OpenBox, a couple of items

[Yankee]

Hi,

Checking around in OpenBox Bonsai lately to see how it works.  Seems very
adequate and workable, probably just need to add hplib and alsaconf.

But, when I configure my Wifi the green Wifi status icon does not appear in the
system tray.    The tray is added to the panel, doesn't appear, and the Wifi
icon is the only thing that should be in there.

When I look at Hitop it says I have a ramzswap0 area of 250mb.   I also see this
when I run "fsarchiver probe simple" as root.   I have no idea where this came from.
Ram is 1gb, no swap on any partition.

So, I don't know. 

FYI,

Patrick013

[melodie]

Hi Patrick,

For the wifi icon, uncomment the file ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh : at the line net_applet, then it will appear. I had commented it on purpose, because one of the persons testing (gseaman maybe ?) had noticed that it was using some resource on one of his smallest configurations. While you are in the autostart.sh file, you might want to read through all the comments that are in this file.

For ramzswap, it's a special item that I had someone configure for me : it takes advantage of the ramzswap module which is integrated in the kernel, and creates a block device in ram. If you don't want it, it's easy to deactivate.

With the next kernel, there will be a change, (2.6.37.pclos1), that I am already experimenting daily on my own system, but I will tell the people about it where this kernel will be out of testing and currently available. Or once you will have found out where and how it is configured in Bonsai, you may want to discover it already running, in PCLinuxOS Education RC3.

To know more about Openbox Bonsai, and about it's ramzswap0 device, I recommand the reading of a full presentation I did, in English, and in French, and which took me some time to do: PCLinuxOS Bonsai -en- (the link has been given by Texstar on the Openbox page too : OpenBox Desktop)

Regards,
Mélodie

[caieng]

Thank you for the link, Melodie. 

I noticed that your configuration includes three different components to handle music, streaming audio being my own particular interest....

You have included, according to the link,
audacious,
mplayer,
smplayer

May I inquire why you have chosen those three, rather than VLC?

I am using PCLinuxOS LXDE, and am very happy with it, but, I must download VLC for LXDE to work as I wish:  to receive streaming audio from any one of the three non-proprietary formats:  mp3, aac+, ogg.  Clementine and mplayer just sit there, I never use them.

I am dissatisfied now, only with the relatively slow performance of LXDE, and hoping to find some way to speed things up, so I am reading about your open box, thinking that it may be faster than LXDE.
Here are some times, in seconds:
..............................boot....browser...........start......invoke VLC....shutdown
win98.......................70......SeaMonkey..........2.............9..............5
PCLinuxOS LXDE .........85......FireFox...............7.............9..............15
a different Linux..........70......Konqueror...........10............6..............10

My guess is, there probably is some easy way to strip away many of the tasks/processes which PCLinuxOS LXDE is loading now, including those two players, Clementine and mplayer, which I never use, but I simply lack knowledge of how to go about removing unwanted tasks/processes.  For example, my LXDE comes with a whole suite of office applications, which I never use.  I strictly play music, and therefore seek a way to place PCLinuxOS on a diet, to shed a few kilos......

In your reply to Patrick, above, you reference a file, suggesting that he uncomment a file.  Would I be able to find a similar solution to reduce the size of PCLinuxOS LXDE, or is it better to switch to your version, and work with OpenBox?  Either way, I will need to learn how to remove tasks currently running, both during boot up and shutdown.  As I examine that list of applications running with OpenBox, I see at least half of them, which would need to be eliminated, starting with abiword, going down to XChat, and lots in between.

Are there some configuration files which could be commented/uncommented to accomplish the elimination, without wrecking the underlying OS?

Thanks for your help....

CAI ENG

[melodie]

Hi Caieng,

You ask many questions at same time and you might break your system before long if you touch things you don't know about. In any of the versions provided, be it Kde, Xfce, Lxde, and so on : do not touch the services (that's where the tasks are located) before at least one year, and even then install a test distribution, and deactivate only one service at a time, have a session, a reboot, a new session, and wait to see what you have changed, if nothing wrong happens. All the people who did the versions took care of activating just what is needed and not more, in order to have everything working on most machines.

The Openbox Bonsai is the smallest, and was the lightest just after Lxde and Zen gnome mini, until Hootiegibbon started a new project : wmii might be even faster ! But it's not really for beginners, I think.(tiling windows... I don't know much about it yet, but you might have fun giving it a try, as live at least for a start)

What makes Openbox Bonsai a bit faster than Lxde, is that there is no desktop manager at all in it. What makes wmii faster, is the wmii program it'self, and probably some tricks Hootiegibbon added thanks to his knowledge (I think... you might want to ask him).

