Merry Christmas.

Vsido 2, review-like

| Informational note, 2014, Vsido = Fluxbox only, pulseaudio, systemd |

Generally, I quite hate writing reviews. In this case, there are two reasons for installing Vsido and reviewing it: First - the nostalgic one - Vsido was my first real Linux (means, not Ubuntu-based). So it can be taken as homage to VastOne. Secondly - I have problems with Fluxbox in Slackware and wanted to compare confs with other Fluxbox.
Fortunately my gratitude to VastOne doesn't forbid me to whine and bitch over Vsido 2. So, let's...

The story of installing Vsido ver.1 is here.
I wrote iso (64bit, 16.oct version) to USB with Unetbootin, and booted to Live without any problems.
Desktop layout has remained quite the same as in ver.1.: Conky up-left, and (hidden) dock-thingy (lxpanel) at bottom-center. Newcomer is Wicd icon in up-right corner. Wallpaper is the same as Vsidos' website header... well, it's better than previous one.
If one doesn't use wireless, then wicd should be promptly uninstalled. I also would uninstall lxpanel and replace it with tint2 (which is already installed, and used in Openbox). I like my launched apps nicely visible, as also three icons (terminal, spacefm and firefox) and system tray. And I do not like launch-once-docky-type things at all.

So, let's install (installer is in System menu).
There is quite a lot of explanatory text here and there - which is good. Gparted is for partitioning. Then comes nice compact menu for creating user, passwords and computer name. After that comes choosing timezone and lastly, grub install (which has all needed choices).
Whole install took less than ten minutes.
Vsido boot was normal (fast) debian. Display manager is - as previously - LightDM, but in it's new and moronic form. I logged in and was greeted by first-time script. I let it dist-upgrade - which is, in my opinion, a bit dangerous thing. What happens if there is, say, big xorg update? Anyway, update was successful - and biggish as always with Sid. Script installed apt-xapian-index, which is great (creates seach-box into Synaptic). The script offers also to install cups, java, Libreoffice and some more things.
One can do the same - and more - through pre-installed smxi script. But I suppose welcome-script is good thing to have.
There are - additionally to default Fluxbox - Openbox, i3 and Xfce installed. Which is quite a lot of options.

Fluxbox menu.
First, why is Spacefm represented with general icons? Spacefm has very nice original icon - why not to use it?
And here comes my loudest whine: the menu structure and app distribution in submenus are bloody strange!
- Settings: Why is Gparted there? Why is Disk Manager installed at all?
- Accessories: Why are Lxappearance (and, by the way, 15pt font size for text is way too big) and Nitrogen here? And Htop??
- Development has Xcalc in it!?
- Fluxbox menu should sit in Settings, as submenu, and not as separate menu.
- Internet: Why to have Wicd and Ceni both installed?
- Multimedia: So, Vsido got pulseaudio installed this time... well, fortunately there is 'purge'.
- System: Not sure if Gdebi and Aptitude are good for anything.

Now, app choices doesn't really matter - everyone has to make their own picks anyway. But - sticking apps into absurd places certainly is irritating. And having a bit more consistent menus through different sessions would be definitely bonus too.

Everything what was installed seemed to work - except Iceweasel, of course (bookmark toolbar not functioning. Also - whole menu was grey and fuzzy-looking.).
Net was picked up without any problem. Initial memory usage was pleasantly low 125 megas.

Openbox.
The same look - but dock-thingy is created with Tint2 and it's not hidden here. Terminal comes transparent by default - and that's not a good thing. When terminal happens to be on top of white app, it's unusable.
Menus - A lot better here, but:
- Compton sits under Graphics... really, now...
- Audacity is missing in Multimedia. Not that I would use it, but why inconsistency?
- I would put Tools and System menus together.
Font size in menus (in Fluxbox menu too) are too big and look like childrens' book.

i3.
Well - i simply couldn't open anything there, who knows how it's supposed to work. Fortunately console and killall helped.

Xfce.
Dock is created with lxpanel and is hidden. Menu looks textvise better than boxen ones. But it has huge problems with icon sizes - there are at least 3 different sizes all mixed up. And there are double entries.
- Settings has Openbox Configuration Manager sitting there.
- Accessories has Nitrogen - which should be in Settings; Spacefm is doubled, and with different icons; Root Terminal shouldn't be in this menu at all.
- Internet has two Iceweasels.
- Multimedia has two gmusicbrowsers (and icons are of different size.
- Other has 'Fluxbox menu' and 'Openbox'. No, I didn't try...
- System has two Spacefms and two Xfce terminals.
So, Xfce session looks quite untuned. Maybe it's time to drop it? Vsidos' forum leaves impression that there isn't very much Xfce users... if any.

Now, if all previous left the impression that I hate Vsido - then no, I do not. As far as Linux distros go, Vsido is one of the best.
It has pleasant clear-cut installer and installs without any problems. It works. It's fast and lean. Fluxbox and and Openbox are good bases to personalize onto. And all those whined-over menu things can be fixed in an hour. But experimental Iceweasel is a pile of crap and should be purged as a first thing.
I think I liked first version of Vsido a bit more. Not sure why... maybe it's this first love thing. Second version seems to be more advanced-user oriented. Which is a wise move - I guess that there aren't very much noobish Vsido-users in existence.
... And I did not manage to fix my Slackware Fluxbox. Looks like, maybe, a compile-time.

Slackware 14.0 64bit install - 2: Apps

Xfce in Slackware looks completely stock. And it is that. Good - so we can customize it, and other WM-victims, to our fine tastes and don't have to tear down wimpy vanilla customizing! Alas, that has to wait.
This here is about installing apps and things, and without automatic dependency checks at that! And, if you are Slack-n00b - as you should be if you are reading this - let me stress, there REALLY isn't checks.
slackbuilds.org has dependency info as a comment... mostly. And no, Slakfinders' packages doesn't have dependecies included, but description pages have 'required' field (probably filled).
Those mentioned two ARE essential web-pages for app-hunting: slakfinder.org = sf (binaries from different repos) and slackbuilds.org = sbo (build scripts and links to sources).
Most of following apps were installed either with stright 'installpkg' or through SlackBuild/installpkg (yes-yes - I am going to try out slapt-get, sbopkg and src2pkg. There will be 'Edit' or something about that. Maybe).
So, take the following (partial) list as an example how-to. Oh, and there are some pretty good apps in this list, too. Naturally, it will be Openbox installation - no Kdes' native apps will figure here.

