The Debian menu

Source installs or prepackaged .debs from openbox.org will not configure your setup to show the Debian menu. There are a few simple steps to get it working.

[
edit] If you have already installed openbox with a working Debian menu

Add this line to your ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml:

<menu id=”Debian” />

You should place the line where you would like it to appear in the root menu. Location matters!

Add these lines to your ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml between the <menu> and </menu> tags:

<file>/var/lib/openbox/debian-menu.xml</file> <file>debian-menu.xml</file>

The second line allows you to copy the debian-menu.xml file from /var/lib/openbox to your local ~/.config/openbox, where it becomes static (update-menus will not affect it). You can then edit it by hand and your changes will be permanent.

That’s all you should have to do, though it’s a good idea to run update-menus as root every now and then if you don’t have a cron job assigned. It refreshes the list of currently installed apps.

Then choose “reconfigure” on your root menu and you should get a Debian menu.

[
edit] If you haven’t had a working debian menu

This is a little trickier, but no big deal. First do all the steps listed above.

Then there’s this little humdinger: you’ll need to get a copy of an executable script named “openbox” and copy it to /etc/menu-methods. (The script actually creates the Debian menu when you run “update-menus.”)

The easiest way is to install an official debian openbox. This will normally ensure that you have all the packages required to create and use the Debian menu.

After installation you can copy that file, then let it get uninstalled by dpkg when you put in the openbox.org deb file. If you’re installing from source, you can just “aptitude remove” the official deb and proceed as normal.

If you don’t want to do that, download an official .deb and type the command dpkg-deb -x <officialopenbox.deb> <directory you want it in, usually . >

This will unpack a mini-filesystem that includes the script you need in localdir/etc/menu-methods. Copy that script to the real /etc/menu-methods and issue the command “update-menus” as root.

If you did not install an official openbox .deb, you should make sure you have the following packages installed:

  • menu
  • menu-xdg

As above, choose reconfigure from your root menu and at that point, you should have a brand new Debian menu.