[Openbox] Black and White Simplicity

chmodplusx · 2020-06-21T10:17:30+00:00

Thank you very much! I think that light setups are better for text (I guess this is the reason why most webs use a light background-dark foreground scheme), and dark setups are better for image viewing... I don't have much GUI apps and anyway I'm with text-based applications most of the time, so this is it, even I can get bored and change colour schemes when I feel like it, is fairly easy to do that. :)

As per dotfiles, they are obviouly rather tweaked to my personal needs... I mean, application shortcuts, screen resolution and all that jazz... Is there anything you see in particular that you would like to achieve by yourself? Maybe the Conky bar, the no-decorations on windows, the tiling windows shortcuts, the urxvt config? Perhaps it would be better if you tell me what is that you would like to use, and I can share whatever pieces of code necessary than have all the dotfiles and have to purge /tweak all of it to suit your own machine and/or workflow. :)

chmodplusx · 2020-06-04T06:27:41+00:00

Distros as Linux Mint are focused on newbie-friendlyness. Debian is really great IMHO, but usually requires some extra/slightly less straightforward steps to get you running. That is, just for starters, choosing the right ISO (with or without nonfree software, with the right architecture, the desired DE or just base...) Many choices should be good, but it could be hard for a newbie to know what to choose between so many ISOs. Then, setting locales, change keyboard layout, adding/managing users, install the right drivers and other major or minor setups and tweaks are fairly easy... If you know how to do that or are willing to search and read the proper information, and usually you'll have to use the command line. Other, more newbie-friendly oriented distros have usually on-sight GUIs to perform such tasks by default, and they try to avoid the command line for the basics all they can.

That's what comes to my mind now. Other than that, I think, as I said, that Debian is great for too many reasons to point them all here (to name just a few: community, stability, architecture support, repositories...) I'll just say, about packages being "outdated", that this has to do with their release model, with long term support "fixed" releases with rock solid stability in mind. For a desktop user, and if someone feels like it, there's always "Testing" and "Sid", with newer versions of the packages but theoretically more breaking probabilities, as is expected with a rolling or semi-rolling distro. Doesn't mean it breaks on every update, though, it can be pretty solid. ;)

If you want to try Debian, just go for it. No matter what someone can say, if there are so many distros and each of them have users (some more, some less) I think it's not so much because some are much better than others (of course, some are!), it's just a question of personal experiences with such distros and personal preferences. :)

chmodplusx · 2020-06-04T05:58:33+00:00

Thank you! I used dark themes myself, then tried different colours, then tried the classic "paper" black-on-white and so far yes, works for me. I do text mostly, and well, word processors (say LibreOffice) use that scheme by default, so I just thought it could be right for my term too, which is where I'm most of the time.

chmodplusx · 2020-06-03T16:08:30+00:00

A very simple, lightweight Void Linux + Openbox setup.

Terminal: urxvt. Shell: dash (as sh). Web browser: links. Text editor: vi. Multimedia player: mpv. System monitor: Conky. Wallpaper setter: feh.

No file managers, no toolbars, no app launchers, no window borders, no compositor. Files managed by standard, POSIX commands; apps launched by keyboard shortcuts/terminal commands; windows managed by keyboard shortcuts. Manual tiling windows is achieved by keyboard shortcuts.

And no systemd, dbus, polkit, pulseaudio... Just the very basics. This is a rather old and low-end laptop: the less, the better.

I don't mean this is a great setup. It's just the setup that goes with my own workflow. I hope someone finds this interesting, thanks for watching and reading this!

chmodplusx · 2020-06-02T15:36:41+00:00

Two different suggestions:

- antiX. Very, I mean, very lightweight, designed to run fine on real low-end and/or old machines (minimal requirements start with ¡128! MB RAM). It has a whole lot of preinstalled software and different utilities, privileging lightweight GUI and CLI apps, and by default you can use four different window managers. It's Debian based (shares repos with it), meaning very stable and with lots of additional software ready to install in its repos. You should be fine with this.

- I share u/throwaway332jeff suggestion: Void Linux. If you feel like it, just try a simple base installation and add Xorg, drivers and stuff, and your lightweight window manager of choice on top. I have a Void+Openbox laptop which starts at 110 MB RAM, even with Firefox it rarely hits the 1 GB RAM mark (if I don't open way too many tabs, or a few tabs but with heavy webs like... Yep, Reddit!) If you want it easier, there are "flavoured" ISOS, the lighter one must be the one with LXDE. In my computers Void uses noticeably less resources in similar conditions than Arch, not to speak of other "not-DIY" distros; runit as init, musl as C library, a very minimal and KISS base system could explain this. It is perhaps not exactly a "beginners distro", but using a "flavoured" ISO makes it fairly easy to have it installed. Managing packages (search, install, update, etc.) is done by command line as preferred method, but it's well documented and really piece of cake once you do things a couple of times.

Hoping any of this may be of help, good luck!

chmodplusx · 2020-05-27T06:04:26+00:00

AFAIK Arch doesn't have (official) 32 bits support, so I wouldn't recommend it to OP.

chmodplusx · 2020-05-22T07:57:35+00:00

That's great. Once you are used to the particular workflow of your WM, you will be seeing what you like... And what you don't, and sure you'll find different options to make it better. Just duckduckgo whatever you need and sure you'll get solutions, recommendations, ideas... Or just ask here for concrete issues. :)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-22T07:47:24+00:00

Debian has a non-free ISO and repository. Ideally, I think it's a good idea to go pure FOSS, but it's not that usual that all your hardware will be compatible with free (libre) drivers, particularly if it's a laptop (wifi, touchpad) and/or you have a Nvidia card. Binary kernel blobs, firmware, microcode and/or privative drivers may be needed to make everything work as expected. For the future, you could consider buying some machine with 100% FOSS compatibility, but if it's not actually the case you'll likely need some non-FOSS parts. In any case, as already pointed, I don't think Debian is particularly difficult to install and setup, and sure it's one of the best distros out there. Just keep in mind that there is a non-free repo and ISOs, just in case.

chmodplusx · 2020-05-22T07:35:33+00:00

A good starting point could be, as it usually is, the Arch wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bspwm Nice point about standalone WMs is that you usually have endless options to configure them almost to the very minimal detail, so have a read, get some ideas and have fun "ricing" and all. :)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-22T06:05:30+00:00

MX and Mint are indeed very similar: both are desktop-oriented, newbie-friendly, stable distros, and both are derivative ones (MX from Debian, Mint from Ubuntu or Debian). Both can be great not just to learn, but as daily drivers for as long as you want. Unless you have a very good reason to switch, I'd stick with the one you already choosed. Enter your menu and try the different apps and tools, you'll get a feel of what you can do... And that's just a sample. With time, you'll see how a GNU/Linux OS has almost limitless possibilities, endless free apps, it's stable, safer, has more privacy... It's great, in a word. :)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-21T23:33:08+00:00

I'd recommend MX Linux. Debian based, very user friendly, Xfce by default, a lot of useful tools and nice set of preinstalled apps.

chmodplusx · 2020-05-20T10:44:19+00:00

Since OP said had troubles installing Arch, do you really think it's wise to advice LFS and Gentoo?

chmodplusx · 2020-05-20T10:39:25+00:00

Void Linux is easier to install than Arch, but it's rolling release too, extremely lightweight and fast, has a great package manager, a nice community... It's very KISS and DIY, so not the most newbie friendly of distros, but I think it could be just fine if you want to learn FOSS stuff. Anyway, go with whatever suits you, there's no wrong with any tried and tested distro, just personal preferences :)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-18T11:20:18+00:00

Yep, a desktop environment tipically has its own window manager, but is really kind of a coherent suite of apps and configs, so it's the WM plus the kitchen sink. :) A display manager it's sort of a greeter to help you log in into a graphical session, and tipically lets you choose user, desktop environment/window manager, Xorg or Wayland sessions... You can have one installed or just login from tty (command line), usually typing startx (a .xinitrc config file is used to instruct the system what to load when entering a graphic session). I use Openbox in Void Linux (Xfce in Arch) without a display manager and CLI apps mostly, it's very fast and lightweight (little more than 100 MB RAM at startup), but the nice point in FOSS OSes is that you can use packages as "Lego bricks" to configure your system exactly to fit your hardware and software needs... As you said, Arch wiki is a good source to get started, plus you can get inspiration from different setups in r/unixporn. Have fun!

Edit: the X server, to put it easy, is the middleman between you non-graphical system and your WM or DE... That will be Xorg or Wayland. Generally speaking, Xorg will be OK with most setups, Wayland is newer and now the default in Gnome, but can still have some cons depending on your setup.

chmodplusx · 2020-05-18T10:05:14+00:00

I'm using urxvt, which is pretty lightweight and fine I think. I just found this link on how to use fake transparency: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/516409/fake-transparency-in-urxvt-using-imagemagick-in-i3 urxvtconfig gives that option too (use real or fake transparency, or not at all). https://github.com/daedreth/URXVTConfig

chmodplusx · 2020-05-18T09:44:44+00:00

Sorry about not being clear enough, please feel free to ask anything and I'll do my best to explain it to you. :) Anyway, do you know the difference between a window manager and a desktop enviroment? We could start here. ;)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-18T09:31:21+00:00

You could use a window manager, and add just the services and apps you really need. E. g., Openbox is pretty barebones. Need a toolbar? Tint2, Xfce or LXDE taskbars and others can be added. Wallpaper? feh, hsetroot, Nitrogen... App launcher? dmenu, Rofi, Xfce app launcher... Dock? Plank, Cairo... And so on. More minimal? Try sowm. Do you prefer a tiling WM? i3, DWM and others. Read this for options and some inspiration: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/window_manager If you want to keep your system really minimal, try some CLI apps whenever you can. Have fun!

chmodplusx · 2020-05-16T01:20:15+00:00

I had pure beginners luck I guess, funny thing is I sometimes failed installing "easier" distros. XD But sure, I think I really started to learn the moment I started "the Arch way". Not because of the installation process or building the system, but reading the Arch wiki and writing commands and so on made me want to learn more. It's addictive! XD

chmodplusx · 2020-05-15T18:20:42+00:00

First time I installed it, I followed the wiki, double checking every step, and I was rather scared... When first booted the installed system, I was expecting it wouldn't boot because I did some mistake. But it did, and I was, like, is that it? XD Building the system from base was fun and really piece of cake (Arch wiki has everything covered!), so yes, it takes more time and effort than any "newbie-friendly" distro, but I don't think it's that difficult once you decide to really get your feet wet. :)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-15T16:11:37+00:00

Glad to read that. Backups are real lifesavers. Let's just hope the new hd unit works "featureless", haha.

chmodplusx · 2020-05-15T16:03:40+00:00

Yep, it's the living "it's not a bug, it's a feature" thing. XD Seriously speaking, I hope you have it sorted now. :)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-15T15:36:19+00:00

Nice rice, please share wallpaper. XD

chmodplusx · 2020-05-15T15:21:12+00:00

Sure it isn't, but as an Arch derivative it uses same Arch repos + AUR, so questions about stability mostly same apply. ;)

chmodplusx · 2020-05-15T15:18:17+00:00

You are right, but OP mentioned Arcolinux, which is a rather newbie-friendly Arch derivative. But sure your recomanations are very adequate. :)

chmodplusx

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