Two commands for checking what we already have out-of-box: slackpkg search xxx, slackpkg file-search yyy. They are very useful. The first one searches packages, the second, naturally, files. You don't have to write whole names, all that fits will be shown.
To business:

- udevil for mounting things, spacefm as the file manager. Those two have their own installers. Worked like charm, no dependencies missing.
After installing, add following line for kernel polling into /etc/rc.d/rc.local:
echo 3000 > /sys/module/block/parameters/events_dfl_poll_msecs
One more thingy - both will be installed in /usr/local/bin. So, if you specify udevil as your 'mount command' in spacefm, don't leave it '/usr/bin' like it is in example there.
- medit sf:slacky.
- webcore-fonts sf:salix64.
Then delete link: /etc/fonts/conf.d/60-liberation.conf
then run: fc-cache -f
- gdm sf:salix64. Needs libgnomecanvas sf:salix64
- libconfig (for compton) sf:salix64.
- compton, get source from https://github.com/chjj/compton and there is Readme too.
make && make docs && make install
- openbox, obconf sf:salix64.
- tint2 - source, v.0.11. How to make svn tint2.
Needs imlib2 sf:slacky.
In essence: in your /tint2 build folder, as user, run and do:
svn checkout http://tint2.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ tint2-read-only
download:https://www.dropbox.com/s/gmko5d6sy8qjpao/tint2patchfiles.tar.gz
and extract the three files to /tint2-read-only
cd tint2-read-only
patch -p0 < src-task-align.patch
patch -p0 < freespace.patch
patch -p0 < launcher_apps_dir-v2.patch
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ./
make
make install
- volumeicon sf:salix64.
- wmctrl sf:salix64.
- xdotool sbo: this SlackBuild wants source tar in its folder (not an extracted folder); result goes to /tmp. Copy/move it to your packages folder, do installpkg.
- qbittorrent sf:salix64. Needs libtorrent-rasterbar sf:salix64.
- qpdfview sbo: here is unpacked source-folder OK, resulting package goes to /tmp. Take it, installpkg it.
- nitrogen sf:salix64. Needs gtkmm ... - I probably left some set uninstalled OR the dependency-info in sbo is incorrect, it needs additionally: ... atkmm, pangomm, glibmm, cairomm, sigc++ sf:alien bob.
First 'ldd' said that there was also libgiomm missing - but it came obviously from somewhere... anyway, it wasn't available neither in sf nor in sbo.
- gcolor2 sf:salix.
- xarchiver sf:ponce.
- galculator sf:salix.
- FBReader sf:salix. Needs liblinebreak sf:salix.
- icedtea-web sf:slacky.
- gucharmap out-of-box, but not starting, saying that it's missing schemas. Run:
glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas
Lotsa deprecation-drivel there, but gucharmap started then OK. But whining that it's 'using the memory gsettings backend' - and this means, it needs dconf sf:salix.
By the way, Gthumb for example, also needs dconf for remembering its settings. Stupid gnomish trash...

- When writing Openbox menu, mind that xfce4-terminal is called Terminal.
- there is no ~/.bashrc - and terminal prompt looks...errr... boring. Either you have to write your color-code or copy relevant parts from some debian distro, for example. bash_completion works alright, but some added aliases should be fun too.
And so on.
It seems to me OK method to check dependencies through sf and sbo - they list only those that are missing in vanilla Slackware install (sbo at least does, not so sure about sf). If app is not in sf or sbo - or still doesn't start, try 'ldd' command and/or homes of app for info.

Everything I installed to this point works OK. I have still blue-flowery pukey gdm for login and already mid-customized dark science fictionish OB 'desktop'.
... I might even add third part, 'Installing non-native package managers and what crap happened then'.
See also 'Slackware install  part 1'.

Slackel Openbox, a rant

It seems to be not so happy and sunny time for me. Happened to stumble into one more tearful installation.
First I decided that I do not rant... but I couldn't resist. I had expectations...
Reading that Slackware/Salix-based Openbox was released made me definitely excited. So much that I promptly downloaded 64bit iso, wrote it to USB and installed.
Installer was of Salix. Couple of things to repeat over. Read the text! Especially dangerous point is when partitioning defaults coolly for wiping your hdd clean.
Ah, yes, and your install-files are this time in /slackel folder.

Desktop

Let's start with the only good thing - the file manager is Spacefm - the best that can be found. Though, it's not the last version, but the older one ready to take from Sourcery. As a hint - last versions' installer from Spacefm download-page works very well, no sweat - all deps happen to be preinstalled in Salix.
Spacefm is also used as desktop-provider.
There is only one icon on desktop - Slackel online. Which is a bit ...err... strange as mentioned page contains pityfully little info. No documentation, tutorials and such. Well, but one can learn a bit greek here and there.

There is a big stuffy Conky... a lot people love extensive Conkys. I don't. I like Conky as source of info, not as bloody fancy jukebox.

Panel at bottom is fbpanel, not tint2 which would seem to me more a flexible choice. At the same time, there are out-commented tint2 in autostart.sh, and a folder in .config.
Talking of leftover crap - there are more to find: libreoffice, pcmanfm ...
A bit more cleaning up, perhaps?

There is no proper compositor installed. And that's Compton, not oldish and less-configurable xcompmgr. Sure, it's not in repos... is it really a problem, now?

Menu on panel and rightclick one are complitely different ... In looks and in structure. This is not good and logical at all. I would say even it's wickedly evil - meant to drive users nuts.

Mime: All txt files default to Abiword... I'm sure the author is not using Abiword for editing confs. Why it's left like that for users?
Sure, changing mime files is not a rocket science, but still.

