How to build obmenu-generator for Debian Linux

 obmenu-generator generates a menu with icons for openbox

These are the steps that need to be followed:

1) Dependencies: perl-linux-desktopfiles and perl-data-dump

A) How to download, compile and install perl-linux-desktopfiles:

$ wget http://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/T/TR/TRIZEN/DesktopFiles-0.08.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf DesktopFiles-0.08.tar.gz
$ cd Linux-DesktopFiles-0.08/
$ perl Build.PL
$ ./Build
$ ./Build test
$ sudo ./Build install

B) How to download and install perl-data-dump:

$ wget http://mirror.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/community/os/i686/perl-data-dump-1.22-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
$ sudo tar -Jxvf perl-data-dump-1.22-1-any.pkg.tar.xz -C / --exclude=.PKGINFO --exclude=.MTREE

Then you need to run the following command to find obmenu-generator Data:

$ sudo cp -av /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Data /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2/

If the command fails repeat it after installing obmenu-generator.

2) obmenu-generator

How to download, build and install the deb obmenu-generator:

$ mkdir obmenu-generator
$ cd obmenu-generator/
$ mkdir DEBIAN
$ nano DEBIAN/control

Copy paste these contents

Package: obmenu-generator
Version: 1.0
Section: custom
Priority: optional
Architecture: all
Essential: no
Installed-Size: 1375
Maintainer: Daniel Șuteu
Description: Menus generator for OpenBox

Save and close it with Ctrl + O and Ctrl + X

$ mkdir -p usr/bin/
$ wget -nv http://trizen.googlecode.com/files/obmenu-generator
$ chmod +x obmenu-generator
$ mv obmenu-generator usr/bin/
$ cd ..
$ dpkg-deb -b obmenu-generator
$ sudo dpkg -i obmenu-generator.deb
$ dpkg -l obmenu-generator
$ obmenu-generator

For generating a static menu, use:
   obmenu-generator -i -s

or dynamic menu:
   obmenu-generator -i -p

and reconfigure the Openbox, by executing:
       openbox --reconfigure

Reincarnation of Kitty the Pisi | ex-Pardus Linux is Pisi Linux now !

I remember it . I have a very vivid memory of my first hand experience with first version of Pardus Linux . It was fun and excitement to use a unique operating system with a package manager named Pisi.

Since I have always liked linux distributions which are different , not used by common home users Pardus Linux was my favourite along with Arch Linux both on my desktop and laptop for years . I am still using Arch Linux . Pardus Linux was “ forced to die” due to some unknown reasons ( Turkish government stopped funding the project ? ) and a new Pardus with debian under the hood was created . Pisi and the uniqueness behind this distribution was left to rot and a sweet dream died for many like me.

Recently some guys ( I really don`t know who they are) Anka-Team a voluntary developers team of Pisi Linux ( thanks to erdinc gultekin for the info ) lead by project leader Serdar Soytetir ( thanks to Richard de Bruin for the info ) , ex-Pardus fans who sticked to the Pisi dream and had the potential to rise the kitty from ashes created a new distribution with the name of Pisi Linux . More detail information about Pisi Linux and the development team can be found on this link from Pisi Linux WORLD . Worth to mention here is that although Pisi Linux main website is offered in Turkish language only but Pisi Linux WORLD is English language based and contains all the news, updates , download links and forum for Pisi Linux .

There were news about this new project and even Distrowatch added this distribution to their database but then something of mysterious nature happened and this neonate distribution was condemned , treated as a step child and the project was blamed to be immature.

 Addendum:

I want to understand the reason why Pisi Linux has been treated as a foster and step child since its day of inception . We daily see so many forks of forks distributions with nothing pure and original , all such forks just add eye candy to an existing distribution and re-invent the same wheel again and again . Pisi Linux is uunique and original . It does not arise or depend on any other distribution . Everything on Pisi Linux  is made from scratch up . Even its predecessor Pardus Linux was not a forked distribution. So why is Pisi Linux received in such an un-welcome way? Just because  someone labeled this project as immature all the hard work and efforts to run this project has become baseless??

