For the past few weeks I’ve been exploring the use of NetBSD as a desktop OS. If the X sets are chosen during install, NetBSD includes an X server and the lightweight CTWM window manager integrated into its base system. There is, however, another window manager I’ve long had a soft spot for, and that is Openbox. Its very bare bones to start with, but its an excellent foundation for crafting a desktop just the way I like it! Most of the details below are equally applicable to setting up Openbox on Linux or the other BSDs. Only the OS-specific configuration details and perhaps some of the package names will differ. Installation Launch Configuration Desktop Components Appearance Resources Installation Install the window manager: doas pkgin install openbox Extra desktop components: doas pkgin install alacritty dbus dunst feh firefox i3lock lxappearance obconf picom rofi scrot viewnior Theming: doas pkgin install gnome-themes-standard gtk2-engines-murrine adwaita-icon-theme papirus-icon-theme xcursor-themes Fonts: doas pkgin install dejavu-ttf ibm-plex-ttf liberation-ttf noto-fonts noto-cjk-fonts noto-emoji-ttfLaunch Copy the system xinitrc file to the user’s home directory: cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc ; chmod 600 ~/.xinitrc Comment out the ctwm entry and add openbox: #exec ctwm -W exec openbox Save changes and exit. Run startx(1) to launch the window manager: startx Behold in all its glory! Now let’s tweak this glorious blank canvas. 😺 Configuration Openbox Copy the default configuration files to the user’s home directory: cp -av /usr/pkg/etc/xdg/openbox ~/ The bulk of the configuration is contained in two files: rc.xml and menu.xml. rc.xml Using my own rc.xml as an example: DESKTOPS: I create 5 desktops for my work environment. KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS: These are custom key combinations that perform a range of actions: switch desktops and windows, move windows between desktops, tile windows, toggle window maximization and decorations, display menus, exit/reboot/shutdown system. APPLICATION SETTINGS: Configure certain applications and types of windows to behave a certain way: open on specified desktops, always launch maximized, toggle window decorations, etc. NOTE To find the class and name parameters for the entries, see: Application parameters menu.xml Openbox includes a menu that appears upon a right-click on an empty desktop area or by a keyboard shortcut set in rc.xml. Additional files: autostart Actions and applications to be launched when starting Openbox are included in this file. I tend to only place Openbox-specific entries in this file, with everything else going in ~/.xinitrc. environment Set user-specific environment variables. I don’t use this file. All these settings are configured elsewhere in the system. Auto-start X Upon login on the first console, I configure ~/.profile to auto-start an X session. Upon exit, the user is logged out of the console: if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [ "$(tty)" = "/dev/constty" ]; then exec startx > "$HOME/.xlog" 2>&1 fiExit/Reboot/Shutdown Requisite commands are placed in menu.xml: <item label="Exit"> <action name="Exit"><prompt>no</prompt></action> </item> <item label="Reboot"> <action name="Execute"> <command>shutdown -r now</command> </action> </item> <item label="Shutdown"> <action name="Execute"> <command>shutdown -p now</command> </action> </item>Desktop Components These are some of the components I like to use to craft my personal desktop experience. System messaging: D-Bus The best practice for modern desktop applications is to use both a system-wide D-Bus service and a per-user session bus. To enable the system bus: doas cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/dbus /etc/rc.d/ echo "dbus=YES" | doas tee -a /etc/rc.conf doas service dbus start To start the session bus when Openbox runs, modify ~/.xinitrc: #exec openbox exec dbus-run-session -- openbox-sessionApplication launcher: rofi To search for and run applications I use rofi(1), a dynamic menu utility. I set a keyboard shortcut Super + Spacebar that opens a horizontal menubar across the top of the display and, as I type the name of the application, the menu zooms in on matching names. The