Edit: Unfortunately, the images originally included in this post are gone, because of hosting problems in late 2009. My apologies.

If you have any inclination whatsoever toward Openbox or minimalistic setups, you need to get the newest versions of Openbox. I had been watching the progress a few months back, before my move, and things were looking good. After trying them out, I’m very excited by them.

Managing Openbox itself is becoming a little less cryptic and a lot more fluid. Even better, Obconf is maturing into something very customizable, and much more controllable. To be honest, until 2.0.2, I had always dismissed Obconf as a throwaway tool — something that came with the setup, but didn’t really do anything. But now it’s quite impressive. Previews of each theme are included, font sizing is separate from theme controls, and docking and margins are better supported.

I’m very enthused by this, if only because some of Openbox’s less manageable functions are now easier to access. If things keep rolling in this direction, I may never use another window manager again. Couple this with gtk-chtheme and ObMenu and setting up a pure Openbox machine is easier, faster and cleaner than ever.

Grab a fresh Feisty deb here. Don’t forget the proper Obconf; the Obconf from the repos will bomb if you try to use it with Openbox 3.4.4.