Switching from Openbox to IceWM
Bye-bye Openbox, welcome IceWM.
Due to the recent upgrade of glib2 on Arch Linux, it crashes my Openbox when I am running Wine or Proton. Downgrade to 2.74.6 is not a solution, because Nemo, Caja, Nautilus are using 2.76.0.
As a result, I have to find an alternative. From Wikipedia, I found that LXDE can be configured with other window manager rather than Openbox, eg Fluxbox, IceWM, or Xfwm.
I tried Xfwm, but it fails to run. Probably needs extra configuration, but I didn’t continue trying. I tried Fluxbox long time ago, can’t remember the feature. Then I found that, compare to Openbox, IceWM is still in development. Hence I decided to try IceWM.
After installation, I just need to configure it so that it resembles Openbox behaviour, especially the shortcut keys.
The following is the list of prominent configuration I did:
-
Install
dexto start XDG autostart applications -
Use
shutdownscript topkill -u myusername, so that all the processes will be stopped/killed when I logout -
Hide the taskbar (
ShowTaskBar=0), because I usetint2 -
Use
prefoverrideto replace the default background image. Though, I am still usingfehscript to show random wallpapers -
Window related shortcut keys are edited in
preferencesfile; launching application shortcut keys are edited inkeysfile
For shortcut key to toggle a window as always on top, it requires editing keys file with the following line,
key "Alt+F12" sh -c 'if icesh -f getLayer | grep -q 'OnTop' ; then icesh -f setLayer Normal ; else icesh -f setLayer OnTop ; fi'
Note: Make sure the key such as “Alt+F12” has no conflict in preferences file. If it exists, just empty the value in the preferences file.
Some limitations I faced:
-
I cannot use Numix theme anymore
-
Alt+Ctrl+Del (system dialog) has a strange behaviour if I cancel it. I can’t type on any window after cancel, unless I switch the workspace.
As a conclusion, I just need to adapt to this new window manager. Bye-bye Openbox.