Openbox?

[dhinds]

As a satisfied ex-Solus-Eveline user I was interested to learn that Ikey had returned to the task of creating an OS since Solus 2 development was discontinued.

(Someone mentioned this in a comment to Distro Watch recently, except it stated that Evolve OS was based on openSUSE, which does not appear to be the case).

The OS's I am using at present are SparkyLinux Ultra Openbox (which has been discontinued) and Manjarobox, and I would like to determine if an Openbox version of Evolve is likely in the foreseeable future?

I use Openbox (with some xfce and lxde components) now because the overhead is less than the two monolithic DE's (and can work with both Gtk & Qt), yet everything that can be done with the less modular Desktop Environments is never-the-less possible, which seems to make the system more stable and faster.

However, since the EvolveOS is Ikey's project I thought I'd ask him what he (you) thought regarding that possibility.

Would using Openbox coincide with the vision stated below?

"Evolve OS is a Linux distribution built from scratch, using a forked version of the PiSi package manager (maintained as “eopkg” within Evolve OS) ...

We use the Budgie Desktop by default, which in turn is tightly integrated with the GNOME stack to reduce technical debt and needless overhead."

To me, that sounds consistent with my understanding, although openbox may have more tools already available to get the job done.

What do you think? Is my suggestion valid? if not, why not?

Thanks in advance, Ikey.

[ikey]

I would consider adding OpenBox to the repository, namely because it should be the #1 item in anyones X11 debugging kit.
That said, I'm unsure what benefit an OpenBox edition of Evolve OS could offer. If we ever get to a place where we have enough
resources to back multiple editions (however small) then perhaps - but its incredibly unlikely.

Most people are here for one of two reasons:

They came from SolusOS.
They're here for Budgie.


A small percentage of people are around for Evolve OS itself That's the percentage we need to increase by converting those other two.

[dhinds]

Replying to my own post,

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/07/inst ... ntu-14-04#

in which you explain

So, enter Evolve OS. One desktop. One set of technologies. One architecture.
One goal. It's purely a desktop distribution, that is the primary goal. its built
in a way that enables me to spend more time developing features and less
time just packaging. So I can do things like, y'know, integration

That makes me think that my suggestion does not jive with your plans.

Elsewhere you mention your intention to provide wayland support, which Openbox may have more difficulty accomplishing.

In any case, good luck with the project. It's another option I can take a look at whenever an iso I can try live is available.

[dhinds]

I would consider adding OpenBox to the repository, namely because it should be the #1 item in anyones X11 debugging kit.
That said, I'm unsure what benefit an OpenBox edition of Evolve OS could offer. If we ever get to a place where we have enough
resources to back multiple editions (however small) then perhaps - but its incredibly unlikely.

Most people are here for one of two reasons:

They came from SolusOS.
They're here for Budgie.


A small percentage of people are around for Evolve OS itself That's the percentage we need to increase by converting those other two.

Thanks for the rapid response, which I hadn't seen before my last post of a few minutes ago.

I personally had no problems with your deciding to discontinue Solus 2. Developing a new OS from scratch is a definitely non-trivial task and if the elements required were not in place at the time, you would know and make your decision accordingly.

That was then and this is now and I'll looking forward to taking Evolve for a test drive whenever it's ready.

[Justin]

Openbox doesn't have that many dependencies, shouldn't be too hard to package it up, unofficially that is. I'll have a look on the weekend if I remember, dhinds, add me on G+ and harass me https://plus.google.com/+JustinZobel/

[dhinds]

Openbox doesn't have that many dependencies, shouldn't be too hard to package it up, unofficially that is. I'll have a look on the weekend if I remember, dhinds, add me on G+ and harass me https://plus.google.com/+JustinZobel/

Thanks for the offer. That said, maybe I should mention that I used a number of xfce apps like the xfce4-panel below, along with the Tint2 panel (showing one desktop only) above, and a number of xfce4-panel add-ons (not all of which work - the wifi detector, for instance).

I say that because evolve-os is taking a different direction and I can't say which is going to better, in the long run. I am using ManjaroBox on this Lenovo Thinkpad W520 very sucessfully, but the WiFi doesn't work for some reason (although it does on both Manjaro xfce and openSUSE Gnome).

I also am uncertain (as mentioned earlier) what openbox is going to do about Wayland and I am not forgetting that Solus Eveline was the most stable Debian derivative I had installed at the time.

So at whatever point Evolve-OS is ready to roll it may well be the way to go, although I have gotten Openbox working well on both the Debian Testing and Arch derivatives I am using it on and have adapted to it's frugal and well organized use of the computer's resources.

Just thinking out loud.

[chdslv]

I am using SalentOS, which is Ubuntu + Openbox. Quite an interesting distro.
I am here, because I was with Solus OS.
By the way, what is underneath Evolve OS? Is it Wayland?

[ikey]

I am using SalentOS, which is Ubuntu + Openbox. Quite an interesting distro.
I am here, because I was with Solus OS.
By the way, what is underneath Evolve OS? Is it Wayland?

Welcome aboard Not yet we still have an X11 desktop, at some point we will actively be supporting Wayland, naturally
with XWayland support, increasing the general performance of the system and reducing the X11 overhead massively

Quick rundown:

panel+*, rundialog, session, all from scratch. window manager is budgie-wm, which uses libmutter from the GNOME project,
the thing also powering GNOME Shell.

[ikey]

I would consider adding OpenBox to the repository, namely because it should be the #1 item in anyones X11 debugging kit.
That said, I'm unsure what benefit an OpenBox edition of Evolve OS could offer. If we ever get to a place where we have enough
resources to back multiple editions (however small) then perhaps - but its incredibly unlikely.

Most people are here for one of two reasons:

They came from SolusOS.
They're here for Budgie.


A small percentage of people are around for Evolve OS itself That's the percentage we need to increase by converting those other two.

Thanks for the rapid response, which I hadn't seen before my last post of a few minutes ago.

I personally had no problems with your deciding to discontinue Solus 2. Developing a new OS from scratch is a definitely non-trivial task and if the elements required were not in place at the time, you would know and make your decision accordingly.

That was then and this is now and I'll looking forward to taking Evolve for a test drive whenever it's ready.

Thank you for your support, I appreciate it

[dhinds]

I am using SalentOS, which is Ubuntu + Openbox. Quite an interesting distro.
I am here, because I was with Solus OS.
By the way, what is underneath Evolve OS? Is it Wayland?

I was a Mint user that switched to LMDE (to which Ikey contributed), then noticed that Solus Eveline was more stable and less problematic than the rest of the Debian Derivatives (and there are a lot of them).

I have not gone back to Ubuntu based OS's (or even try them). I use rolling or semi-rolling distros with full functionality but minimal eye candy and prefer modular to monolithic approaches.

I successfully upgraded my openSUSE Gnome installation using zypper dup but find gnome shell more graphics intensive than I need. I created an openSUSE openbox edition using their build features but don't have it's WiFi working yet (WiFi works on openSUSE Gnome and Manjaro xfce).

And I don't care much for KDE. That makes me a subscriber to the concepts on which Ikey is building on (which some Arch and Slackware derivatives also adhere to).

I could try Salent but don't look forward to reinstalling Ubuntu, frequently. Other than that, it sounds like a good option.

In any case, thanks for the suggestion.