Logout in fbmenu goes stright out, reboot and shutdown do the same. No menu between for picking your options. Quite irritating the first time when you want to see how exit-menu is built - and you find two things - that it's not and then yourself looking at gdm...

Show-hide plugin in fbpanel has funny way of 'showing' - it starts from leftmost task. Means, your last active window will be on top only if it was created first.

Apps: I would remove/replace at least 50% of them. That means, system, settings and tools mostly stay - and those are heritage of Salix. And couple of other things. But not Midori, for gods sake. Or why should one use a media player with name like Whaaw! (exclamation mark is not mine)?... There are a lot well-established players which mostly even work. And so on.
Then we have obconf in settings, but obmenu in utilities (that's fbmenu)... in desktop menu they are in defferent menus too, but those menus have different names, for further thrill.

What a mess.
It's my first installed distro from which I can't find anything positive to learn or copy.
When one feels need to remaster, then maybe it should be not done in such a unthinking hurry?
End of rant. I am in hurry too - have to do some formatting.

PS! If one wants to try easy Slack with no worries - go for Salix. Or, if craving for tiny and strange and a bit broken, go for Puppy Slacko.
Slackel seems one pointless respin to me....

Netinstall Jessie to Sid, Openboxed

After dist-upgrade two weeks ago serious problems appeared in Vsido (Sid with experimental repos enabled) - CPU-usage went up, as did memory-usage. Some people couldn't even boot... - (upgraded) xorg and nvidia driver conflicted.
So I thought of flying a bit lower (without 'experimental') and netinstalled pure 'sid' from scratch. Well, and I had messed up my Vsido a bit, while playing around.

Do take a look to previous netinstall post here.
What follows here is mostly what I found to be 'different and strange or silly'.

Making Sid:
Rebooted after install and went stright for /etc/apt/sources.list.
Changed things to sid:
#sources to sid
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main non-free contrib
# added debian multimedia
deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org sid main non-free
Security (added by install) goes out - no such thing in Sid.

One can add some repos. But - you have to install also their keyrings:
aptosid, siduction (I did not try them), spacefm (no success, keyserver timed out)
- sudo apt-get install deb-multimedia-keyring
- apt-get install also to: aptosid-arhive-keyring, siduction-archive-keyring
- with spacefm it's a bit different, as root, do:
gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 0x01937621 0x107165A1
# when successful,
bash -c 'gpg --export -a 01937621 107165A1 | apt-key add -'
But as said, no success here - and I installed it from downloaded 'deb'.

When sources are ready:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Everything seemed to be fine - no errors, no things 'not upgraded'.

Making ze colorful picture:

Then I installed Openbox and other essentials:
Only thing I thought of doing differently was swapping xfce4-terminal to roxterm. But, xfce4-terminal wanted a lot less deps - so it stayed.
Lightdm install with --no-install-recommends gave 3 times less dependencies. A lot of gnome trash went away. Lightdms' version 1.6 is already this new fucked-up one - no hackable greeter.ui file, no session picker in center-menu.
As a side-note: If using Synaptic, also do not forget to remove 'check' from Preferences 'install reccommends by default' - saves you from a lot strange junk.

Reboot.
Installed smxi and when trying to install Nvidia drivers, got message that kernel 3.9.1 amd64 (installed by Debian Installer) has no headers and there isn't any in repo too. Doh! I decided not to think too deeply over it, and installed liquorix 3.8.13 kernel - and Nvidia installed without problems. Strange, though.
One more observation: If you want to clean up useless xorg drivers with smxi - you have to run xorg at least once before.

Rebooted for new kernel and, as usual, ran sgfxi in console to get that installed Nvidia working (it goes like that every first-time-installation).

Holy moment! Login to Openbox ... and do all usual stuff (again, look up the previous openbox posts).
Let's list here only some strange happenings, odd outcomes:
- When Debian had still first, native kernel, then booting text ran small. After change to Liquorix, text turned big (res 640). Changing resolution bigger in grubs' conf doesn't work... Me, baffled. 
Edit: Took whole menuentry from Sids' grub.cfg, made 41_sid file in master-Grub /etc/grub.d, copy/pasted menuentry - and Sids' console resolution turned to nice 1024x768. I guess that crucial lines here were (omitted by master-grub):
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
Irritatingly, I also got several penguin pictures displayed before initrd load... got rid of them by adding following kernel parameter: 'logo.nologo'. Edit ends

- Compton: As usual, missed a lot of deps. I installed everything, even asciidoc. But, 'make install' failed anyway - with some line in source error. Jeez... so I ended up copying the comptons' executable to /usr/bin as per usual.
- Showdesktop and exit scripts didn't work. Both are python, so I installed a bunch of python stuff - thinking that error is there. It wasn't - it was missing 'wmctrl'.
- I did adduser username sudo (which was complitely ok), and was a bit confused why it still didn't work. I forgot to install 'sudo', that's why ...
Moral here is - it pays of to make precise list of 'essential things to install' - and also to follow it.
- For some reason my boxes bios clock lately insist of being 3 hours incorrect... Here helps installing 'ntp' which then takes time from nets' server.
- Firefox doesn't save to ntfs partition... ups, file manager too. Need to install 'ntfs-3g' and 'fuse'. Last time when Openboxing Wheezy, I got them probably automagically when playing with smxi.
- And one more funny thing: I happened to stick mother-in-laws' Kindle to my Linux box - and bloody thing refused to accept 'umount' as eject. Well, you have to install 'eject'... then it ejects.

Everything seems to work now (knock the wood). Memory-usage is the same as with my Vsido install (unborked) - 160M. And no funny peakings with CPUs. 

Salix Openbox memory usage

Bliss, yes - but there is always margin for improvements.
Nothing of what follows is a showstopper - or matters very much for everyday use... BUT!

