Installation of Openbox on Debian¶
Introduction¶
These are my notes about the installation and configuration of Openbox on Debian GNU/Linux. Openbox is a window manager which provides a minimalist environment, that is a configurable “root menu” you open with a right click on the background and configurable key bindings.
I’m doing this installation just after the Debian base installation.
Installation¶
I install X.Org X Window System and Openbox with the following command (as root):
apt-get install xorg openbox menu # As root.
Then (and assuming that the /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config file contains the line
allowed_users=console or allowed_users=anybody) an unprivileged user
can start Openbox from the console with:
startx
A right mouse click opens the Openbox root-menu. From there you can launch a terminal.
If the keyboard layout is wrong, try rebooting.
At this point, I install and tweak the applications I want on the system. Then I proceed with the configuration of the Openbox environment and that’s what is described in the rest of this page.
Addition of a RDP server (for a remote machine)¶
On a remote machine with no physical access, I use the Remote Desktop Protocol
(RDP) to work in
Openbox. I did the installation just like I would have done for a desktop
machine (same apt-get install command as in the previous section), and
installed a display manager (LightDM) as well as a RDP server (xrdp):
apt-get install lightdm xrdp # As root.
Package ssl-cert gets installed as well (it’s a dependency of xrdp) and
the installation of ssl-cert causes the creation of a self-signed
certificate stored at /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
(/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key for the private key). It is
necessary to add user xrdp to group ssl-cert. Without that, xrdp is not
able to read the certificate, using the following command (as root):
adduser xrdp ssl-cert # As root.
When you need to regenerate the certificate, use a command like the follwing one (as root):
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 \
-keyout /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key \
-out /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem \
-sha256 -days 365 -nodes # As root.
Then I restarted the server and was able to open an Openbox session on the
remote machine from my local desktop machine using a xfreerdp command like
the following one:
xfreerdp +glyph-cache /relax-order-checks \
/u:<my_user_name_on_the_remote_machine> \
/v:<remote_machine_address> \
/kbd:0x40c /f
I use the /kbd:0x40c option becasue I have a french keyboard on my local
machine and the /f option to start xfreerdp full screen. Toggling the
full screen state is possible with Ctrl+Alt+Enter.
On a Debian GNU/Linux system, the xfreerdp executable is provided by the
freerdp2-x11 package.
Note that on the remote machine, the /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config file contains
the line allowed_users=rootonly.
Let’s also mention that there is no login shell involved when opening a session
with xfreerdp. It implies that the logname command does not output your
user name but outputs “logname: no login name” instead, and your ~/.profile
file is not sourced. But ~/.xsessionrc is sourced.
Thunar for file, archive and removable media management¶
By installing Thunar and its extension for volumes management (thunar-volman), you get a graphical file manager with the ability to mount removable medias. With thunar-archive-plugin you also get the ability to easily open and create archives. Do the installation (as root) with:
apt-get install thunar thunar-archive-plugin thunar-volman # As root.
Follow the link for instructions about how to enable and configure the volume management.
Requiring confirmation before exiting¶
I want to be prompted for confirmation when exiting Openbox via the root-menu.
The same when shuting down the system or rebooting. I could obtain that with
entries like the following in ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml:
Theme and wallpaper¶
I launch obconf from a terminal window and choose the Syscrash theme:
obconf &
for the wallpaper, I install feh as root:
apt-get install feh # As root.
Then I “install” the wallpaper with commands like:
feh --bg-fill path/to/image.jpg # See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/feh
echo "~/.fehbg &" >> ~/.config/openbox/autostart
Turning NumLock on on Openbox startup¶
You can install numlockx (as root) with:
apt-get install numlockx # As root.
Adding the command numlockx on & to ~/.config/openbox/autostart ensures
that numlockx turns on NumLock on Openbox startup:
echo "numlockx on &" >> ~/.config/openbox/autostart
Binding Super-E to Thunar¶
When working on Windows at the office, I usually open the file manager with the
Windows-E (a.k.a.
Super-E)
keyboard shortcut. I want the same on Openbox. I have added something like the
following in my ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml:
Undecorating and/or maximizing windows¶
I want that Firefox, Claws Mail and xterm open with Window maximized. I also want the xterm window to be undecorated (to get rid of the title bar).
I could achieve that by adding something like the following in my
~/.config/openbox/rc.xml:
Note the <application type="dialog"> markup for dialog boxes. It prevents
the dialog boxes from being maximized.
Benefiting from Vim clipboard feature¶
Even if using Vim only in a terminal and not as a graphical application, it is
useful to install the vim-gtk3 package instead of just the vim package,
to benefit from the clipboard feature:
apt-get install vim-gtk3 # As root.
Follow the link for an interesting discussion on that topic on vi.stackexchange.com.
