Openbox doesn' t start [SOLVED]

[Scorpion]

I use sddm as display manager on Debian 10.
If I choose openbox as GUI it doesn't start.

I closed sddm and I tried to launch it from the tty:

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openbox-session
Openbox-Message: Failed to open the display from the DISPLAY environment variable.

If I use startx it starts GNOME, and that's what I want.

I don't have any ~/.xinitrc file.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

To (test) launch it from the TTY use

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startx /usr/bin/openbox-session

Check the SDDM logs (or the systemd journal, which should record all messages).

[Scorpion]

With that command openbox starts.

I now discovered that openbox actually starts but works bad, the screen from sddm remains so it seems to be stuck, and the images of the windows remain:

immagini

I had this problem on my other Debian 10 computer with gdm3 but openbox started with the blackscreen, after some time it was fixed.
I don't know what happened.

How do I check the logs? Or systemd journal?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

the screen from sddm remains so it seems to be stuck, and the images of the windows remain

You need to set a wallpaper. Use feh or xsetroot.

How do I check the logs? Or systemd journal?

See journalctl(1). Or ask a search engine.

[shep]

I use OpenBox with the xcompmgr compositor started from xdm without issue in Debian 10. sddm accommodates X11 and or Wayland while OpenBox is strictly X11. sddm also leans toward Qt while OpenBox is strictly gtk. I wonder if you are having compositor issues with sddm starting Wayland? OpenBox will not composite with Wayland.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

OpenBox will not composite with Wayland.

Wayland is just a protocol. Display servers that use the protocol are called compositors because they also act as compositing window managers but Wayland compositors cannot be used in the same way as xcompmgr, compton or picom.

[Scorpion]

The output of journalctl is huge.
What should I look for?

I set gdm3 as DM and I have the same problem (windows "afterimages") but openbox starts with the black background.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

The output of journalctl is huge.
What should I look for?

So you couldn't be bothered reading the man page then?

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journalctl --unit sddm.service

But it works so we don't need to worry about that now.

I set gdm3 as DM and I have the same problem (windows "afterimages") but openbox starts with the black background.

You need to set a wallpaper, as I mentioned earlier.

Install the feh package and use it to open whichever image file you want to use as your desktop background, right-click on the image in feh and select File → Background → Set Filled (or whatever option is required) and add this line to ~/.config/openbox/autostart:

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~/.fehbg

[Scorpion]

Right I copied the default configs from /etc/xdg/openbox and I added to autostart:

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feh --bg-scale /path-to-wallpaper &

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Remove the ampersand from the end of the line, it is not needed.

If you use my line you can change the wallpaper by opening the desired image with feh and using the right-click menu options I listed instead of editing the autostart file manually.