Just after writing the post about being euphoric of my new OB, I noticed how bloody lot of memory it took. Almost twice more than my two Debian OBs (230 to 110-130). Unacceptable! Cultivating an anorectic Openbox is THE sport! So I went for it and culled some more processes:

** salix-update-notifier: process tended to hang around even after session change or logouts-ins, piling additional processes up after every 2 hours, and dragging along 'sleeps' (800k a piece).
Currently, I simply added OnlyShowIn=XFCE; into its' .desktop file in /etc/xdg/autostart/ - simply to avoid it in OB. We'll see... but I think I uninstall it in near future - there isn't a lot of updates to worry about, really. They can be checked-installed manually.
** multiple 'sh /.../openbox/autostart' processes: as investigation revealed, they go with every 'sleep' in autostart. Yeah, they only took 5 megs - but still!
I remade my whole autostart without any 'sleep'... and it works totally OK (shows that copying 'authoritive' advice from web might be err...not always useful).
Also, it seems to matter what is order of started apps in autostart ... If anyone is interested, after 1,5 hour of testing in virtual terminals, I ended up with this order:
nitrogen --restore & 
compton --backend glx --vsync opengl-swc --paint-on-overlay --shadow-exclude "! name~=''" --config ~/.compton.conf & 
spacefm -d & 
tint2 -c ~/.config/tint2/.tint2launchers/tint2rcbleft & 
volumeicon & 
# next is show-hide-desktop-icon-in-systray script (from crunchbang forum) 
~/bin/showdtop.sh & 
xxkb & 
conky -c ~/.conky_ob_rc &
* About virtual terminals... There are only three agetty-s defined in Salix (F1-F3), and tty goes to F4. Bloody strange and unconvinient! Open up your /etc/inittab and add other 3, copy/paste and change numbers. Voila!
Also, 'xinit' to start virtual desktop seems to give somewhat bizarre results... What worked OK (from C+A+F2 to C+A+F8), was:
startx /usr/bin/openbox-session -- :1
** Killed wicd off. I use no wireless - so, no need to configure it. 'removed' wicd - and lost net. Did that, in terminal:
netconfig
Options there were picked like that (and of course those are specific for my situation): hostname = whatever, name of the machine
domain = local
DHCP
Reboot (/etc/rc.d/rc/inet1 eth0_start command was not doing a thing (in perceivable way)... and there appeared nothing in inet1.conf file too. Oh, and no connection.) But booting made it - a wired connection without wicd.

Now my Salix-OB uses less, but still approx 40 megs more memory than OB in Debian.
So I decided to switch from default 'huge' (all things compiled in) kernel to 'generic' (nothing in, neccessary will be added with modules). And hoped shorter boot-time and less memory use.

- Downloaded kernel-generic and modules via http://pkgs.org/slackware-14.0/slackware-x86_64/.
- Did installpkg for kernel-generic, and did not for modules - as it appeared with upgradepkg --dry-run that modules were 100% the same.
- Ran /usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh, and executed the result, initrd.gz was created.
- For good measure, reinstalled nvidia drivers.
- Updated local Grub, rebooted to my Grub-master and updated that too. Generic kernel was added as last (Salix) entry. Haven't found out yet how to change it to be first (and default) boot kernel. So, probably I will simply make 06_custom file for Salix Grub.
- Rebooted and got kernel panic... ?? ... Checking grub.cfg - initrd was NOT included (and it IS neccessary for kernel-generic). Added a line:
initrd /boot/initrd.gz.
Successful boot!

But, no change in boot time (though, the text flying by is different... which can be considered 'interesting', but not as a desired result) or in desktop memory usage... So, it seems that I did something wrong. Or something.
And the moral is - you do this kernel-thing in different and right way.

Salix 14.0 + Openbox

Yeah, doing openboxing a third time, now on Slackware - after Xubuntu and Debian. I was kinda interested how this one might differ... Openbox is not stock for Salix (and Slackware), and Slacks' repos are not as big by far as Debian ones.

As it appeared, installing Openbox itself went quite as usual, with slight differences. But some pre-install preparations almost drove me nuts. Whole process took twice as long as in Debian.

1. Pre-installing things:
Let's start with simple.
- Nitrogen for wallpaper, with slapt. No problems. First I had a plan to use Spacefm as desktop manager (and wallpaper-provider) - but Spacefm somehow prevented Conky from starting.
- Conky, with slapt, no problems.
- Volumeicon, with slapt, no problems.
- copied session-exit-script from my Vsido install, once again. And as later was seen, it worked without a hitch.
- Also installed wmctrl (slapt) and xdotool (from source), without problems.
Now, not so simple things.
- Tint2 - available through Sourcery. Only thing I had to install before was Cmake. Then it compiled and worked... unfortunately it wasn't SVN-version (no launchers). Then I went and took source from Tints' home. Made, installed - and found that it's the same one - no launchers.
After some digging around I found this. The writer, by the way, is the same guy who makes Vsido. So thanks, Vastone, for all good things. Tutorial worked like a charm, and I soon had nice patched SVN version of Tint running, with launchers and all.
- Compton (sweat, blood and tears). Not available in repos at all, have to get the source from Comptons' home and compile. List of dependencies is quite long, as we know...
What was surprising that only missing dep in Salix was libconfig. Even asciidoc was already installed! But the joy was short-lived - libconfig also has to be searched out from web. My first attempt to install it was unsuccessful. Thing appeared to exist, but pkg-config refused to recognize it. And Compton refused to make, citing missing libconfig as a culprit. Apparently I had unwittingly brought home a where-libconfig...
More searching in web and I found other and better place to get it. Differently of the first one, it was already compiled for Slack.
So I only had to run  
sh doinst.sh (and replace user/lib64 in this file with /usr/lib64, otherways it couldn't find folders, as install-package was not in root).
Then I checked, somewhat fearfully:
pkg-config libconfig --libs . It's not there, then
echo $PKG_CONFIG_PATH, and path appears to be wrong (compared where libconfig.pc really is, then
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig (that's my conf, of course). Anyway, after correcting the path, libconfig was found AND Compton was now happy to make and make install too.
As for now, I used exactly the same start conf as in debian install. Works alright, no tearing observed yet.
Edit | When installing libconfig, I was yet such a moron that I didn't know of SlackBuilds... Correct way, of course should have been to run: libconfig.SlackBuild, and then installpkg libconfig...gz. But I leave this example of stupidity to be - as there are some useful hints how to check and correct library paths. Also - there are ready-made binaries available in slakfinder.org :) |

