Help:Autostart

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Figure 1: The "Openbox" session type at log in

When you log in with the "Openbox" session type, or launch Openbox with the openbox-session, the autostart script will be executed to set up your environment and launch any applications you want to run at startup.

You can use this script to launch a panel, to set your desktop wallpaper, or anything else.

The autostart script is located at ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh. If that file does not exist, then the system-wide default script, located at /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart.sh, is run instead.

The default autostart file sets up a number of things for you:

  • It sets a plain color for the background so you don't have to see the ugly default X background
  • It runs gnome-settings-daemon if you have GNOME installed, so that your GTK applications will look and work the way they have been set up through the GNOME configuration tools.
  • It runs kdeinit if you have KDE installed, so that your KDE applications will have the background processes running that they need.
  • It runs scim if you have SCIM installed, and sets up a number of environment variables to enable SCIM for GTK and KDE applications. You may also need to set your language in the LC_CTYPE environment variable before running SCIM, with a line such as:
export LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.utf8

Making your own autostart

If you want to launch more programs at startup than those provided in the default autostart file, create the file ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh. You can run the system-wide autostart through this file by using the command . $GLOBALAUTOSTART. Here's an example ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh file:

# Set my language up
export LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.utf8

# Run the system-wide support stuff
. $GLOBALAUTOSTART

# Programs to launch at startup
hsetroot ~/wallpaper.png &
xcompmgr -c -t-5 -l-5 -r4.2 -o.55 &
fbpanel &

Make sure that you end any commands with "&" so that they are run in the background, or any programs after it (including Openbox!) will not run until it finishes.

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