Please comment and let me know the real side of story if it looks like I am missing something . Ok I read about it and I think it was some kind of flame war lit by some unfortunate misunderstandings,so let`s forget it  and move on with how Pisi Linux is serving me so well this time.
 

Out of curiosity and having an association with Pisi through ex-Pardus I kept on following this project to see their progress since they sounded to be resilient and persistent despite the initial unfortunate incidents happened to their project . Honestly they were sort of slow and it looked like this distribution will suffer an infantile demise . But recently I noticed some new developmental events going on at this project when they released beta version to their first release but I was still skeptical to try out their work . Last night I noticed they have come up with an RC version . This was the time to mess up with the reincarnated kitty so I downloaded and installed it on my desktop and it was a wonderful experience .

I am not going to reveal what is my experience with Pisi Linux , I think I will share something that works so perfect . I just installed openbox , the default packages available on repositories were installed in few minutes and from KDM I could log in to an openbox session with tint2 and conky running . Openbox installation was just perfect with openbox menu set already , so it was almost an auto magical task .

I want others to test and know for themselves . But I have no reluctance to say that I have no regrets to try it and I am going to use this new Pisi Linux since it really impressed me totally. There are going to be issues since its still an infant project but why not test and see what are these people trying to do in this project ??

Manjaro KDE! An unpromised Release with promised breakages !!

Today I tested the newly released Manjaro 0.8.0 KDE i686 . I know this distro for quite some time now : the last time I used it that was their  XFCE version. Then it was quite acceptable and even that there were problems it was still working.

But this release is a total disaster as far as KDE version is concerned : they have released their classic XFCE version once again and GNOME also.

Since I tested KDE I will mention the disasters I faced on this version.

It is a live DVD : Boots fine and you see a plain KDE Desktop.

I kept looking for their installer and contrary to their XFCE version they did not bother to place an icon on desktop so one can launch the installer : I kept searching for it in K Menu and after good five minutes I finally managed to locate the installer.

About the installer : It is the same old ArchBang Installer which these few newly forked arch based distros got adopted and works well on others but totally fails on Manjaro.

All the steps on installer apparently went smooth till GRUB2 installation : I opted to default i.e MBR and GRUB2 failed to install : I retried and this time I opted to install to the partition where I was trying to install Manjaro and as expected GRUB2 failed once again. So feeling fully pissed off I opted not to install GRUB2 and planned to boot it with my Arch Linux .

Once I had manually entered Manjaro kernel enteries into my Arch Linux GRUB2 I finally managed to boot Manjaro and more disasters were waiting ahead .

KDE being fully installed should present  KDM to login to Manjaro but there was no KDM : just plain text based login prompt : with grim heart I issued my username and password and weirdly I could see my password visible . I issued startx and X tried to load but crashed in few moments leaving me at login prompt again .

I looked for nvidia drivers and they were already installed : looked for inittab to check if KDM was enabled there and to my amazement there is no inittab file present !

One more missing file offered by Archbang installer normally was rc.conf file so I had no idea what was autoset for my system by Manjaro during installation.

After these apparently visible disasters I lost my all excitement to probe anymore into this distro and I promptly formatted it without any hesitation.

In my humble opinion and with my brief but futile experience with Manjaro KDE I have no regrets to say that it is a total waste of bandwidth and time. Other than a polished new  website and  being accepted by DistroWatch added to its distributions list it seems to be poorly tested and rushed for release only .

This project was quiet for many months and suddenly it comes to surface with a bright new website : three different types of isos and lots of apparent attraction but on real test it failed like a hobbyist distro. And to reassure I had perfectly burned media : no bad download : no wrong md5sums etc.

Contrary to Manjaro , Bridge Linux , Nosonja and ArchbBang all work out of box and I have never faced any issues with any of these distros while installing them on numerous machines.

If Manjaro team wants to be more successful they have to release at least some test releases for public testing and bug fixing before they commit to a new release with broken wings as this  0.8.0 release. 

Best wishes to Manjaro, see you next time when you can at least walk on your feet .

Regards