2. Installing OB, a lot less dramatic part:
Main packages for Openbox - openbox and obconf - are available with slapt, as is lxappearance. There are also obmenu and some other helpful stuff to take - but I didn't bother.
slapt-get -i openbox obconf
Logout and login to fresh openbox session.
Right-click menu was bizarre, consisting mostly unexistent items. Those what did exist, refused to open.
Back to Xfce, copy Openbox conf files to .config/openbox, add some quick (real) links to menu, back to Openbox. Now things (real ones) in menu opened ... so, I presume that the first time rebellion was because of lack of confs in user folder.
Still, 90% of this default menu was taken out of thin air. Fancy. I should have used dmenu to generate something more valid. Well, I forgot to install it.
One more surprise was that xfce4-terminal is named as 'Terminal'. Bloody why? Couple of more minutes down to drain when investigating why terminal 'does not exist'...
After that it was usual copy/paste of various confs, fixing this and that, 2 hours lovingly pimping the menu, and removing couple of last unwanted apps. Everything seems fine and working. Checked also .xsession-errors - nothing of interest there too, only gtk stupid deprecation-drivel.
Now, if I happen to finally succeed in compiling Medit, then the situation could be called a bliss.

Wheezy netinstall Openboxed

A project to test if Debian 64bit stable (Wheezy) with Openbox is good enough (i.e. - immortal, invincible, unhurtable etc) to be the master and host of my multibooting Grub2. It's also my first desktopless-console-install evah! Me, proud.


Writing ISO to USB with funny cp command from official Debian tutorial didn't make bootable usb...
But format / write in dear old XP with usb_format_HPU_v2.2.3 and win32imagewriter - gave satisfactory result.

Installation:
Boot your USB and - if so inclined - pick advanced options / expert GUI install. That's what I did. Put priority to LOW. It's a bit bizarre that this gives you maximum interaction with installer options... Yes, not high ... but low.
Install is quite peachy - if using your reading ability, everything should be OK and clear. If you plan to use smxi script - you have to install bootloader (in my case, because of multiboot, into new root partition), as opposed to skipping it. Or afterwards, when you try to use smxi, then it whines about lack of grub and doesn't want to run.
At the near-end of installation - do NOT choose/mark desktop package - that is, if you are not Gnome fan, because that's what installer defaults to.
Oh, and small different choices really give you different install-results.
For example - if you install root with login permitted, then your user does not get sudo installed... When you do not put priority to low, you simply can't pick non-free option in mirrors... Well, so you can fix those things afterwards - but why not to let installer sweat, right? So I did bloody process twice to get it correct and sweated definitely more than installer. Fancy that.
I did minimal install - standard system was my only checkmarked package. And I was quite surprised afterwards how many essential things were really missing because of missing desktop. Installing distros makes you think that a lot is granted... Everything is installable afterwards, of course.
After first reboot I ended up to console login prompt, like some ardent arch-fiend. 

What I did:
Login as a root.
apt-get install xorg
apt-get install openbox obconf
apt-get install lightdm
Then I installed xdg-user-dirs, python-xdg, apt-show-versions, xfce4-terminal, xarchiver. First two are must if you want your home dirs to be automatically created. Third can be installed later - it's not vital. Terminal is - if you are not happy with crap-looking xterm. And the last one is essential for unpacking - first, for smxi you download next.
Reboot.
Now there should be Lightdm greeter seen hanging on screen, waiting for login... I didn't. I installed smxi (the same way as already written in Crunchbang post).
In there, I installed some non-free stuff, some utilities, threw out 30 useless xorg video drivers (silly thing installs them ALL, including 20 years old legacy). Left kernel untouched, but let smxi to download and install Nvidia drivers ...
During that I got some bonus things - hddtemp, lmsensors, whole pile of python and other libraries etc etc. Less to install afterwards. Though, when using normal desktop, there isn't any need to observe hdd temps - it can be purged with no problems.

Desktop was
an empty screen, of course. Right-click menu helps to open terminal.
First thing, I installed Iceweasel with apt-get for inevitable booty-hunt and help-search.
Got 'weasel going and downloaded Spacefm file manager and udevil for mounting disks (debs both), dowloaded probably 12-13 piles of dependencies, but ultimately did successful
dpkg -i packagename.
So I had comfortable working arena almost ready then. Just a couple of more things:
Installed sudo, did adduser myusername sudo, logout/login(!). Check,
groups myusername - output has to have sudo listed there.
sudo apt-get install medit
sudo apt-get install menu
First is text editor I happen to like. Second installs debian menu which can be base for building Openbox menu, or also - you can open at least some apps without terminals. If you already have customized menu.xml to use - skip debian menu.
I copy/pasted all conf files (including menu.xml), and themes, icons etc from my other openbox distros. Otherways, two base-files are located in /etc/xdg/openbox. They go to ~/.config/openbox/. Where they should be filled with relevant content - which is mostly available in web (First place to search in is Crunchbang forum, which is full of good info. And it's friendly forum - there are NO kill-the-noob tendencies). OB files to look are: menu.xml, rc.xml, autostart;
additionally, you may want: tint2rc, conkyrc, compton.conf .
After fixing menus and confs according to new situation, I did final openbox --reconfigure, installed lxappearance, opened it (and also obconf) and gave my fresh 'desktop' a fast facelift. Then logout/login to see my Tint2 and Conky also finally appear (confs were copied earlier, as I said). Wallpaper was provided by Nitrogen. Compositor Compton was still uninstalled (but will be. And is now, too.).