Browser : Hootie brought in Jumanji, that I installed and use more and more. It's so much faster than any other ! Even Midori is not as fast. You have to learn a few shortcuts.

For the learning curve, start with learning about package manager (all about installing, uninstalling and updating your applications and system, and about PCLinuxOS Control Center (all about configuring the base system), see this old document (still good) here:
http://melodie.tyruiop.org/DocuPCLinuxOS/Documentation/aide-integree/premiers-pas/en/firststeps.html

newer howto's here:
http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-pclinuxos-2010-kde

it show Kde, but you will adapt the diverse parts...

then for lots of good readings, you will enjoy diving into the PCLinuxOS Mag collection:
http://pclosmag.com

Thanks to Parnote, the Chief on board, and the team of people helping him.

PS: forgot about VLC. I found that smplayer had a nice look, and was playing audio cd's without problem. And at that moment it seemed to me that the depends were a bit less numerous. But I might change for future versions. And for just audio, I switched to DeadBeef, after Leiche had talked about it. It's really the lightest !

In the "personalized configurations" in rc.xml, you can change whatever suits better your needs, remove some, modify add... It's all there to ease the start, when a beginner tries Openbox standalone for the first time (Lxde too uses Openbox, but with a full desktop manager).

[caieng]

PS: forgot about VLC. I found that smplayer had a nice look, and was playing audio cd's without problem. And at that moment it seemed to me that the depends were a bit less numerous. But I might change for future versions. And for just audio, I switched to DeadBeef, after Leiche had talked about it. It's really the lightest !

Thanks Melodie.

have you tried listening to streaming audio?  Lightest doesn't help much if it can't do the job.  I use Konqueror, though it is so large, because it works!!!

I will try Jumanji, but, I must tell you that I failed with midori, because it is "too light", i.e. it lacks an important feature, crucial in fact, for my application:  internet radio.
I require a browser, like Firefox, or Opera, or, SeaMonkey, which "remembers" when the user clicks on a particular icon, representing a specific station, that this downloaded information is supposed to be funneled over to VLC, rather than sent to a word processor.  Midori cannot perform that simple task.  It asks the user EVERY time, whether or not, the user wishes to send this information to VLC.....It is brain dead.

I will look at the PCLinuxOS magazine, but, it would have been convenient, for the user, if the OS had a couple of switches that were obvious, to permit the user to signal "shutdown", whenever the user clicks on "stop", whereas, at present, the user must answer a couple of more questions, in order to power off the computer, each time, reassuring the OS that yes, indeed, the user does want to turn off his/her computer.  I like things simple.  I dislike unnecessary steps.  Compelling the user to repeat himself, every time he wants to do something, is annoying.  It is just like the desktop:  Clicking on an icon once accomplishes nothing.  For me, I stopped using two clicks on the desktop, more than thirty years ago, once the mouse acquired TWO buttons, instead of only one, as it possessed originally.  Linux is in a time warp, insisting that the user click twice, as if we were living in 1981.

Thanks again for your help, much appreciated.....

CAI ENG

[melodie]

PS: forgot about VLC. I found that smplayer had a nice look, and was playing audio cd's without problem. And at that moment it seemed to me that the depends were a bit less numerous. But I might change for future versions. And for just audio, I switched to DeadBeef, after Leiche had talked about it. It's really the lightest !

Thanks Melodie.

have you tried listening to streaming audio?  Lightest doesn't help much if it can't do the job.  I use Konqueror, though it is so large, because it works!!!

I listen to Radio Swiss Pop each day. I get a mp3.m3u file 128 MB capable : http://www.radioswisspop.ch/live/mp3.m3u and add it in the audio reader. Then I click on play. Wao ! That does NOT work !

Zut ! I forgot to put the speaker on !

I will try Jumanji, but, I must tell you that I failed with midori, because it is "too light", i.e. it lacks an important feature, crucial in fact, for my application:  internet radio.

I use Firefox, and when Firefox fails on a web page, or doesn't display it nicely or fast enough I start Jumanji. As simple as that.

I require a browser, like Firefox, or Opera, or, SeaMonkey, which "remembers" when the user clicks on a particular icon, representing a specific station, that this downloaded information is supposed to be funneled over to VLC, rather than sent to a word processor.  Midori cannot perform that simple task.  It asks the user EVERY time, whether or not, the user wishes to send this information to VLC.....It is brain dead.

