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XFCE Adds Icons, Switches to Thunar in v4.4 83

Posted by timothy from the longtime-companion dept.
b100dian points out yesterday's release of XFCE 4.4, writing "If you have already followed the release candidates, you know that XFCE is really evolving. Besides adding desktop icons, introducing Thunar (in lieu of xffm) and MousePad, applications that are as simple as they are effective, and Terminal, which has built-in support for desktop composition (supported by the window manager out-of-the-box), it also introduced (finally!) a shortcut for the pop-up menu (you can see in the tour that Ctrl-Esc is bound to this menu). Congratulations for the lightest and slickest window manager ever:)" I've been using Thunar a lot lately (mostly under Gnome) because the renaming feature is powerful but reasonably intuitive -- very handy for cleaning up digicam photo names.
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XFCE Adds Icons, Switches to Thunar in v4.4 More

XFCE Adds Icons, Switches to Thunar in v4.4

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  • Yay! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Icons on the desktop and autostart programs on login!!!@!!!
    Did somebody show win95 to those guys finally?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by stavrosg ( 893274 )

      Autostart was in anyway. There is a nice GUI to manage it now, nothing more, nothing less.

  • Digicam photo names (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    [...] very handy for cleaning up digicam photo names. Yeees... Digicam photo names. Sure.
    • Hey, somebody makes all the pr0n in the world. Why not timothy?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Eulex ( 916528 )
      Yes, really. It has a very nice mass renamer.
      • I like this idea too and will defiantly use it if it works.
        Did you see a problem in the screen shot?

        libelle01.jpg => Picture 1.jpg
        libelle02.jpg => Picture 2.jpg
        [...]
        libelle09.jpg => Picture 9.jpg
        libelle10.jpg => Picture 0.jpg ???

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Eulex ( 916528 )
          Yeah. Seems like this was caused by the use of the Insert/Overwrite option, while Search and Replace would have done it correctly.

  • Lightest? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by keesh ( 202812 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:34AM (#17710042) Homepage
    It's hardly the lightest... My entire windowmanager fits in less space than one of those pretty icons they use. Sure, it's not as bloated as KDE or Gnome, but that doesn't make it light any more than a Hummer is fuel efficient because it uses less petrol than a 747.

    • Re:Lightest? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stavrosg ( 893274 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:51AM (#17710224) Homepage

      Indeed - the term 'Window Manager' is used wrongly here.
      You cannot argue though that as a desktop enviroment, Xfce *has* the smallest disk and memory footprint.

      And all this without leaving too much features, or configurability out

      • Re:Lightest? (Score:5, Informative)

        by fistfullast33l ( 819270 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @10:54AM (#17710964) Homepage Journal
        Yes, window manager is wrong, desktop environment is right, however XFCE is pretty cohesive and a great alternative to GNOME. I haven't used it in a while because I've been using E17 but I think the stability of XFCE is something to take into account. It's a great alternative for those who hate the bloat of GNOME and KDE but like the flexibility to use a great theme framework like GTK. Combined with multiple taskbars now you really have a powerful desktop in a fast framework. Kudos to XFCE.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by stu42j ( 304634 )
          It sure looks a lot like Gnome, uses GTK and this release seems to add a bit of eye-candy features. Plus Gnome has put a lot of effort into improving performance in the last couple of releases. Is XFCE still really lighter than Gnome?
        • Please don't confuse 'bloat' with 'functional'.

          I am a _huge_ fan of XFCE though it just isn't there yet in regards of being robust and usable in many different applications. For example I usually have to run a bunch of GNOME apps just to make it a usable desktop...Or an even better example; At work I've been trying very hard to implement a Linux/XFCE environment onto our older PCs to 'upgrade' them from Windows 2000 - due to their memory/cpu power XFCE is the only usable desktop environment.
          I h
          • "I've been trying very hard to implement a Linux/XFCE environment onto our older PCs to 'upgrade' them from Windows 2000 - due to their memory/cpu power XFCE is the only usable desktop environment."

            I don't believe it. If it runs Windows 2000 it runs KDE. I'm telling this from a PIII 860MHz with 256MB RAM that runs KDE 3.5.5 full bells&whistles (from Debian Etch) just smoothly. And I've run it decently on a K6-II too.

            • I don't believe it. If it runs Windows 2000 it runs KDE. I'm telling this from a PIII 860MHz with 256MB RAM that runs KDE 3.5.5 full bells&whistles (from Debian Etch) just smoothly. And I've run it decently on a K6-II too.

              I don't know about that. I've had Windows 2000 running on a Pentium with 64 MB of RAM. KDE is not going to run on that.

    • Well, I used to use light window managers like XFCE before... That was until I realized my wallpaper was larger than my window manager, when compressed.

    • Do lightweight window managers matter anymore? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In the past one of the things that I loved about linux was that you could choose a lightweight window manager, and run just fine on older hardware. Now-a-days that doesn't seem to work anymore, because it isn't the WM that are heavy weight (sawfish, metacity and KWM really aren't that bad), or even the desktop apps (how big is the doc), it is the libraries. And if you use a single Gnome or KDE application, you end up having to load those anyway. GTK is especially bad now, especially if you aren't using an a
      • And if you use a single Gnome or KDE application, you end up having to load those anyway. GTK is especially bad now, especially if you aren't using an accelerated (aka proprietary) video driver. I just cannot make linux useful on lower-end machines anymore, without restricting myself to older distros.

        Good call, Mr. Coward. I wish I had mod points. Lightweight window-managers nowadays are, in my opinion, becoming pretty useless. They're fast and lightweight and use very little memory... until you open
        • You can use a lightweight WM and a series of light applications (i.e. dillo, xterm, rox-filer, etc.), but is the speed improvement worth the loss of features?