Now couple of less essential things:
sudo apt-get install synaptic and then also the same to apt-xapian-index.
I meant to use Synaptic for installing numerous parts of alsa... but found this tutorial and installed from terminal. But - Synaptic will be useful anyway.
As it happened, after I also had installed mplayer+smplayer, I still had no sound - player was definitely playing, but nothing was heard. After some searching I found something that worked - for me at least. In terminal, type: alsactl init
And that was that - there was text that my card was found and blah-blah. And it was and it worked.

Voila! Simple Openbox 'desktop' on Wheezy installed and functioning. No crashes and broken bits... yet. Error-logs are virtually empty (which is quite mind-boggling).
And now it will take only thrice as much - or more - time to conf, clean, pimp and rearrange various bits and parts...
And moral here, children, is: It's easier to build your own custom install than, like bastard, try to rebuild readymade distro (sorry, Crunchbang). As an apology - After Vsido, Crunchbang is the ... well... now third - the second-best distro I have yet tried is now Slackware.
Edit (July 2013): I was quite perplexed of Iceweasel suddenly being 'upgradable' but upgrade was actually not possible... My solution: 'remove' icewesel' and install again. Did a trick, and conf remained. Edit ends
See also Jessie to Sid, Openboxed

Crunchbang #!

As already hinted, I was waiting for new Debian stable to install and try Crunchbang linux Waldorf and see if it fits to replace my openboxed Xubuntu as a bootloader-master.
So I did download 64bit version (twice, as first bittorrent download was rotten) and installed successfully from usb (win32imagewriter).
First thing I did, even before first login - went stright into console and installed smxi:

cd /usr/local/bin
wget -Nc smxi.org/smxi.zip
unzip smxi.zip
smxi

I did that because I am not yet so far-gone that I enjoy installing kernels and video drivers. Also, with smxi you can install inxi (systeminfo script), some non-free stuff and do your first system update stright away.
Crunchbang also has first-time install-script which offers to install some things for you. If you already did smxi-thing, then skip it. Otherways, it might be of use.

Desktop: Tint2 panel sits on top and Conky on right side of screen. Pleasantly, there is nothing else. Well, it's Openbox...
Nitrogen and Compton were of course installed (wallpapers and compositing).
Conky text blends so much with background color that it's almost unreadable. And I really don't like panels on top. So, there we go - onward with rape and pillage.

Copied conf files from my other distros, tweaked them slightly to fit with grey theme... Thought that retaining something from vanilla #! look is kinda nice and polite. :)
Installed Spacefm file manager - downloaded debs and huge pile of dependencies. Success. Killed promptly Thunar and its children. Heh-heh.
Installed medit (somehow I don't like Geany especially) and xfce4-terminal. Crunchbang has Terminator for terminal - which seems to be nice thing, but I am simply used to xfce one.
Uninstalled some apps, installed some. Customized the menu - added icons to first level, removed 'places', various 'install' pipemenus and 'edit conf' type links. There are whole pile of custom pipemenu and other scripts in /usr/bin, by the way (all start with cb-...).
According to very general item-wording and lotsa helpful links, the menu seems to be oriented to very beginners.

There are quite a lot processes preloaded and memory-use is not especially low. Not to mention that some things might be simply unneeded. So I started with serious clean-up - and started to have problems. Removed gnome network manager, and lost whole connection... Edited etc/network/interfaces file and got it back:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp 

Removed pulseaudio, installed alsa - and lost all sound. Pulse-things kept creeping out from somewhere despite manually removing various hiding leftovers... boot logs showed alsa loaded alright, but .xsession.errors showed that after that it wasnt alright at all.
Have to say - it's not the first time I remove pulseaudio and I never had such problems before. Or to put it simply, I don't know how I broke it this time.

Unfortunately, at some point I also managed to break something SO much that reboot hung on loading X. Killing process gave slim login screen... or killing it twice did... or not and it hung totally.
After a while I decided two things: That I obviously over-extended myself, and that in its vanilla form Crunchbang doesn't have anything over my Xubuntu. And also, Xubuntu did't break when I openboxed it and did other vicious things to it.
That said, make no mistake - I actually liked Crunchbang, and it's probably very nice distro for a not overly active beginner, or for pro who knows how not to break it. So, it's recommended.
Didn't fit to me, though... or maybe I didn't fit to it. 

Tip-heap, tweak-pile

Collected chaotic scraps and bits from dealings with Debian Sid - Vsido
Things not worth to blow into full post, but which can take (and took) unholy amount of time to dig out from crap-piles of Web.

# Spacefm uses icons from your current theme - and those doesn't have to be 100% of your liking. Icons can be changed through .config/spacefm/session file. It's a bit of detective work but doable (only icon name has to be used, as it is; no pngs, no addressing). NB! when saving your changed file, Spacefm has to be closed - or else it overwrites your changes (when you close it). To use different icons in groups doesn't seem to be possible - currently at least. But keep your eye on Igurus' doings anyway, development goes on.

# Tint2 - kinda shows workspaces... means it divides taskpanel to equal workspace-areas. I find it unconvinient. Thankfully there is pre-defined (Openbox) mouse-scroll-over-desktop for switching. At the same time - NB! I haven't tried it - I am quite sure it's possible to create launcher with xdotool exec with workspace-switcher keybind (same way as this here is done).
- Tasks - what I find marvelous is that task tabs are resizable (and colorable). Also, when using icon + text then the text will be broken to 2 lines AND resized to fit. Entirely cute!
- All in all - Tint2 seems to me optimal for OB. I tried some others and found them less fitting ..., but do check: fbpanel, lxpanel, xfce-panel, pypanel - to mention some.

# Conky - needs apps for getting temps and things: hddtemp and lm-sensors at least. Read wiki.
When you use OB super+d (show/hide desktop) and your Conky disappears (and you hate that), then change in .conkyrc:  own_window_type normal to
own_window_type override.

# Debian menu - the package 'menu', creates menu from all installed things. Can be inserted (IS inserted in fresh OB install) to OB menu. This <menu id="/Debian" /> has to be between menu start and end tags in menu.xml. And it has to be addressed in rc.xml: /var/lib/openbox/debian-menu.xml (just before the line of menu.xml). update-menus forces it to refresh. Debian menu is good source for building your new OB menu. Which will be refreshed by openbox --reconfigure, by the way.