This is generally easy to solve. You need to change the default file association : Right-click on a file > Open with > Other > choose an application and before clicking on "Ok", tick the little field where it says something looking very much to "always choose this program to open this kind of file".

I will look at the PCLinuxOS magazine, but, it would have been convenient, for the user, if the OS had a couple of switches that were obvious, to permit the user to signal "shutdown", whenever the user clicks on "stop", whereas, at present, the user must answer a couple of more questions, in order to power off the computer, each time, reassuring the OS that yes, indeed, the user does want to turn off his/her computer.  I like things simple.  I dislike unnecessary steps.

With Openbox, and Openbox Bonsai you have the choice with the 2 methods. One is a right-click on the desktop that gives you theses entries in the main menu (only the logout asks for confirmation, that is an Openbox command, and I don't know how to change it : at same time, it has been done for a reason, about people who mistake).

The other option is a longer one, from the menu button, same as in the other versions. (Whyt about Windows ? "To shut down, you must click on "Start" ! ^^). It is also possible to configure it in Lxde, as the window manager is the same. (Openbox). You need to install openbox-menu, and read carefully the post install message, and follow what it says.(I think it should work ok with the same configuration files as the ones used in Openbox standalone... )

Compelling the user to repeat himself, every time he wants to do something, is annoying.  It is just like the desktop:  Clicking on an icon once accomplishes nothing.  For me, I stopped using two clicks on the desktop, more than thirty years ago, once the mouse acquired TWO buttons, instead of only one, as it possessed originally.  Linux is in a time warp, insisting that the user click twice, as if we were living in 1981.

You can change it to one click, in Lxde and in Openbox, by setting it up in the PCManFM preferences. But you might switch back later, when you realize that with one click you can't just do a simple selection anymore : it will execute all that it will click on instead.

PCManFM, menu preferences, general, "open files with a simple click" is a field to tick.

Thanks again for your help, much appreciated.....

CAI ENG

Welcome. More people in, users, contributors, donators, translators, artists and so on... more happy all are.

[coffeetime]

Right-click on a file > Open with > Other > choose an application and before clicking on "Ok", tick the little field where it says something looking very much to "always choose this program to open this kind of file".

Mel,

can you please use another color next time? What about green :

Right-click on a file > Open with > Other > choose an application and before clicking on "Ok", tick the little field where it says something looking very much to "always choose this program to open this kind of file".

[melodie]

Mel,

can you please use another color next time? What about green

Sorry, I forgot some use light blue. Why do we have colors in the editor that don't match all themes ?

What about the one I changed for ? Is that ok ?  :p

[coffeetime]

Yep, much better. Thx

[Yankee]

I am using PCLinuxOS LXDE, and am very happy with it, but, I must download VLC for LXDE to work as I wish:  to receive streaming audio from any one of the three non-proprietary formats:  mp3, aac+, ogg.  Clementine and mplayer just sit there, I never use them.

I am dissatisfied now, only with the relatively slow performance of LXDE, and hoping to find some way to speed things up, so I am reading about your open box, thinking that it may be faster than LXDE.
Here are some times, in seconds:
..............................boot....browser...........start......invoke VLC....shutdown
win98.......................70......SeaMonkey..........2.............9..............5
PCLinuxOS LXDE .........85......FireFox...............7.............9..............15
a different Linux..........70......Konqueror...........10............6..............10

I don't think your times are that bad.   At least they are in less than 2 minutes.
But I can see where 1 minute might be better in the long run.   Try OpenBox and
post back with the times.   It's probably a few seconds faster.   Not really that
many big services running from the LXDE Session-Edit or Autostart menus that
might help.   Other services are very necessary no doubt.

I set my mouse to double-click within 1000ms in the OpenBox config menu BTW.

Question about VLC.   Where do you store your library of radio streams ?   A playlist,
a file in a directory, or somewhere else.   Can't find a radio stream database when I
look in there.   I use Clementine and it is playing almost everything.   If we ever
get ProjectM visuals in the repo I may switch to VLC if I can find the radio database.

Have to go take a look at Compcache myself.


regards,

Patrick013

 
 

[Yankee]

To know more about Openbox Bonsai, and about it's ramzswap0 device, I recommand the reading of a full presentation I did, in English, and in French, and which took me some time to do: PCLinuxOS Bonsai -en- (the link has been given by Texstar on the Openbox page too : OpenBox Desktop)

Hi Again,

Well the compressed RAM swap (now I have more memory) seems fairly easy to turn on and off.
Might as well leave it on if it's working.   If it does anything bad I'll let you know.

