Installing Raspberry Pi OS Lite + Openbox on a Raspberry Pi

Prep

1. Format SD card using SD Card Formatter

2. Burn image to SD Card using balenaEtcher

3. Create and copy wpa_supplicant.conf and ssh files to SD (usually called boot after flash)

• ssh file is just an empty file titled "ssh". Create thusly: $: touch ssh
• wpa_supplicant.conf is a file with:

# Update your country
country=GB
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

# Put your network name in the ssid (in the quotes), and the
# password in the psk (in the quotes).
network={
    ssid=""
    psk=""
}

• There are copies of both of these files in the repo if you need wpa_supplicant.conf ssh

4. Insert the SD card into the Pi and power on.

5. If you don't have a monitor & keyboard & mouse set up, you need to ssh into the Pi

• Give it a few minutes or so to run its initial boot process.
• Check your router (Or whatever tools you use) to find the IP address of your Pi
• (Mac) Open a Terminal and ssh into the Pi $: ssh pi@192.168.X.X (replacing the Xs with the appropriate numbers)
• The default password is raspberry (We'll change this later)
• On Windows you need to use Putty to ssh into a linux system. It's been a hot minute since i used Putty so look it up yourself.

6. Expand the file system to full SD card: $: sudo raspi-config

• Advanced Options...
• Expand File System
• OK
• Finish (The Pi will reboot)

7. Update System

• When rebooted, ssh in and update the system:

$: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt autoclean

8. Update localizations: $: sudo raspi-config

• Localization Options...
• Set Local, Timezone, Keyboard and WLAN
• Finish > Reboot

9. Install Xorg

• When rebooted, ssh in and install Xorg:

  $: sudo apt install xserver-Xorg

10. Install Openbox and terminal

$: sudo apt install openbox lxterminal

11. Install login manager to automatically start Openbox and log you in

$: sudo apt install lightdm

12. Finish Setting up Pi

• Change admin password $: sudo raspi-config

  • System Options...
  • Password

• Boot into openbox $: sudo raspi-config (if not still in the config)

  • System Options...
  • Boot / Auto Login...
  • Desktop Autologin

• Turn on VNC

  • $: sudo raspi-config (if not still in the config)
  • Interface Options...
  • VNC...
  • Yes (Will install tons of dependencies and turn on VNC)
  • Don't install vnc-server via apt. Using raspi-config installs all the extra dependencies and actually works.)

• Reboot

Pi should now boot right into the empty Openbox system.

If VNC cannot show desktop do step 13, otherwise carry on to 14

13. Update the config.txt

$: sudo nano /boot/config.txt

• uncomment and update to:
  • hdmi_force_hotplug=1
  • hdmi_group=2
  • hdmi_mode=85
  • dtparam=i2c_arm=on
  • dtparam=spi=on
• Add the following under the [all] section
  • enable_uart=1
  • start_x=1
  • gpu_mem=128

14. Update .bashrc

• If you have things you like in your .bashrc, update them now
• You can do this later if you want to use copy/paste
  • (You need to install a clipboard manager to copy/paste)
• Here are mine if they interest you:
  • Comment out existing prompt code
  • At the bottom of the file, add the lines available in this gist on my Github

15. Set up Openbox Configuration

• Right-click for menu
• click ObConf (should be in right-click menu)

• Theme: Nightmare-02 (Or whatever you like)
• Appearance:
  • Active window title: DejaVu Sans Bold 8
  • Inactive window title: DejaVu Sans Bold 8
  • Menu header: DejaVu Sans Bold 9
  • Menu Item: DejaVu Sans Book 9
  • Active On-screen disp: DejaVu Sans Bold 9
  • Inactive On-Screen di: DejaVu Sans Bold 9
  • Or whatever you like
• Desktops
  • Number of desktops: 1 (Or however many you want. I like one)
  • Rename it
• Close

16. Install obmenu and set up menu

  $: sudo apt install obmenu
  $: obmenu

• Openbox 3 (My preferred items. You do your own.)
  • Terminal emulator
  • /Debian Menu
  • separator
  • Applications
  • separator
  • ObConf
• Save & Close

17. Install some things:

• Install a file manager (one, the other, or both):

  $: sudo apt install thunar

  or

  $: sudo apt install pcmanfm

• Install a clipboard app:

  $: sudo apt install parcellite

• Install feh for wallpaper/background color (if you use Thunar)

  $: sudo apt install feh

• Install Tint2 (panel app)

  $: sudo apt install tint2

18. Create and update openbox autostart script

• Change directories to the .config directory

  $: cd .config

• If openbox directory doesn't exist, make it

  $: mkdir openbox

• create autostart.sh file in openbox directory

  $: touch autostart.sh

• The autostart script should exist here now:

  ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

• edit to add items to autostart.sh

  $: nano autostart.sh

      # Autostart installed apps in Openbox

      # File Manager (if Thunar) + run in background and automount drives
      thunar --daemon &

      # File Manager (if pcmanfm) + run in background and automount drives
      pcmanfm --desktop &

      # Clipboard Manager
      exec parcellite &

      # Panel
      (sleep 1 && tint2) &

      # Wallpaper

• (We will add the wallpaper command to autostart.sh later. We need this preliminary setup to get the VNC file transfer working, and other things like copy/paste)

19. Reboot

$: sudo reboot now

• It should reboot into an openbox with a default panel, and the things you set up in the autostart.sh script
• If you used pcmanfm, right-click the desktop, and under Advanced select "Show menus provided by window manager menu when desktop is clicked." This will bring back the Openbox Right-click menu.
• If you used pcmanfm, feel free to remove trash from desktop because i don't want anything on my desktop.

20. Set up Tint2

• transfer noise_TransparentPanel_top.tint2rc to the Pi via VNC file transfer, and import. (Or set up a new configuration) File: noise_TransparentPanel_top.tint2rc

• Right-click menu > Applications > Settings > Tint2Settings

  or

  $: tint2conf

• Import the noise_TransparentPanel_top.tint2rc file into Tint2

  • Theme > Import theme...
  • Browse to where VNC transferred the file to (usually either Desktop or Downloads) and import it.

• The theme should appear in the Tint2Settings manager.

  • Click on it
  • Click the Make Default button.

• A copy of the noise_TransparentPanel_top.tint2rc is now in the ~/.config/tint2/ directory, so you can remove the one you transferred

  $: rm Downloads/noise_TransparentPanel_top.tint2rc

  *or*
  

  $: rm Desktop/noise_TransparentPanel_top.tint2rc

21. Fix Screen Resolution

• Using either raspi-config or /boot/config.txt, fix any screen resolution issues you may have.

• Play with either the framebuffer_width & framebuffer_height, or the hdmi_mode & hdmi_group. The width and height would be to directly set the resolution. The mode and group will set a standardized resolution explained here.

• If you have those uncommented and it still refuses to give the correct screen resolution over VNC and you're on a Pi 4, in the /boot/config.txt comment out:

  dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d

22. If you're using Thunar, you need to set up feh to run your wallpaper or background color. (pcmanfm manages background color and wallpaper)

• Either transfer an image over VNC with the same resolution as your screen to the Pi, or create an image in Photoshop/Gimp/etc. with that resolution. Fill it with the background color you want. (The background color is essentially just a jpg, png, tiff, or gif of made of that color.)

• using feh, open the image:

  $: feh --bg-scale “/path/to/image.jpg”

• Now that you've opened the image in feh, it stores its name in a file called .fehbg, so you can add that to your autostart.sh file:

    $: cd .config/openbox
    $: nano autostart.sh

- Add wallpaper under the comment from before:

      # wallpaper
      $HOME/.fehbg &

• When you restart it will make the file store in .fehbg your wallpaper

23. Right-click Menu item icons and launch commands

• Out of the box, some applications won't launch their applications and others don't have the any icons. Here's how we fix that.
• You can find the .desktop files that control menu items here: ~/usr/share/applications/
• cd into that directory and run ls to see what's in there

    cd /usr/share/applications
    $: ls

It should show a list of all the `.desktop` files for your installed applications in the Right-click Menu.

• Right-click on the desktop and find an application without an icon

  • Suppose LXTerminal is missing an icon. Open its .desktop app:

    $: sudo nano lxterminal.desktop

• Open a second terminal window

• Search the Pi's file structure for the program's icons:

  $: sudo find / -name appname*png

  So, for example, if i'm looking for the LXTerminal icons:

  $: sudo find / -name lxterm*png

  It should give a bunch of results like:

    /usr/share/icons/PiX/48x48/apps/lxterminal.png
    /usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/lxterminal.png

Pick whichever one you see fit: highlight that line in the terminal by double-clicking the line, and then copy using `right-click > copy`
(control-c/control-v can be a bit sketchy in VNC inside terminal)

• In the first terminal window with the .desktop file open, find the line that starts with Icon

  • search with control-w
  • type "icon"
  • press enter
  • it should take you to the icon line

• Delete what Icon is pointing to, and replace it by right-click-pasting the path to the .png file you copied from the other terminal window

  Icon=lxterminal

  becomes:

  Icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/lxterminal.png

• control-o saves in nano

• control-x exits nano

• Right-click and see that the application now has an icon.

• Go through the Right-click menu applications and try to run them. Some will not run. They'll often throw an error like: Failed to execute child process "evte" (No such file or directory) This happens either because it's calling the wrong command, or trying to run the command in a terminal window.

• Open the .desktop file and control-w to search for "exec"

• In a second terminal window, try running the command. If the program runs, you know the .desktop file has the right command, so the problem isn't the Exec= line.

• Look for a line li