How to Install OpenBox on minimal Debian 11 Bullseye – Guide

In this article, I will show you how to do a minimal installation of Debian 11 Bullseye in “specialized install” mode. This is a very flexible installation media that can easily be used to install Debian as a server or desktop / laptop. By doing this, you can customize your operating system to the way you want it and run more efficiently. If you are looking for an advanced installation option that allows you to better customize your operating system, then a “Specialized Installation” is the way to go. Openbox is a very fast and lightweight window manager that is known for its high adaptability and low resource consumption.

Users can customize or customize the desktop environment to their liking by editing just three files. However, to make configuration easier, users can use other programs that provide graphical user interfaces to configure settings and menus. Furthermore, Openbox is the default window manager for the LXDE or LXQt desktop environments and therefore also for Lubuntu. There are several unofficial Ubuntu variants that also depend on Openbox. The Openbox window manager is particularly useful for those looking for an individual user interface but are familiar with the workings of Linux as they have to deal with adapting a rudimentary configuration.

Update system APT cache

To install the Debian 11 APT package manager, we first need to run the update command to rebuild the repository cache. This will install available system updates. ..

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y ..

Install OpenBox for Debian 11 Minimal

OpenBox is a powerful window manager for Debian 11. It can be used to manage your windows, and it also includes features that make it more efficient and user-friendly.

Openbox preferences are stored in ~/.config/openbox/ openbox.cfg. The Xorg settings are stored in ~/.xorg/xorg.conf. Openbox is a graphical tool that provides a GUI interface to instantly configure Openbox preferences and settings. At the same time, we are also installing Xorg. The Openbox preferences are stored in ~/.config/openbox/ openbox.cfg, and the Xorg settings are stored in ~/.xorg/xorg.conf

The Debian menu is a tool that allows you to access various applications installed on your system from the OpenBox context menu.

sudo apt install openbox menu xorg-server ..

manual configuration files

Openbox is a desktop environment that can be fully configured with just three files. These files are rc.xml, menu.xml, and autostart. As a user, you will find these files in the folder. ..

/etc directory. If the system-wide configuration files are not available, you can use the user-specific configuration files in the ~/.config directory. ..

OpenBox is a powerful window manager that can be customized by editing its configuration files. However, many users prefer to keep these files intact, instead of editing them globally. This allows users to customize OpenBox to their own preferences without affecting the global settings. ..

Install Desktop Panel for OpenBox

To access the application and the menu, we can install the Desktop panel or dock. Here, we gave orders to both of them. Just choose one of them according to your choice. ..

To enable system tray access, we can install several available Linux desktop panels. One option is to use B, a lightweight LX panel. However, this is not the only option; we can also use other desktop panels such as fbpanel, tint2, A2Deskbar and xfce4-panel. One advantage of using these panels is that they are all lightweight and easy to use.

sudo apt install xfce4-panel, nano, xfce4-terminal -y

To configure the open box to start the XFCE4 panel automatically upon system startup, open the System Settings dialog box and under Startup Applications, select Open Box and click on the Change button. In the opened window, select XFCE4 from the list of applications and click on OK. ..

At the final from the file, add:

Configure the open box to start the XFCE4 panel automatically upon system startup.

Openbox autostart can be used to start openbox instances automatically on startup.

At the final from the file, add:

Install Display Manager on Debian 11 minimum

We need a display manager to get graphical login functionality for your Linux distribution. It manages user sessions and controls user authentication.

sudo apt install lightdm

Reboot your Debian system 11

When finished, restart the system to activate the settings made above.

After executing the above command, we get the following interface: ..

Final note

OpenBox is a Debian-based Linux distribution that comes with a minimal desktop environment. This guide will show you how to install OpenBox on Debian 11 Bullseye.