# smxi etc - super scripts for easy-upgrading. Just to mention again: this funny colorful text that runs by HAS TO BE READ, or else quite horrid surprises might happen.
smxi and sgfxi auto-update every time you run them, inxi - the systeminfo one - needs to be updated manually: inxi -U.

# .bashrc has lines to define how title text of terminal window appears: xterm*|rxvt*)
PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"
In my single-user machine I found default myname@mymachine part totally obstructing and silly (especially when minimized to taskbar). So I removed it - you just need to delete those 6 symbols in PS1 line \u@\h:

# Unavoidable CLI - few basics only, but at least in one place:

# devices list
sudo fdisk -l

# check what definitions iptables have
sudo iptables -L

# install the deb pack you downloaded
sudo dpkg -i packagename.deb 

#update and upgrade everything
sudo apt-get update
 # want to check versions? 
 sudo apt-get install apt-show-versions
 sudo apt-show-versions -u 
# Install all updates
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
 # and clean it up
 sudo apt-get clean
 sudo apt-get autoclean 
 sudo apt-get autoremove

# hate some packages? delete their confs too?
sudo apt-get remove --purge hatedpackage

# wanna see some info of installed package?
sudo apt-cache policy packagename

# open console and start other session in parallel
#C+A+F1 to F6 opens console. 
# C+A+F7 to F12 shows sessions. F7 is first and current.
# (use startx or xinit = the same result)
# Openbox to C+A+F8 
startx openbox-session -- :1 
# Fluxbox to F9
xinit startfluxbox -- :2
# Xfce to F10
xinit startxfce4 -- :3 

# Security - read this EPIC work here. Quite educational.

# Fluxbox. Last downloaded Vsido ISO had Fluxbox as a default session. Also, there was pronounced 'I-love-fluxbox-even-more-than-you'-party going on in Vsido forum. That was kinda funny alright.
Now, the thing is not bad at all, easy to setup and such. It's simply that I personally haven't found yet how it's better than Openbox. So I don't use it (after initial play-around).
So, just to blab something:
- to start FB session from console, the magic word is startfluxbox.
- I got an impression that FB windows are resizable only by (bottom) handles, which I find ...er... restricting. I might be mistaken, of course.
- There is a file .fluxbox/overlay. Style parameters written there overcome everything what fluxbox themes have. An option to have certain things defined like default. So it's good to know about it - especially when puzzling over 'why the shit in theme doen't change when I bloody change it'.
- When using Spacefm as a file manager, I found it convenient to use it also as a desktop manager - in 'startup' file add ( spacefm --desktop ) &
Then Spacefm can start your wallpaper (and so replace Feh or Nitrogen) ... and if desktop icons are your 'thing' then you can add them too.

Add Openbox session to Xubuntu

Collected notes and Walkthrough - how I did it.
 
For help and info, excellent places are: Crunchbang forum and Openbox Wiki.

I already had configured / tweaked Xfce side of Xubuntu - so 'restricted extras', Icedtea etc were already installed, as were done other 'first things'.

In Xfce session, open your terminal and type:
sudo apt-get install openbox obconf
Logout and login to new Openbox session.
What you find is black, empty screen. It is like that - so fearlessly right-click on blackness, open terminal and continue:

sudo apt-get install menu
cp /var/lib/openbox/debian-menu.xml ~/.config/openbox/debian-menu.xml
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/menu.xml ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml
cp /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml
openbox --reconfigure
# previous part installed debian menu and copied all 
relevant menu files to your home.
# now, install also Openbox menu editor
sudo apt-get install obmenu

Take a look at your ./config/openbox/rc.xml - there are various parts of interest; like key and mouse bindings, general window conf and reference (a must) to menu.xml file. Investigate.
Then open up menu.xml - either in freshly installed obmenu or in editor. That's almost empty too! Right, it is - and you can proceed now in several ways:
1. Create new menu section from debian-menu (where things are distributed in most bizarre way). Re-arrange items to their proper places in the menu. It takes time..., --reconfigure often and take a look what happens - copy/paste errors are easy to come.
2. There are menu-related pipemenus in Openbox Wiki. Unfortunately I didn't install them but, maybe they are of help when creating your menu.
3. I took most of menu from my installed Vsido (tweaked already, of course, according to my installs/uninstalls), and pasted it into new menu.xml. Had to make some 10 corrections in items (no sweat). Also, I had 'iconified' whole Vsido menu before (2-3 hours of hard work), I really didn't want to do that again...
Syntacs for adding icons: item icon="/home/yourname/.icons/themename/apps/iconname.png" label="Appname".
Simply add your icon=absol.address into item tags. Easy, but yes, it takes time.

It's reasonable to pair your menu-building with installing - so you don't forget what you added.
1. Things to add what should have been already installed in Xfce (here are also things I personally like and install - question of choice):
synaptic, spacefm (a file manager better than Thunar, has to be taken from here), medit (an editor better than Leafpad), xfce4-terminal, xfce4-taskmanager, icedtea, bum (Bootup Manager, lets you add and remove early startup things), bleachbit (cleaner), gdebi-gtk (might be already installed out-of-box), gparted.
2. Install now: gtk-chtheme and/or lxappearance, update-alternatives, xxkb (how to here), volumeicon-alsa (if going for alsa).
Additionally: ipkungfu firewall (how to), maybe clamav+clamtk antivirus - to be in safe side with usb-s. Also - for more nerdy pro-look: htop. And for syncing and backups and creating your own distro: gsync, fsarchiver, remastersys (looong and complicated theme, do google).

