New Guide posted for Lithium users

damo · 2020-02-10 07:57:52

Introduction to the Bunsenlabs Lithium Desktop

It is a Closed thread, so any comments or suggestions can be posted here...

johnraff · 2020-02-10 08:43:42

Excellent!

Added a link to my sig.

Jimbo_G · 2020-02-10 09:11:26

Looks great! A very small suggestion for the first screenshot (might be unnecessary hand-holding but for completely new users it could be useful) is to annotate the image with some text and arrows showing what the Conky is, Tint2 panel, etc.

damo · 2020-02-10 13:29:32

Jimbo_G wrote:

Looks great! A very small suggestion for the first screenshot (might be unnecessary hand-holding but for completely new users it could be useful) is to annotate the image with some text and arrows showing what the Conky is, Tint2 panel, etc.

That had occurred to me, so I'll get on to it

EDIT: Done

Last edited by damo (2020-02-10 16:39:45)

DeepDayze · 2020-02-10 17:49:53

Very well done, Damo!

beng · 2020-08-13 12:22:33

again, thumbs up!
Thanks damo

rbh · 2020-11-02 08:49:33

Everyday tasks, like dispaly-settings, mixer-setting; changing output is missing.

Some advertisment for the excelent menu-choice: "? help & Recources", could spare some Newbies unnecessarily perplexety.

damo · 2020-11-02 10:54:56

rbh wrote:

Everyday tasks, like dispaly-settings, mixer-setting; changing output is missing.
Some advertisment for the excelent menu-choice: "? help & Recources", could spare some Newbies unnecessarily perplexety.

All those things are to be found in the main menu. At what level of detail should we stop hand-holding?

A new user who needs to be told to use "Help & Resources" is unlikely to have read a Lithium guide, or have bothered to explore the Menu, before making a help request. IMHO.

rbh · 2020-11-02 12:32:56

damo wrote:

At what level of detail should we stop hand-holding?
A new user who needs to be told to use "Help & Resources" is unlikely to have read a Lithium guide, or have bothered to explore the Menu, before making a help request. IMHO.

I hav done much thinking about "pedagogical clarity". Worked as a teacher in the late 70's. Arranged IT cources, when my Psychiatric Clinic moved from netware/dos, to netware/win 3.1. When the psyciatric ward closed down, I moved to the countys IT-department. Had often to over the phone guide a user. I have for many years been volontary "IT Coordinator" in a nonprofit organization. Arranged some classes and writen tutorials.

Yes, many new users, seems not to read the forum rules, have not searched the forum or the net for solution, before they ask in the forum. Some has glanced the information. Some has searched without finding.

If the same basic questions have to answered repeatedly, I think we have to consider the level and structure of information.

A wiki like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_page, would be absolutely best, but a lot of work.

It was a reflection.

sleekmason · 2020-11-02 13:37:32

rbh wrote:

damo wrote:
At what level of detail should we stop hand-holding?
A new user who needs to be told to use "Help & Resources" is unlikely to have read a Lithium guide, or have bothered to explore the Menu, before making a help request. IMHO.
I hav done much thinking about "pedagogical clarity". Worked as a teacher in the late 70's. Arranged IT cources, when my Psychiatric Clinic moved from netware/dos, to netware/win 3.1. When the psyciatric ward closed down, I moved to the countys IT-department. Had often to over the phone guide a user. I have for many years been volontary "IT Coordinator" in a nonprofit organization. Arranged some classes and writen tutorials.
Yes, many new users, seems not to read the forum rules, have not searched the forum or the net for solution, before they ask in the forum. Some has glanced the information. Some has searched without finding.
If the same basic questions have to answered repeatedly, I think we have to consider the level and structure of information.
A wiki like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_page, would be absolutely best, but a lot of work.
It was a reflection.

This is correct. No assumptions can be made about the skill level of new users. The basic level of information regarding the setup and basic customization should/must? be available to the newcomer, else they will go somewhere else, negating the point of doing any of this.

Basic level setup is why new people stick around. They think that's the groove until they learn something new:)

I love the idea of the wiki. These things don't have to be done fast. There are so many of us on the Bunsenlabs forums (I guess most linux forums), who are prolific writers who would be happy to contribute articles for inclusion. I know I would, over time, if given access.

johnraff · 2020-11-03 04:47:10

rbh wrote:

If the same basic questions have to answered repeatedly, I think we have to consider the level and structure of information.

This is a fair point, I think. If we can improve our docs with a certain - hopefully minimal - effort, and it saved work later, it might be a worthwhile payoff. Putting the basic stuff where new users are most likely to find it, possibly with some duplication...

There is also a discussion to be had about how best to distribute information between this forum (and its various areas) and the built-in BL help files. The latter are available offline of course, but the former are more easily maintained without requiring package updates. (There are also some BL man pages.)

A wiki like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_page, would be absolutely best, but a lot of work.

It is indeed a great deal of work to maintain a wiki.
CrunchBang used to have one. It was quite messy - though contained a lot of useful content - and at one point machinebacon and I were working on rationalizing it (at the same time another member was working in parallel unknown to us). But Corenominal, the #! dev, decided one day to end it. I was somewhat annoyed at the time, but I think he had a point that the #! community was too small to support a wiki ala Arch. So much more so for BL.

hhh · 2020-11-05 03:32:07

We should streamline the forum before even talking about a wiki. We have cruft, and we haven't posted many lithium-specific guides (note, @damo, bravo for your work so far on this)...