most frequently-used applications move to the beginning of the list for quick access. Menu behaviour and appearance can be modified by creating the ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi file. Desktop background: feh Image viewer feh(1) is used to display a background image: feh --bg-scale /path/to/your/background/image.jpg Once an image is set, feh stores the details in ~/.fehbg. Add an entry to .xinitrc to restore the background on next launch: sleep 1; $HOME/.fehbg & NOTE Add sleep 1; to avoid Openbox overwriting the image at launch with a solid colour background. Desktop panel: none Openbox does not have a built-in desktop panel, and currently I haven’t felt the need to add one. Openbox does include a window/desktop menu, which I set to display with the keyboard shortcut Super + Shift + Spacebar. In the past, when I did use a desktop panel with Openbox, I was happy with tint2(1). Clock: clock-rs A clock is usually included in a desktop panel, but I’m not using a panel on Openbox. I wanted a clock that would pop up on demand using a key combo, and liked the chunky font look of clock-rs. Notifications: dunst A nice lightweight notification daemon for desktop events is dunst(1). Copy the default configuration to your home directory: cp -av /usr/pkg/share/dunst ~/.config/ To configure ~/.config/dunst/dunstrc see dunst(5) for options. Add entry to ~/.xinitrc: dunst -config $HOME/.config/dunst/dunstrc &Terminal: alacritty Upon startx I automatically launch this terminal by adding to ~/.xinitrc: alacritty &Screenshots: scrot, viewnior Screenshots are captured using scrot(1) and the resulting image is displayed using viewnior(1). In menu.xml I created a custom Screenshots sub-menu to capture various types of screenshot, save the captured image to ~/image/screenshot, and display the image. Screen lock: i3lock I created a script that uses i3lock to lock the screen, which I’ve set to use keyboard shortcut Super + l to activate. Suspend/Resume Determine which type of sleep states our hardware supports: sysctl hw.acpi.sleep.states Run this command with these options to check if the S3 suspend state works correctly: doas sysctl -w hw.acpi.sleep.state=3 & I created a script that locks the screen and suspends the device, and a keyboard shortcut Super + z to execute the script. NOTE I don’t use the “suspend on lid closure” action. I’m paranoid about failing to notice that the device might have failed to properly suspend and it subsequently overheats in my bag. Regardless, opening the lid will wake up the (locked) machine. Appearance While “pleasing to the eye” is relative, I prefer a darker theme and I’m happy with the combination of fonts, icons, and colours outlined below. Fonts I use the IBM Plex Mono font for the Openbox menus and window bar titles. Verify that these fonts are recognized and available for use by using fc-match(1): $ fc-match "IBM Plex Mono" IBMPlexMono-Regular.ttf: "IBM Plex Mono" "Regular"Openbox theme Create: mkdir ~/.themes Download the Nordic Openbox theme, and copy theme to ~/.themes/Nordic-Openbox. Launch the obconf configuration tool. Set Theme to Nordic-Openbox. NOTE I modified the Nordic-Openbox themerc file to change the titlebar backgrounds to #000000. GTK theme I like the Nordic theme. Download and install in ~/.themes/Nordic. Launch the lxappearance theme editor. Set the GTK Widget theme to Nordic and Icon Theme to Papirus-Dark. Click Apply then Close. Xcursor On my system I found the default cursor size to be quite small. I want to use the Adwaita cursor (previously installed with adwaita-icon-theme) and a larger size. Cursor icons are located at /usr/pkg/share/icons/Adwaita/cursors. Create: mkdir -p ~/.icons/default ln -s /usr/pkg/share/icons/Adwaita/cursors ~/.icons/default/cursors Add to ~/.config/openbox/autostart: export XCURSOR_THEME="~/.icons/default/cursors" Add to .Xresources: Xcursor.size: 32Finish Grey begone! Resources My configuration files: openbox alacritty dunst rofi .profile .xinitrc .Xresources My scripts: tictoc x11_lock x11_suspend Openbox Documentation NetBSD Guide: Other window managers or desktop environments FreeBSD Desktop series by vermaden: Configuration - Openbox You can like, share, or comment on this post on the Fediverse 💬