Openbox Standalone

[chasha420]

Hello guys, I'm a happy openbox user now after having moved away from Gnome3

But still I'm still learning new stuff all the time and I have a few questions, please enlighten me!

1) I'm using the default login manager that came with gnome-3 (gdm I think), and running openbox from that...and I think it is using gnome based dependencies aswell? If so is there a way to get rid of all that and run a standalone openbox install using stuff like Slim? Or is it already a standlone openbox session running when I chose "Openbox" in the login manager?

2) Let's say I use slim and run openbox standalone, would I get any more performance or memory benefit from all that? I mean right now when I don't have any applications running @openbox, it consumes around 150-170 MB of RAM & my laptop has limited ram, around 1GB.

3) To get a minimal install & run openbox should I consider getting the corecd & reinstalling everything from scratch? Would that have a smaller memory footprint?

Thanks for your valuable time.

[manifesto]

Hi
I have no sabayon here and did not dig that much in slim/gdm topics.
However you can remove gdm if you are not using it, I guess it will remove all gnome as well.
Slim looks light compared to gdm (I checked dependencies on gentoo)
If you want to minimize memory usage you could not use any login manager and start openbox from command line after tty boot only.

[chasha420]

Hi
I have no sabayon here and did not dig that much in slim/gdm topics.
However you can remove gdm if you are not using it, I guess it will remove all gnome as well.
Slim looks light compared to gdm (I checked dependencies on gentoo)
If you want to minimize memory usage you could not use any login manager and start openbox from command line after tty boot only.

Thanks for the advice man...I really appreciate that.

I dunno what happened to this forum, seems to be lacking activitiy all of a sudden :/

Anyway, is there anyone who can show me a guide or a safe method to remove gnome login manager properly without causing any problem etc.

Thanks.

[Jomiel]

Hi there,
you could also use LXDM (sounds like lxdm dependencies, but it is independent, also used by xfce) or LightDM (it has light in it's name).
To change the loginmanager open /etc/conf.d/xdm as root and change the string at the end of the file to the command you would use to start the loginmanager from the command line (gdm, kdm, lxdm, lightdm ...). Then run env-update and restart.

cheers
Jomiel

[chasha420]

Hi there,
you could also use LXDM (sounds like lxdm dependencies, but it is independent, also used by xfce) or LightDM (it has light in it's name).
To change the loginmanager open /etc/conf.d/xdm as root and change the string at the end of the file to the command you would use to start the loginmanager from the command line (gdm, kdm, lxdm, lightdm ...). Then run env-update and restart.

cheers
Jomiel

Thanks for the informative post Jomiel, but I have a few basic questions first.

1) Does a login manager consume resources in the background once you've successfully logged in? I mean if it's just handles the login part & has no effect on the system then why bother changing the login manager in the first place unless I wanna customise my login screen, etc.

2) Would you guys recommend installing & configuring openbox directly from the corecdx? Would that leave most stuff from gnome3 out?

Anyway thanks for your posts guys, I appreciate it a lot!

[batvink]

1, A login manager starts the X server and it manages remote connections by using the X Display Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP). This protocol allow users to shut down, reboot or suspend their computer system.
So maybe it uses resources., but it will be very less...
Slim is a lightweight login manager for X11, and Desktop-independent.
2, If Sabayon is installed from CoreCDX, you only have fluxbox to start with., so installing openbox from CoreCDX
definitely leave most gnome stuff out.
3, oh, you didn't mentioned 3.... oh well. anyway, here are some links to SLIM and Openbox-howto's.
They maybe come in hand.
http://slim.berlios.de/
http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/

[throdon]

Someone from the Sabayon community had a nice openbox setup w/pics on google+ but he never posted it on the mirrors.

[wolfden]

That was me I believe
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1139 ... 6157331858

Openbox and XFCE make for a great combination. Download latest XFCE, install openbox, profit.

[ratcheer]

Maybe this can be of some help. I use FluxBox with a login manager on Sabayon, but on Arch Linux, I do exactly what you are proposing. I boot to a text console, login at the command line, and startx to bring up OpenBox. When I exit OpenBox, it goes back to the text console. Yes, it is extremely light.

I do not know how the exact operations will compare in Sabayon, but in Arch, I have a ~/.xinitrc file that runs xrdb to merge .Xresources, then starts tint2, and finally execs ck-launch-session and openbox-session.

Good luck,
Tim

[chasha420]

Maybe this can be of some help. I use FluxBox with a login manager on Sabayon, but on Arch Linux, I do exactly what you are proposing. I boot to a text console, login at the command line, and startx to bring up OpenBox. When I exit OpenBox, it goes back to the text console. Yes, it is extremely light.

I do not know how the exact operations will compare in Sabayon, but in Arch, I have a ~/.xinitrc file that runs xrdb to merge .Xresources, then starts tint2, and finally execs ck-launch-session and openbox-session.

Good luck,
Tim

Thanks for the reply Tim,

I was wondering on how light would compare them? I mean is there a major performance difference?

Thanks.