Code: [Select]

If the device comes with Compcache support, you can enable it
by going to Settings » CyanogenMod settings » Performance settings » Compcache

The above is per their Wiki.   I'm using LXDE right now so I have to try tomorrow about
this and the Wifi icon I mentioned.   Maybe just run compcache in the root terminal in
OpenBox.   I'll find it, it's in there.

Thanks for the response and the info.


Patrick013

[caieng]

Question about VLC.   Where do you store your library of radio streams ?   A playlist,
a file in a directory, or somewhere else.   Can't find a radio stream database when I
look in there.

Thanks for asking, Patrick.

Melodie's answer, and your question are related:

I listen to Radio Swiss Pop each day. I get a mp3.m3u file 128 MB capable : http://www.radioswisspop.ch/live/mp3.m3u and add it in the audio reader. Then I click on play.

Nope.  That's not how the internet radio player works.
It is much, much simpler than that.
nothing to save.  Just point and click once with the mouse, and VLC plays the music.

Here's the URL:
http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html

My favorite stations are:
OGG Cesky Rozhlas (Czech Republic)
mp3 NRK Klassisk (Norway)
aac+ Radio 4 (Netherlands)

but, I also listen to several other stations in Holland, Germany, Belgium, and Austria. Point is, you need do nothing, except click (once) on the icon.

Since Melodie likes Radio Swiss, then, she should click on the icon for that station.  It says "classical", not "pops", but, to my way of thinking, as one who enjoys nothing more than a good 9th by Bruckner, or Matthew's Passion by Bach, the selections on Radio Swiss "Classic", may as well be called "pops", for they only play short excerpts, not whole compositions.

CAI ENG

[Yankee]

My favorite stations are:
OGG Cesky Rozhlas (Czech Republic)
mp3 NRK Klassisk (Norway)
aac+ Radio 4 (Netherlands)

but, I also listen to several other stations in Holland, Germany, Belgium, and Austria. Point is, you need do nothing, except click (once) on the icon.

Well if I dock the playlist I can add and save items to a VLC playlist and then I have a radio stream database.
Otherwise I would have to default to VLC for those three file types and I can see where Firefox would play
them with VLC then.

Not bad either way if I've got these icon ideas right.

regards,

Patrick013

[Taco.22]

Here are some times, in seconds:
..............................boot....browser...........start......invoke VLC....shutdown
win98.......................70......SeaMonkey..........2.............9..............5
PCLinuxOS LXDE .........85......FireFox...............7.............9..............15
a different Linux..........70......Konqueror...........10............6..............10

Just out of curiosity, on a 3ghz P4, I score this -
PCLOSOpenBox  - boot...49  - browser-Google Chrome...2  - vlc...3  - shutdown...15

I definitely find OB quick and responsive, and sooo configurable, but not "lightweight" - mine runs some pretty heavy apps.  I can make it almost anything I want - one click in file manager (thunar), configure thunar for right-click functions, configure my own menus,  no desktop clutter, no clutzy bars and panels, and so on.  Just got to get under the bonnet and wave a spanner around!  Too easy  

[melodie]

Hi Again,

Well the compressed RAM swap (now I have more memory) seems fairly easy to turn on and off.
Might as well leave it on if it's working.   If it does anything bad I'll let you know.

Code: [Select]

If the device comes with Compcache support, you can enable it
by going to Settings » CyanogenMod settings » Performance settings » Compcache

The above is per their Wiki.   I'm using LXDE right now so I have to try tomorrow about
this and the Wifi icon I mentioned.   Maybe just run compcache in the root terminal in
OpenBox.   I'll find it, it's in there.

Compcache is just the name of the program, but I doubt you will run it in a console : the program consists in kernel module, and additions. In the present configuration with the present kernel, to activate the module and get some control on it, my companion did a standard configuration that provides a block device of a size being 25% of the total available ram.

This is with ramzswap kernel module. For the next kernel, 2.6.37.pclos1 testing, the module is different, it's ramz, and we don't need rzscontrol (the addition) in the system anymore. (It's located in /usr/local/sbin as you might have noticed).

I don't know of any gui allowing to configure it, at the moment. What I know of is the possibility to lower or increase the percentage / ram, or split it into several block devices. This last possibilities seem more complicated to me to view, I'm not sure of the potential additional benefit, and I don't have the time, skill, machines, and probably not the right tools for doing some benchmark.

If you really want to know more about it, I think the best way is to get the sources, and examin them, including the doc that is inside.

I do have a question : can you give the link to the wiki you tell us about, and quote the paragraph you have seen ? I am interested to know more about it.