Openbox

Openbox is a minimalistic, highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.

Note: Before installing any desktop,

Setup your Internet access, if not done already, before you proceed further.
Create a non-privileged user account for security reasons, if you skipped this step during Installation.
Enable community repository.
Install graphics driver for your video hardware.

Installation

Install X11 and set it up using the setup-xorg-base script.

# setup-xorg-base

Install the basic packages for a minimal installation:

# apk add openbox xterm font-terminus

xterm is needed so you have a way to access the terminal in X. There are alternatives but this is the classic. font-terminus is needed because without any fonts, you will not be able to see any text in Openbox.

Configure user

To make Xorg work as normal user you need to add user to these groups: video, input.

# addgroup <username> input

# addgroup <username> video

acpid

If you installed your Alpine Linux as a VirtualBox or VMWare guest, you might find it handy to be able execute an ACPI shutdown.

# rc-update add acpid

Set Openbox as the default WM

$ echo 'exec openbox-session' >> ~/.xinitrc

Copy the config files to your home folder

$ mkdir ~/.config

$ cp -r /etc/xdg/openbox ~/.config

Note: The default configuration is minimal and most menu options won't work unless you customize and/or install additional packages. More information is available in the Openbox configuration documentation. 🔓

Edit Openbox settings

You can now edit the Openbox settings for your user by editing the files located in ~/.config/openbox

The Openbox configuration details can be studied on the Openbox wiki.

Start X

$ startx

Note: The default Openbox menu (right-click on desktop) will have a lot of options that won't work because the required packages haven't been installed. XTerm will work if you added the package in the first step, and you can use that to add additional packages.