When finished with menu - to great satisfaction and even greater relief, start with other bits of desktop: open ./config/openbox/autostart and start-up some more apps.
Install: tint2 (panel, if one doesn't want to use already present Xfce-panel), nitrogen (wallpaper manager), conky (fancy graphical systeminfo on desktop), compton (compositor). They all have manual config editing only, but there are lot of tutorials/help available.
Config files go: ./config/tint2/tint2rc, ./config/nitrogen/nitrogen.cfg (I think it was auto-created), .conkyrc, .compton.conf. It's probably best to find those files in web and then tweak them according to your fancy. I, again, ripped them from my Vsido installation.
Then you have to stick proper commands to autostart file. Here is one autostart which has almost all included - tweak and shape it according to your situation. Both Tint and Conky take -c parameter for pointing to conf file, like:
(sleep 1s && -c ~/.conkyrc_upleft) &
So you can make several conf files and switch between them.
Spacefm can be started as daemon (helps start speed, with mounting and unmounting and whatnot): spacefm -d. Or, it can be used as (minimal) desktop manager.
For Conky you probably have to install lm-sensors (terminal command is 'sensors', by the way).
Logout/login... ? Sure, everything looks good and somehow more presentable. That's it for first phaze.

Now, what else to install? Openbox themes, of course. Which are easily tweakable... gcolor2 helps to find new exciting colors. Crystalcursors? Suckless-tools to go for more nerdiness?
Or, more practically, wicd (network tool) and/or samba (network tool for linux+windows mixed)?

One more interesting thing to do. Let's make Main Menu to launch from Tints' Launchers and let's make sure that right click on desktop opens our whole menu.
Your rc.xml has to have, and sorry - I can't show xml here, whole thing goes crazy... :
keybind key="A-C-q" with menu-def root-menu.
And also mousebind action="Press" button="Right" with menu-def root-menu.
Now install: sudo apt-get install xdotool wmctrl
Create a folder ./config/tint2/.tint2launchers. Create launchers you want to appear in your Tint launcher there (copy them from your .local/share/applications). Only one that really has to be created is your menu.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Openbox Menu
Exec=xdotool key ctrl+alt+q
Icon=yourfavoritemenuicon.png
NoDisplay=false

Edit tint2rc file: there has to be 'L' in panel defs block (L=Launcher); and under Launchers block: launcher_apps_dir = /home/yourname/.config/tint2/
It's also possible to use a launcher-script for more 'docky' behaviour. 
And with the same method you can create missing 'show desktop' launcher-icon (exec=xdotool key super+d)

Additionally: Read about relations/fixes of Compton and multimedia. 
I tend to remove pulseaudio, and install alsa only. How to here. 

AND FINALLY: Logout and a bunch.
Fresh Openbox comes with Restart and Exit items at bottom of the Menu. The first one didn't work for me at all, the second one did (and it means 'logout', by the way). Missing, obviously, are Shutdown (and Suspend + Hibernate, if we talk of laptops).
I installed script called Oblogout, but also, only thing that worked was Logout. Then I copied 'vsido-exit' script from /usr/bin/ of my Vsido install. And it worked like charm. It's not fancy-looking and missing Hibernate, but it's OK with me. Abstractedly, in Xubuntu, you have to have a script that doesn't have bits like 'gdm' and 'hal' in it. 'dbus', of the contrary, is a desirable bit.

That's it. Except strange case of two apps persistently missing few icons, everything is mint for me.

Openbox and keyboard layout

How to define an additional keyboard layout? Simple - you go to keyboard settings and add it. Then you define a keyboard shortcut and add a panel widget. Done.
Alas, it's not always so simple. Like this or this. It might be that your 'locales'-change simply doesn't impress your desktop, OR that you are plain arrogant and using boxen (as opposed to well-established DE which have this nice-and easy 'keyboard settings' place).

So I was in Debian Sid and using Openbox ... I wanted to add Thai or Greece or Estonian or Ethiopian or Russian layout-option. By the way, while Greece is 'gr' and Russian is 'ru', it's Ethiopian that is 'et' and Estonian is 'ee'... and there are other abreviations which do not go by countries ISO-standard.
What I did (after reading ungodly amounts of google-trash):
... Edited those two files:

# /etc/default/keyboard 
#-----------
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us,th,gr,et,ee,ru"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS="grp:alt_shift_toggle" 
# (this adds classic Windows' alt+shift switch,
## And also in file /etc/X11/xorg.conf 
#------------
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us,th,gr,et,ee,ru"
Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle" 
EndSection

To work, those locales have to be installed, of course. Testing - open editor, type, switch keyboards, type...
If you want to have clickable switcher on panel, install systray app: fbxkb app didn't work for me (bug with US flag)... but I had no problems with xxkb app.
xxkb needs also config file in your home - .xxkbrc (and logout-login after creating it). Following worked for me:

XXkb.mainwindow.enable: yes
XXkb.mainwindow.appicon: no
XXkb.mainwindow.type: tray
XXkb.mainwindow.in_tray: yes
XXkb.mainwindow.geometry: 16x16+0+0
XXkb.mainwindow.border.color: white
XXkb.mainwindow.border.width: 1 
XXkb.mainwindow.label.enable: yes
XXkb.mainwindow.label.text.1: US
XXkb.mainwindow.label.text.2: FR
XXkb.mainwindow.label.background: 
XXkb.mainwindow.label.foreground: white
XXkb.mainwindow.label.font: -misc-*-r-*-13-*
XXkb.controls.two_state: no
XXkb.group.base: 1
XXkb.group.alt: 2
XXkb.button.enable: no
XXkb.bell.enable: no 

And it's, of course, convinient to have xxkb in autostart (I put it as the last entry):
(sleep 3s && xxkb) & 

Bug: Every similar shortcut will be fucked by xorg when you are using locale-shortcut. Means, anything longer (than, in this case, alt+shift) that uses the same combination, does not work. The bug has been up 5 years at least ...

Not wanting a hassle of file-hacking and setting up a switcher? You can type in terminal:
setxkbmap -rules xorg -model pc105 -layout "us,gr,ru" -option "grp:alt_shift_toggle"
You will have shortcut-switch for this session - and it works too.
If above-written didn't work OR you want to go deep: Google. There are piles of reading about this. Quaranteed to drive you at least slightly crazy.