OPENBOX(1)

๐Ÿ“ฆ
version 3.6.1 ยท 3 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, debian bookworm, debian trixie, epel 9, fedora 43, fedora 44, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

๐Ÿ’– OPENBOX ๐Ÿ’–

okay so bestie, welcome to the openbox(1) manual page, we're doing this ๐Ÿ’…


โœจ NAME โœจ

openbox โ€” a minimalistic, highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support. no cap, that's the whole vibe. ๐Ÿฆ‹


โœจ SYNOPSIS โœจ

openbox [--help] [--version] [--replace] [--reconfigure] [--restart]
        [--sm-disable] [--sync] [--debug] [--debug-focus] [--debug-xinerama]

โœจ DESCRIPTION โœจ

Openbox is minimalistic, highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support. (yes we're saying it again, it's that iconic ๐Ÿ‘‘)

So here's the tea, there are three ways to start Openbox:

  1. If you run a display manager such as GDM, you will find 3 entries in the login session type menu for Openbox: GNOME/Openbox, KDE/Openbox and Openbox. If you want to use Openbox within GNOME or KDE, you can choose the appropriate entry, and it will launch GNOME or KDE with Openbox as the window manager. โœจ
  2. The third option at log in, which is Openbox without a session manager, uses the openbox-session command to start Openbox. On log in, openbox will run the ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh script if it exists, and will run the system-wide script /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh otherwise. You may place anything you want to run automatically in those files, for example:
xsetroot -solid grey &
gnome-settings-daemon &
โš ๏ธ bestie listen, make sure that each line is followed by a "&" or else the script will stop right there and further commands will not be executed ๐Ÿ˜ญ don't do that to yourself.

You can use the /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh file as an example for creating your own. ๐ŸŽ€

The default /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh runs a number of things with Openbox.

  1. Lastly, if you use startx to launch your X session, you can set up a ~/.xinitrc file to run openbox-session and follow the same directions as above regarding the autostart.sh file. ๐Ÿ’œ

You can use the obconf tool to configure Openbox easily with a graphical interface, however more in-depth configuration is possible by editing the configuration files by hand. (manual editing is highkey main character energy ๐Ÿซถ)

The default configuration and menu files are installed in /etc/xdg/openbox/, and the user configuration is placed in ~/.config/openbox/. You can copy the default configuration and menus to ~/.config/openbox and edit it to your liking. ๐ŸŒธ


โœจ OPTIONS โœจ

These are the possible options that openbox accepts:

  • --help โ€” Show a summary of the command line options available and exit. (so polite ๐Ÿฅฐ)
  • --version โ€” Show the version of the program and exit.
  • --replace โ€” Replace the currently running window manager. out with the old, in with the new ๐Ÿ’…
  • --config-file FILE โ€” Specify the path to the config file to use.
  • --reconfigure โ€” If Openbox is already running on the display, tell it to reload its configuration. glow-up without the restart โœจ
  • --restart โ€” If Openbox is already running on the display, tell it to restart. This is useful if you have upgraded Openbox and don't want to restart X. ๐Ÿ”ฅ
  • --exit โ€” Exit Openbox.
  • --sm-disable โ€” Do not connect to the session manager.
  • --sync โ€” Run in synchronous mode (for debugging).
  • --startup CMD โ€” Run CMD after starting.
  • --debug โ€” Display debugging output.
  • --debug-focus โ€” Display debugging output for focus handling.
  • --debug-session โ€” Display debugging output for session management.
  • --debug-xinerama โ€” Split the display into two fake xinerama regions, if xinerama is not already enabled. This is for debugging xinerama support.

โœจ SEE ALSO โœจ

The program's full documentation is available on the website: http://openbox.org/ ๐ŸŒˆ

Please report bugs to: http://bugzilla.icculus.org/ ๐Ÿ›


and that's a wrap bestie!! this page is from the General Commands Manual, source/version OPENBOX(1), dated โ€” well, that's the footer energy, so consider this your cute little sign-off โœจ๐Ÿ’– go configure something gorgeous, iykyk ๐ŸŽ€