Arch Linux, Openbox and Desktop

Question

I' m installing Arch with OpenBox, I' ve done everything but when I type

openbox-session

I have this error

Failed to open the display from the DISPLAY environment variable.

What's the problem?

warl0ck · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-08 14:55:38Z

up vote 3 down vote accepted

That's not the right way to initiate a x session with openbox,

Perhaps you meant to put that line in ~/.xinitrc, and execute startx instead.

Remember that an X app can't be run outside the Xorg environment.

answered Mar 8 at 14:55

warl0ck
10.7k11166

	This covered in more detail at the arch wiki. – Wieland Mar 8 at 20:19
	Yes with startx is ok, but why in the wiki there is exec openbox-session ?? – AlessioMTX Mar 8 at 21:22
	@AlessioMTX exec would replace the current shell process with the openbox-session process, thus X can know the exit status of it – warl0ck Mar 9 at 1:06
	@AlessioMTX Please read the whole section, it says "To run Openbox as a stand-alone window manager, append the following to ~/.xinitrc: exec openbox-session" (emphasis mine) – Wieland Mar 9 at 9:33
	@Wieland yes I wrote also in ~/.xinitrc: exec openbox-session – AlessioMTX Mar 9 at 22:40

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