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[Debian] LXDE observations (and a question)

I've been playing around with LXDE on the n810 and it's a pretty nice little environment- I think it's a bit lighter than xfce, but looks much more polished and featureful. It doesn't seem quite as quick as Icewm, but it's pretty close and does much more. Everything looks very slick and polished, not 'hacked together' like a lot of the lighter desktop environments. I think it's definitely worth checking out.

I do have a quick question though for the lxde users here: where can we stick a script to run stuff on startup (xmodmap, xbindkeys, etc)? I've done a bit of looking around, and supposedly making an autostart.sh in ~/.config/openbox or modifying ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart should do stuff, but I'm having no luck at all. If no one knows I'll dig some more and/or post somewhere lxde-specific, but I figured one of us who's been playing with it might have come across something already.
Thanks much.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

I'll be watching this thread; I want a WM for my Easy Debian Final that is both fast (faster than xfce4) and not so stripped-bare like IceWM. fvwm2 is (supposedly) configurable, but I don't know how to configure it, and like so many of the light WMs, there's no nice configuration GUI.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Dude.. LXDE is awesome....

I am totally hooked. But it doesn't look like you are getting away from config files qole.

I'll look into the startup thing.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

It really is impressive. I used Icewm years and years ago on a little Ipaq, and it _is_ very fast, but it's really far too minimal for most users I think. I love it on the NIT (and FYI the Infadel2 theme looks beautiful on the Nokia), but then I haven't run a full 'desktop environment' (k/gnome/etc) for years. The tablets, in my opinion, require a bit more friendliness than a real desktop though- you don't have the advantage of a real keyboard and mouse, so having extravagant features like desktop icons are really pretty nice :) Fluxbox is my preferred window manager on a desktop, but without actual mouse buttons it just isn't practical.
LXDE does seem like the best tradeoff between performance and function. I believe that openbox is marginally heavier than Icewm (though I could be mistaken, I haven't done any real testing between the two), but they really are modular; it wouldn't be too hard to 'downgrade' back to Icewm and still keep the other goodies from LXDE.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Oh ignore my post on config files.. I just noticed if you have right click available you can configure your panels and stuff that way...

I did it through config files :D

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Will it use our GTK+ tap-and-hold right-click hack? Or do we have to use another hack for right-click?

EDIT: YES, the web page says it is GTK+ based! That's MARVELOUS!

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

GTK works fine. I didn't have libgtkstylus on my new one so it wasn't working for me and I thought it had to be config files... once I loaded the module it works now..

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Houston, we have a problem...
How comes that lxde wants to install an insane number of packages on my rootfs?

Code:

[root@Debian: /]apt-get install lxde

Lettura della lista dei pacchetti in corso... Fatto

Generazione dell'albero delle dipendenze in corso

Lettura informazioni sullo stato... Fatto

I seguenti pacchetti verranno inoltre installati:

  arj console-common console-data gdm gdm-themes gpicview gtk2-engines hal

  hal-info kbd leafpad libdmx1 libgl1-mesa-dri libobparser21 libobrender21

  lxappearance lxde-common lxde-core lxde-settings-daemon lxpanel lxsession-lite

  openbox openbox-themes p7zip-full pcmanfm pm-utils powermgmt-base radeontool

  usbutils xarchiver xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all

  xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse

  xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-all

  xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati

  xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix

  xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-glint

  xserver-xorg-video-i128 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt

  xserver-xorg-video-mach64 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic

  xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv xserver-xorg-video-r128

  xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd

  xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge

  xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion

  xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx

  xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng

  xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga

  xserver-xorg-video-voodoo zenity zip

Pacchetti suggeriti:

  unicode-data uswsusp gnome-device-manager evince-gtk libglide3 lxlauncher

  lxpanel-netstat-plugin obconf libxml2-dev p7zip-rar cpufrequtils gsynaptics

  ksynaptics qsynaptics wacom-tools

Pacchetti raccomandati:

  vbetool

I seguenti pacchetti NUOVI (NEW) saranno installati:

  arj console-common console-data gdm gdm-themes gpicview gtk2-engines hal

  hal-info kbd leafpad libdmx1 libgl1-mesa-dri libobparser21 libobrender21

  lxappearance lxde lxde-common lxde-core lxde-settings-daemon lxpanel

  lxsession-lite openbox openbox-themes p7zip-full pcmanfm pm-utils powermgmt-base

  radeontool usbutils xarchiver xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core

  xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-input-kbd

  xserver-xorg-input-mouse xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom

  xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark

  xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus

  xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev

  xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128 xserver-xorg-video-i740

  xserver-xorg-video-imstt xserver-xorg-video-mach64 xserver-xorg-video-mga

  xserver-xorg-video-neomagic xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv

  xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd

  xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge

  xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion

  xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx

  xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng

  xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga

  xserver-xorg-video-voodoo zenity zip

0 aggiornati, 77 installati, 0 da rimuovere e 6 non aggiornati.

