remastering knoppix

bourne · 11-24-2008, 04:49 PM

Hey guys. .

I just have a quick question regarding the remastering of knoppix.
I want to have the default windows manager be fluxbox.. but I don't want to use the default fluxbox settings that are generated when you first launch fluxbox.. I want to use my own..

I have been reading about how you can customize you desktop with KDE and one point that was brought up was that you can't place anything in the /home/knoppix directory because it will simply be over written by the '/etc/skel' and '/etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession'.

Is there a way for me to add something to either one of these to files to include my custom fluxbox settings? This will include a wallpaper and also a custom menu.

I have also looked at the '/etc/X11/fluxbox' folder and noticed that there are some customized files in there. Can I edit some of those to create the customized look that I am aiming for?

The easiest thing for me to do would be to just have my custom fluxbox folder copied to the '/home/knoppix' home directory when it is initially created.. would this be possible?

Any help would greatly be appreciated

thank you in advance

cheers

todd

bourne · 11-24-2008, 05:43 PM

Quote:

rsync -Ha --ignore-existing /etc/skel/{.acrorc,.Xdefaults,.gimp*,.gconf*,.bashrc,.nessus*,.links,.local,.lynx*,.qt,.xine,.xmms,tmp} $HOME/ 2>/dev/null
[ "$USER" = "knoppix" ] && rsync -Ha --ignore-existing /usr/share/knoppix/profile/{.gnupg,.acrorc,.Xdefaults,.bashrc,.nessus*,.links,.lynx*,.qt,.xine,tmp} $HOME/ 2>/dev/null

I was looking at this line of code in the '/etc/X11/Xession.d/45xsession' file and I saw that when the user is equal to "knoppix" files from the '/etc/skel' directory are copied to make the knoppix users home directory. Can I add the necessary .fluxbox files to the '/etc/skel' and add an entry in this entry to also copy these .fluxbox files?

cheers

todd

salter · 11-24-2008, 05:57 PM

You can certainly add your own content to /etc/skel. To use a different window manager, I would rather change the Knoppix startx script, either by extending it's functionality or replacing the default WM with your choice.

There are quite some project that are based on Knoppix - have a look at their modifications when compared to plain Knoppix.

I remember that the Knoppix site once had some documentation about it's internal concept and how to change things, but I can't recall the location. Maybe a Google search will help.

Linux Archive

bourne · 11-24-2008, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salter

You can certainly add your own content to /etc/skel. To use a different window manager, I would rather change the Knoppix startx script, either by extending it's functionality or replacing the default WM with your choice.

There are quite some project that are based on Knoppix - have a look at their modifications when compared to plain Knoppix.

I remember that the Knoppix site once had some documentation about it's internal concept and how to change things, but I can't recall the location. Maybe a Google search will help.

Thank you for the response..

I have indeed found that link: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Knoppix_...ing_the_Chroot

That is where I got the bases from to formulate my question. I actually think the part about changing the KDE might have some relevance to what I am trying to do:

Code:

Launching KDE to Change Menus, Icons, etc.

While you are in the chroot environment you can load KDE and use the configuration tools to change buttons, icons, etc. Once you are finished you can exit KDE and copy /home/knoppix to /etc/skel to keep these changes. To load KDE do the following.

1. If you are not at runlevel 2 (i.e. if you are already in KDE), switch to runlevel 2.
*

init 2

2. Copy /etc/skel to /home/knoppix
*

cp -Rp /etc/skel /home/knoppix

3. Change permissions to the user 'knoppix'
*

chown knoppix:knoppix -R /home/knoppix

4. Copy over your X11 configuration to the chroot'd environment (press ctrl+alt+F2 to switch to a non-chroot'd terminal, then ctrl+alt+F1 to switch back when done)
*

cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /mnt/hda1/knx/source/KNOPPIX/etc/X11

*

Knoppix 3.7: I think it's XF86Config-4 rather than xorg.conf.

5. (Optional)Switch to user 'knoppix'. If you want to uninstall packages, stay as root -- e.g. skip this step. If you want to configure the buttons, icons, background, etc., that you see when KDE boots, be sure to do this step.
*

su knoppix

1. Launch KDE
*

startx

2. Do your KDE changes
3. Exit KDE
4. Exit su and switch back to user 'root'.
*

exit

6. Copy /home/knoppix back to /etc/skel to keep the changes
*

mv /etc/skel /etc/skel-old

*

mv /home/knoppix /etc/skel

7. Set the owner back to root
*

chown root:root -R /etc/skel

8. Remove the xorg.conf file
*

rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

9. If you find that some of your settings are not persistent after booting the new image, check the initialization file at /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession. By default, Knoppix does not simply copy over all files from /etc/skel. You may need to make modifications here if you wish to do something different.

I think though that instead of doing it this way.. which actually ended up messing up my remastering the first time. I will just simply copy my fluxbox files to the '/etc/skel' directory.

This tutorial also explains how to change the default WM by editing this file '/etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig'

thank you for your response

cheers

todd

bourne · 11-29-2008, 09:25 AM

Hey guys...

Well I think I answered my own question and managed to figure out that if I do put things into the /etc/skel file that they will be copied. I also have to change a file in the /etc/X11/fluxbox directory (more a safely precaution I think, I haven't been able to test yet so I don't know 100%).

I have another question though with regards to fluxbox...

I am able to get fluxbox to use my custom style by default by for some reason I am having no luck with it using my custom background. I have tried placing the startup file in the ~/.fluxbox directory but it just gets ignored and won't set background.

I copy the command out of the startup file and paste it into the command line and issue it, the background will be set no problem

Command used:

Code:

fbsetbg -f ~/.fluxbox/backgrounds/smile_joker.jpg

So I guess my question is does anyone know why the system would be ignoring the startup file in the home directory and not setting the background properly?

any help would greatly be appreciated.

cheers

todd