openbsd wallpaper problem

rhtoras

Hello all...
I have installed openbsd and i want to change wallpaper but this doesn't seem to be an option.
Let me explain a little. I used stock fvwm and of course xenodm. In fvwm 1 if i add "setxroot -bg -solid green" for example in xterm i have a green wallpaper. When i save this line .xsession as root and restart i have no green wallpaper.
I tried fvwm 3 and saving it on my .xsession writing: xterm & exec fvwm3 as i did with fvwm and it was ok since i could load in my desktop i could not use stock wallpapers nor use any wallpaper.
Then i tried other desktops such as afterstep writing on .xsession xterm & exec afterstep or windowmaker e.t.c and could not load desktop. I saw this was not the appropriate way to launch these and some recommended use .xinitrc instead of .xsession but i don't find a good sollution.
Any ideas or suggestions ? What i am doing wrong ? What infos do you need ?

If you are using a display manager, it most probably should be started from .xsession. I don't use display managers or OpenBSD, check which file your display manager is reading.
Without a display manager, it should be started from .xinitrc.

What do you have in these two files?

You can also use feh to set the wallpaper.

rhtoras

pin I knew that .xsession is the proper way to start a session with dm's although i have an installation somewhere with openbsd+slim+fvwm running on .xinitrc ! I know though the proper way is to run things on .xsession!

On my .xsession i only have what i mentioned:

xterm &
exec fvwm
xsetroot -bg -solid light green

i do not have the .xinitrc file since i use xenodm

rhtoras the xsetroot command needs to be before exec, else it won't be executed, just change the order.

rhtoras

pin Thanks that did the trick...
btw do you know why afterstep won't load ?
is there a special order to make it work ?
i had type:

xterm &
exec afterstep

rhtoras btw do you know why afterstep won't load ?

Sorry but, no. Never used afterstep, I only use tiling wms.

rhtoras btw do you know why afterstep won't load ?
is there a special order to make it work ?

Have a look here, https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/afterstep.55414/

I don't know why afterstep would require dbus to be enabled but, that was the solution in that thread.

pfr

On my void machine running openbox I use exec dbus-run-session openbox-session so you could try something similar if dbus-launch doesn't work

pfr dbus-launch, dbus-run-session

CiotBSD

@rhtoras after installing dbus package on your OpenBSD, maybe this could be help you:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Running dbus on OpenBSD
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------

To start a session bus instance of dbus-daemon (needed by applications
installing /usr/local/share/dbus-1/services/*.service files), add the
following lines to your Xsession script before starting the window manager
(see dbus-launch(1) for more info) -- note that some session/login managers,
like gnome-session(1) already handle this automatically.

e.g. console login: ~/.xinitrc
if [ -x /usr/local/bin/dbus-launch -a -z "${DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS}" ]; then
	eval `dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session`
fi

e.g. graphical display manager: ~/.xsession
if [ -x /usr/local/bin/dbus-launch -a -z "${DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS}" ]; then
	eval `dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-x11`
fi

Egual, you've some documentations about dbus on /usr/local/share/doc/dbus/ 😉