Xfce 4.2.0 Released

kelnos copies and pastes: "The Xfce Team is pleased to announce the availability of Xfce 4.2.0, the next major version of the Xfce Desktop Environment and Development Framework for Unix and Unix-like platforms. Xfce 4.2.0 can be downloaded here. Xfce 4.2.0 includes new applications like a session manager and an application finder, a new and beautiful icon theme, support for bleeding-edge features (like the X.org Composite extension), usability and performance improvements, better support for multihead desktops, new and updated translations, additional themes, and various other improvements over the previous stable releases. See this page for a complete list of changes between Xfce 4.0 and Xfce 4.2. Furthermore, Xfce 4.2 is the first desktop environment to ship with an easy-to-use and platform-independent graphical installation wizard, which takes care of compiling and installing Xfce on your system. Visit the os-cillation installers website for download links and instructions. If you want to try Xfce 4.2.0 first, without installing anything on your system, you might want to try the Xfce Live Demo 0.2, provided by os-cillation, to discover the power and efficiency of Xfce."

One reason why I'm still using Window Maker....

[MisterP]

I've been a Window Maker user for 7 or 8 years and I've tried XFCE 4.0 and the RC's of 4.2. I used 4.0 for a good 2 weeks at home and at work and then 4.2 RC for another week but I'm back using Window Maker again. XFCE is very nice and the developers have done a great job making a nice light WM, but the reason I switched back is the same reason I don't use KDE or Gnome. They all redraw funny. The GUI doesn't feel "solid" like MS Windows, OS X or Window Maker does. I'm not talking about stability. I wish I could explain it better and I hope someone else can chime and explain it. Here's how I reproduce it:

When I have 4+ desktops (or even one loaded up with applications) and I switch desktops or alt-tab, with XFCE (or Gnome, KDE) it takes longer than it should to redraw the screen or window. I notice this even on fast machines with fast video cards running recent Xorg releases.

Does anybody else experience this?

Dumb question...

[LnxAddct]

But can you place icons and folders on the dekstop? It seems like alot of these less popular but sometimes more feature filled window managers are lacking something as basic as a desktop. Xfce looks real nice but if i can't just drag an icon onto my main screen, then forget it.
Regards,
Steve

Re:How lightweight, if it requires gtk+?

[avalys]

It requires GTK+, but not Gnome.

WindowMaker is an excellent window manager - I don't know what else you expect a "small window mangler" to do. If you want something "modern", then I would advise you to stop using an operating system that can trace it's origins back to the 1960's.

Blackbox is another personal favorite - it's about as lightweight as you can get.

Re:How lightweight, if it requires gtk+?

[fymidos]

gtk+ is not that big - maybe 5-6 mb.
Besides, as a *common* library, it will ultimately *save* space, if you are planning to actually install graphical applications.

Re:License confusion does not inspire confidence.

[Anonymous Coward]

...except that it's f* debian with udpated xfce packages. Duh.

Re:Best Alternative

[ebob]

This question came up on the xfce user's email list. Here is a link to the relevent reply: http://lunar-linux.org/pipermail/xfce/2004-Decembe r/012132.html

Young at Heart

[Doc Ruby]

All operating systems' origins can be traced back to the 1960s, when they invented operating systems. OS development is largely "punctuated evolution" - incremental accelerated by occasional revolutionary changes. So OS'es with older, more direct roots have the advantage of maturity, meaning that many problems which OS'es address have been solved, in order to survive enough to contribute to the next generation. Truly new OS'es, like PalmOS, aren't even tested enough in many scenarios to predict how they'll fail, the most imporant property of using an OS. Some OS'es, like Windows, are trapped in both worlds: significant new, untested tech combined with lots of obsolete legacy apps to support, often in mutually exclusive modes or subsystems. Of all these lineages, Linux probably has the best deal, being a rebirth of pedigreed Unix architectures, without the old apps or users to hold back innovation, combined with its essential self-modifying toolchain and community.

Re:Best Alternative

[Saeger]

I researched this a little while ago, and you've got a few options for doing video screencaptures under linux:

• vnc2swf [unixuser.org]
• vncrec [sodan.org] + transcode [fh-weingarten.de]
• xvidcap [sourceforge.net]
• Use the "better" Windows capture software to capture whatever you want running in VMWare, on a FAST machine.
• (point a camcorder at the screen and encode later)

If you also want to sync audio recording along with the video, it takes some extra work.