I'll try to write up a plan for consolidating and progressing the forum. I think that's a better idea than starting a new Wiki. Give me a couple of weeks, I have a lot going on.

johnraff · 2020-11-05 06:28:17

hhh wrote:

I'll try to write up a plan for consolidating and progressing the forum.

Great idea! (But cover your Real Life stuff first.)

hhh · 2020-11-06 02:53:39

^ Heard that, thanks John!

emarin · 2020-12-03 01:02:16

Thanks for the guide, and good job with the Distro!.

rbh · 2021-08-02 11:14:29

I think it would be good to add a new section, with the info:

Bunsenlabs User config files
All default BunsenLabs user config files is located in /usr/share/bunsen/skel.
Skript bl-user-setup, copies them to $HOME directory.
More info with command 'bl-user-setup --help'

Under section "Bunsenlabs Session"
There is some text:
"NB Many settings changes require Openbox to be reconfigured:"
With default theme, the text is yellow on white. Impossible for my old tired to read, difficult for most people.

Last edited by rbh (2021-08-02 11:15:13)

johnraff · 2021-08-03 05:48:59

^both seem like good suggestions.
@damo?

rbh · 2021-12-04 12:29:19

damo wrote:

Introduction to the Bunsenlabs Lithium Desktop
It is a Closed thread, so any comments or suggestions can be posted here...

I propose to add two new sections:

After "The Bunsenlabs Lithium Desktop", before "Main Menu":

Default Bunsenlabs user configs

Package bunsen-configs, contains some default user configs, to give the user a functional and aesthetic desktop experience "out of the box".
The default config-files in /usr/share/bunsen/skel/* is copied to users home at first login.

When user-configs is upgraded, script bl-user-setup, will popup a a question if you want to import files into ~/.
If you have made significant changes to your config files, you can decline the popup's invitation and run 'bl-user-setup' in a terminal to make decisions for each file separately.
Or, you can allow all import, open file ~/.cache/bunsen/bl-setup/log, to get the list of overwitten configfiles and use a diff program like meld to examine the differenses and eventualley copy back some settings.
Delete old backups to facilitate maintenance.

More info with command 'bl-user-setup --help'

Between "Run applications" and "BLOB Themes Manager":

Change theme.
To change theme in BunsenLabs, and configure specific aspects, you must use two programs

lxappearance: Menu -> Preferences -> Appearance

obconf: Menu -> Preferences -> Openbox -> WM Preferences
and choose same theme in both programs.

As Openbox is not a desktop environment (DE), both programs is needed to alter different aspects of the desktop. See https://wiki.debian.org/Openbox, for info on the difference between a window manager and a desktop environment.

In Openbox, GTK programs looks best. QT-programs can be run, but they will not always look so good. In the worst case, icons and / or menus may be indistinguishable. Changing theme and or specific elements like system font, icon-theme etc, should solve your problem.

I also want to remind of:

Under section "Bunsenlabs Session"
There is some text:
"NB Many settings changes require Openbox to be reconfigured:"
With default theme, the text is yellow on white. Impossible for my old tired to read, difficult for most people.

Ok to change to color red?

rbh · 2021-12-04 14:11:34

Propose two new sections.

To add before "Tint2 Panel"

Screen settings

BunsenLabs, has a Screen layout editor:

arandr Menu -> Preferences -> Display -> ARandR Screen Layout Editor
ARandr is a visual front end for xrandr.

You can configure multiple monitors, set size, resolution and orientation.
If you want configured settings to load at start, you can save the settings as a script to be loaded by autostart.

On menu "Layout", choose "Save As", save as screen.sh in default ~./screenlayout/.
Open file ~/.config/bunsen/autostart in your editor.
After text "### SETTINGS START", add:
~/.screenlayout/screen.sh

To add after "Run applications"

Autostart applications:

Aplications can be autostarted when added last to file ~/.config/bunsen/autostart
Add & after the command, so the aplication can be started in the background and the script continue to the end:

thunar &
x-terminal-emulator &

Some programs, such as 'nm-applet' are run via XDG autostart, from .desktop files in /etc/xdg/autostart and ~/.config/autostart.

Command "bl-xdg-autostart --list", will list all autostarted programs and list where they are autostarted from.

johnraff · 2021-12-05 05:02:29

All looks OK to me (barring a couple of small typos and grammatical errors).

If no-one objects in a day or two, maybe @rbh you could just go in and make your additions?

Last edited by johnraff (2021-12-05 05:03:30)

#1 2020-02-10 07:57:52

New Guide posted for Lithium users

#2 2020-02-10 08:43:42

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#3 2020-02-10 09:11:26

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#4 2020-02-10 13:29:32

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#5 2020-02-10 17:49:53

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#6 2020-08-13 12:22:33

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#7 2020-11-02 08:49:33

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#8 2020-11-02 10:54:56

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#9 2020-11-02 12:32:56

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#10 2020-11-02 13:37:32

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#11 2020-11-03 04:47:10

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#12 2020-11-05 03:32:07

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#13 2020-11-05 06:28:17

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#14 2020-11-06 02:53:39

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#15 2020-12-03 01:02:16

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#16 2021-08-02 11:14:29

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#17 2021-08-03 05:48:59

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#18 2021-12-04 12:29:19

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#19 2021-12-04 14:11:34

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

#20 2021-12-05 05:02:29

Re: New Guide posted for Lithium users

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