� necessario prendere 39,6MB di archivi.

Dopo quest'operazione, verranno occupati 106MB di spazio su disco.

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Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

try apt-get install xserver-xomap xservery-xephyr lxde

See if by forcing the right xserver packages it doesn't go for xorg? Didn't have this problem on Deblet.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Nope, still wants to download the whole xorg cyclopedia. Don't worry, I'll try dpkg - or, indeed, I can live without it.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Yeah, I'm running into that too. What package is triggering the xorg avalanche? We need to find it...

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

In Deblet we avoid the avalanche through this in xserver-omap:

Provides: xserver-xorg

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

This is a glaring blinking message that serve's as the epitome to why running two debian's side-by-side seems a bit silly...

Qole - why not frame a basic-barebones deblet and remove what you don't want to and tar that up for your rootfs??

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatalsaint (Post 222439)

Qole - why not frame a basic-barebones deblet and remove what you don't want to and tar that up for your rootfs??

Because I'm working from the other direction; I'm starting with a basic-barebones Debian Lenny (from debootstrap) and adding in the one or two chroot-related Deblet hacks (like the Adobe flash player from Maemo with Stskeeps' brilliant little hack) as I need them. I'm not sure the reverse-deblet approach would gain me anything.

That being said, it would be nice to have a couple of those dummy packages with the trick "provides" lines in the fatalsaint repository... :)

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stskeeps (Post 222437)

In Deblet we avoid the avalanche through this in xserver-omap:

Provides: xserver-xorg

Not real familiar with Debian, but it wouldn't seem right for packages to depend on xserver-xorg; I'd expect a virtual package xserver or such...

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Yeah, there's something wrong with the LXDE package; you should never require xorg.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Ok, please find attached a .deb (made with equivs) that will provide xserver-xorg and xscreensaver, two packages that we won't be using on the tablets.

In your non-deblet Debian, as root, do the following:

Code:

dpkg -i dummy-xorg_1.0_all.deb

You will then be able to apt-get install lxde without pulling in the entire xorg tree. :D

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Oh, very nice.

You need to use "startlxde", "lxsession" segfaults.

~~And "logout" doesn't seem to work...~~

Ok, it is very picky about how it is run; you need to use startlxde, and if you use xinit, it has to be run as user, not as root. I had to modify startlxde to include the DISPLAY=:1 so that it would start in my Xephyr install...

By the way, if you want to start any apps, perhaps you can run them in the startlxde script?

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

Ha! I don't have my tablet right here for testing (although I can ssh in), but I think I found what the OP was looking for:

Try this file:

/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

It's a bit scary, since this file seems to control everything that starts when LXDE starts... My one looks like this:

Code:

@lxde-settings

@xscreensaver -no-splash

@lxpanel --profile LXDE

@pcmanfm -d

so I guess you can delete xscreensaver and add xmodmap...

Some important information I found from this unlikely source:

Quote:

List other applications you want to launch, one command per line. Note that there is no '&' at the end of every line since this is not a shell script. Don't append & at the end of any line. Since this is not a shell script, shell expansion like ~ or $HOME won't work. If you need this, write a script and do the shell things there, than list the script here in the autostart file.

If a line starts with @, the program will be guarded by lxsession. That means: If the program crashes, it should be automatically restarted. If the program is terminated normally, or is terminated because it receives SIGTERM or SIGKILL, then the reload won't happen.

The same page also suggests something else interesting:

Quote:

Another way to start programs on session startup is to add their *.desktop
files in ~/.config/autostart. Please refer to the Autostart spec.

Another site suggests that the file name in your home directory to use for autostarting is ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/default

EDIT: I can confirm that anything put into
/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart and the .desktop files in /home/user/.config/autostart do start up. Nothing in the "default" file works, not ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/default nor /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/default.

Re: LXDE observations (and a question)

I dont delete xscreensaver because I set it to just a black screen and lock my window... with an N810 it's a good way to keep from "accidentally" launching stuff when it's in my pocket... and I also think it helps with battery life.

But just to show you how dismal Debian battery life is it made it about 8 hours with minimal use before shutting down. that's how long maemo lasts for ACTIVE use. I had it sitting on my desk most the day at work and just eveyr so often hit the screen to make sure it was still running.. then I saw it start the shutdown procedures after about 8 hours.

Nifty trick on startup for LXDE qole... I shall add xmodmap to mine.. thanks man :).