Crunchbangplusplus 9 tweaks

By Andy Barnes
Published

Crunchbangplusplus 9

Crunchbangplusplus (#!++) has been my workstation distribution of choice ever since Crunchbang (#!) shut down. The original Crunchbang distribution was fairly lightweight and used Openbox. Once it shut down @computermouth created a homage in Crunchbangplusplus.

Crunchbangplusplus 9 is based on Debian 9 Stable (Stretch).

Issues

Crunchbangplusplus 9 shipped with some configuration issues.

  • OBApps package missing
  • Power Management menu entry mis-configured
  • Volume Control keyboard shortcut mis-configured
  • Default new window behavior
  • File Manager image previews disabled
  • GIMP font rendering incorrect on white text

OBApps

The right click menu entry for Settings > Openbox > Gui Applications Settings Editor (obapps) fails because it's missing from the installer.

First, we need to install some dependencies.

$ sudo apt install python-wxgtk3.0 python-wxtools python-wxversion python-xlib

Then retrieve and install the missing obapps package.

$ wget https://packages.crunchbangplusplus.org/jessie/pool/main/o/obapps/obapps_0.1.7_all.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i obapps_0.1.7_all.deb

Power Manager

There is an incorrect menu entry for Settings > Power Managment, to fix the menu entry, select Settings > Openbox > GUI Menu Editor and change the Settings > Power Management entry from mate-power-manager to xfce4-power-manager-settings, once done you should select File > Save to ensure the change is persistent.

xfce4 power manager settings 1

Openbox Configuration Manager

Using multiple monitors I prefer applications to start on the screen I launch them from. This is not fool-proof but is the best I have been able to manage.

Go to Settings > Openbox > Gui Config Tool and on the Windows tab put a tick in the Place new windows under the mouse pointer checkbox. Also you can select your preference in the Prefer to place new windows on and Primary monitor dropdown.

openbox configuration manager 1

File Manager Previews

In the file manager Thunar, select from the menu Edit > Preferences > Show thumbnails: Always (it defaults to never) and click close.

file manager preferences

That will fix image and pdf previews, if you would also like video and other media to use preview images you will also need to install an additional package:

$ sudo apt install tumbler-plugins-extra

Volume Control

The Super + V key should open the volume control but instead gives the error failed to execute child process "pavucontrol".

To fix this settings > openbox > edit rc.xml then replace pavucontrol with mate-volume-control in the below section <keybind key="W-v">.

    <keybind key="W-v">
      <action name="Execute">
        <startupnotify>
          <enabled>true</enabled>
          <name>Volume</name>
        </startupnotify>
        <command>mate-volume-control</command>
      </action>

I had to reboot before the change took effect.

GIMP font rendering

There are some issues with font rendering when placing white text on a black background. These can be fixed by creating /etc/gimp/2.0/fonts.conf and adding:

<fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
    <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
      <const>none</const>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

References: