Getting BunsenLabs (Lithium) to run on MX19 & antiX19 (a tutorial)

For those who are interested in having a version of BunsenLabs (Lithium) running on MX19 and/or antiX19, I have begun work on that task. Right now I have no plans to build a full respin (where I have to maintain and manage keeping everything current). However, I will provide build instructions so you can roll your own setup.

Below are images of what I have installed and implemented- a basic version of the BunsenLabs Lithium materials (per BL guidance) on MX19. Click on the images to get a bigger view:

If you want to try this (please don’t do it on your daily platform just yet) you may begin the install by installing a copy of MXLinux19 on your test platform. Once you have installed MX19, to create a version on your BL-Lithium on your new MX19 installation, add the following line to your apt sources (/etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list) :

##BunsenLabs Experimental
deb https://asia.pkg.bunsenlabs.org/~johnraff/debian lithium main

Next, to build a version of BunsenLabs (Lithium- experimental) on MX19 you simply need to enter the following commands in terminal mode:

wget https://kelaino.bunsenlabs.org/~johnraff/helium-dev.asc
sudo cp helium-dev.asc /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends bunsen-meta-all

Some necessary post-install tweaks, courtesy of @hhh and @johnraff BunsenLabs developers

network ***This does not appear to be required on MX. ****

Since iwconfig sets up the internet connection during the installation, editing of /etc/network/interfaces is necessary after the BL desktop is installed to allow Network Manager to handle connections.

Comment out anything except for the first eight lines as so…

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
#allow-hotplug enp9s0
#iface enp9s0 inet dhcp

wireless ** You may find this necessary if you have the misfortune of using Broadcom WiFi **

Since b43 drivers for Broadcom WiFi are not available in buster, you can download the packages from sid and install them with dpkg -i:

volume icon **Note, this is very likely a temporary item**

pnmixer has a GUI update that hasn’t been configured yet in our [BL] repo.
Fix the panel volume icon via right-click>Preferences>View>Icon Theme, select Use System Theme and click Apply.

— end of @johnraff notes —

Once BunsenLabs is installed, reboot (restart) your system. When you arrive at the LightDM login screen, login to BunsenLabs (not xfce).

After you enter the BunsenLabs desktop, respond to the BL questionnaire.

Notes on the BL questionnaire:

  • I have found adding PAE kernel to be problematic (especially in VirtualBox installs.) You are on your own with that choice.
  • I recommend you avoid the addition of all Backports.

Next, open a terminal window to remove xfce4 (which should cleanup any potential conflicts between BL & MX xfce4 installs). To do that enter

sudo apt remove xfce4*

Caution!! Do not omit, leave off, or quit at the above step. Once it is complete enter the following into your terminal in order to establish a re-baseline (fresh baseline) of BunsenLabs Lithium:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends bunsen-meta-all

Once BL is updated/ reinstalled install the following in terminal by entering:

sudo apt install compton compton-conf xfce4-terminal

Note: leave xfce4-terminal in the above install items if you like transparent background terminal screens. lxterminal won’t do that.

The next activity will repair your Logout functions. (Remember you can always use Ctl-Alt-Bckspc to Logout if you need to.)

First download the following little file and place it in .config/yad (you’ll need to create that directory manually).

Here’s the file to download: logout.sh

(This file will need to be extracted once it is safely nestled in your nice, new, fresh yad directory.)

Next for tint2 (the menu bar at the top, button on the far right) open your terminal and edit the following file from terminal with the following command:

geany .config/tint2/tintrc

Once open, search tintrc for bl-exit and replace bl-exit with .config/yad/logout.sh. Save & Close tint2rc.

You need to do the same sort of thing to repair the Exit function in jgmenu (the little flame menu and desktop menu). Edit the following file from terminal with the following command:

geany .config/jgmenu/prepend.csv

Once open, search prepend.csv for bl-exit and replace bl-exit with .config/yad/logout.sh. Save & Close prepend.csv

Lastly, I recommend that you download and install obmenu-generator. To get the latest copy, go here and download the copy for Debian 10 (Buster).

Once you have installed obmenu-generator open your terminal and enter:

obmenu-generator -s -c

Then remember to do this after every additional or removal of software to keep your menu ‘current’.

Do you hear the trumpets? See the fire works? You are done. You now have MXLinux19 with the very cool BunsenLabs Lithium Desktop,

Here is an image of Lithium on running on mx19, with yad logout and new background.

antiX19 with Lithium Experimental:

(this section will be updated when antiX19 reaches RC phase).

The following fairly simple process accomplishes the transition of antiX from a standard setup to one using BunsenLabs (Lithium experimental release- Openbox):

  1. Install the current beta version of antiX19b3
  2. Add the following line to your apt sources (/etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list) : 
     ##BunsenLabs Experimental 
deb https://kelaino.bunsenlabs.org/~johnraff/debian lithium main
  3. To build a version of BunsenLabs (Lithium- experimental) on antiX19b3 you simply need to enter the following commands in terminal mode: 
    1.  
wget https://kelaino.bunsenlabs.org/~johnraff/helium-dev.asc 
sudo cp helium-dev.asc /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends bunsen-meta-all
  4. Next remove the following standard antiX components, if you desire a more standard Bunsenlabs-like OpenBox installation (you may do this using the antiX Control Centre or via terminal mode):
    1. SLIM
    2. fluxbox
    3. icewm
    4. jwm
    5. herbstluftwm
  5. Because Display Managers are crucial and sometimes disappear (on me anyway), I recommend you use terminal mode to install lightdm. BunsenLabs does not seem to work well otherwise.
  6. That should do it. Reboot and enjoy.