Xoo on ubuntu

This page describes how to setup Xoo which is basically a wrapper around an nested X-Server like Xephyr. It runs on Ubuntu as a GUI for testing Matchbox Themes in the original Pandora screen dimensions.

Testing dimensions on a desktop

Install the packages

Matchbox:

apt-get install matchbox-common matchbox-panel matchbox-window-manager

and in Ubuntu 8.04:

apt-get install matchbox-desktop

If Ubuntu 8.10 is used, instead grab the package

matchbox-desktop_0.9.1-4_i386.deb

from Ubuntu package archives and install via dpkg or GDebi (just doubleclick).

You can then lock matchbox-desktop to this version in synaptic

Xoo:

This should also install the nested X-Server Xephyr

apt-get install xoo

Setup Xoo

Create config files for xoo and put them in /usr/share/xoo/

Here is a great xoo theme (thanks to greendots - hope it's ok for you to share)

Xoo Theme from greendots

Untar this in /usr/share/xoo/

Create a new user (optional)

You know how to do it ;) This is recommended to not screw up your main account!

Log in as the new user and:

Get the pandora theme dotfiles from wesbrown as a starting point

Matchbox dotfiles

Untar this files to the home dir

Create a session file for matchbox und put it in ~/.matchbox/session

matchbox-window-manager -use_desktop_mode decorated -theme Pandora &
  matchbox-panel --titlebar -c \#B8C8C4 &
  matchbox-desktop

In this case, you can start the whole matchbox environment with the 'matchbox-session' command.

OR create a bash script for starting matchbox like this

#!/bin/bash
  matchbox-window-manager -theme Pandora &
  sleep 1
  matchbox-panel --titlebar -c \#B8C8C4 &
  matchbox-desktop

and save somewhere in your homedir (must of course be executable). Name this for example "start-matchbox".

Copy matchbox .desktop files to ~/.local/share/applications

cp ~/.applications/* ~/.local/share/applications/

Otherwise ubuntu won't find the .desktop files - i guess this is some freedesktop.org standard or just a compile option of matchbox...

Start Xoo from Console or ALT-F2

xoo --device Pandora

Configure Xoo

Add the command 'matchbox-session' (or the path to your 'start-matchbox' script) to xoo properties

 Menu Device -> Properties -> On startup run:

That's it - a pandora on the desktop :) (see the image at the top of this article)