          Yes, if it allows one to use less powerful hardware effectively. Those applications you mention + a light WM can turn a PS2 into a basic desktop machine. And even on a more powerfulf machine, using smaller apps will mean you can run more of them before performance suffers.

      • Who modded the previous one +1 interesting? It's a troll per definition! It starts saying something that seems to make sense ("Now-a-days that doesn't seem to work anymore, because it isn't the WM that are heavy weight") but then it goes for the controversy ("GTK is especially bad now") and raises false consecuencies ("If I am going to have to buy a hefty machine, I might as well get a Mac").

        Of course he gives no reason why "GTK is especially bad now" against say, Qt and falsely asumes that my old PIII I

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by CronoCloud ( 590650 )

      PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT LIB %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND

      fluxbox 0.9.13
      4668 CronoClo 0 0 2028 1376 972 S 312 0.0 4.5 0:19 fluxbox

      Enlightenment 16.999

      7398 CronoClo 0 0 11520 11M 4080 S 3312 1.7 37.7 0:34 enlightenmen

      XFCE 4.2.2

      7506 CronoClo 0 0 10200 9940 7056 S 5996 0.0 32.5 0:18 xfce4-panel
      7504 CronoClo 0 0 5980 5684 4124 S 3560 0.0 18.6 0:15 xfdesktop
      7502 CronoClo 0 0 4424 4036 3408 S 2532 0.0 13.2 0:01 xfwm4
      7497 CronoClo

  • Thunar... (Score:5, Informative)

    by albalbo ( 33890 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:35AM (#17710046) Homepage

    Although the link is incredibly informative, here's more info about Thunar [foo-projects.org].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      In case the parent's sarcasm is missed, there's no href in the link. At any rate, given that neither Thunar nor xffm is exactly a high-profile application (I brace for another lecture from the "You must be living under a rock!" guy...), I agree with the others that a little more context would have been appropriate.

      Personally, besides the fact that WindowMaker just meshes perfectly with my habits, I've never been able to overcome the aversion to a CDE look-alike.

      • I've never been able to overcome the aversion to a CDE look-alike.

        Ditto. XFCE looks like ass. Maybe not as bad as the hairy pimplefest ass that was Sun's CDE. But even with the shave and baby oil it still looks like ass.

        p.s. Now if they ever made a real desktop out of WindowMaker, I would be all over it like kraut on brots!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Otter ( 3800 )
          p.s. Now if they ever made a real desktop out of WindowMaker, I would be all over it like kraut on brots!

          My all-time favorite Unix desktop environment was in the days of KDE 1 when you could run kfm within Window Maker or any other window manager to get desktop icons. Once both KDE and GNOME shifted to a fake "desktop window" on top of the real root, it never works properly anymore. (Note: I know you can change the window manager within KDE or GNOME -- that's the reverse of what I want.)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jsight ( 8987 )
            Then what do you want?

            Konqueror or Nautilus can still run inside of WindowMaker, and I believe WindowMaker still supports the Gnome and KDE extensions.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Otter ( 3800 )
              That gives you a file manager, but kdesktop and kicker don't work properly. (In theory, kdesktop has an option that allows it to run as true root, but it's never worked for me.) Same for the GNOME counterparts.

              With kfm, you could start it and basically get the KDE "desktop" in WindowMaker.

  • "Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment..." (Score:4, Informative)

    by xtracto ( 837672 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:37AM (#17710066) Journal
    Finally a Proper envieronment!.I love Xfce. I use it mainly via Xubuntu. From the release visual tour I can see this version is really nice. However, "niceties" require processsing power to display (like the fancy icons or alpha blending). I am afraid Xfce could end like firefox (which started as the "lightweight" version of Mozilla and now is itself bloated).

    The text editor (mousepad) is very nice, simply that, an easy to use text editor (without :icryptic^M^Mkey combinations^[:wq! required to edit a file).
    Recently I had to "downgrade" a notebook to only 256 MB and decided to install Xubuntu. It runs really fine and does whatever I need it to do.
    • I've found Xfce to be getting better with every release and I make it a point since I first installed Ubuntu to install Xfce since a friend of mine recommended it. I have to say that even though I don't use it, every release just keeps getting better. The only problem I have and really it's the same with GNOME and every other desktop is that most of the DE is hardcoded to use certain apps.

      For instance I do not like XFCE's panel and prefer GNOME's to it because ascetically it sucks and has a lot of difficult

  • XFCE - whazzat?? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:38AM (#17710074) Homepage
    Let me be the first to ask that posters include a couple of words when posting about relatively obscure software.

    Like "If you have already followed the release candidates, you know that XFCE, COMMA THE BLAH BLAH SOFTWARE PACKAGE COMMA is really evolving."

    I have no clue what it is, or Thunar for that matter, and doubt that most others do.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by JanneM ( 7445 )
      A couple of words? OK, I'll try:

      "If you have already followed the release candidates, you know that XFCE, COMMA THE elasticity offputting nigirisushi SOFTWARE PACKAGE COMMA is really evolving."

      Nope, can't see how it would help you. Perhaps try Google? Some people say it's really nifty for this kind of thing. Kids today, you know how they are.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by shirizaki ( 994008 )
      XFCE is a desktop environment like KDE and Gnome.

      Desktop environment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment [wikipedia.org]

      But unlike Gnome and KDE, XFCE tries to be lighter than those 2 GUI's.

  • Looks very good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:40AM (#17710100) Homepage Journal
    I have to say, XFCE is looking very impressive. Thunar is, IMHO, a significant improvement over the earlier file manager. The desktop in general is also looking more robust and featureful - XFCE is starting to look like good competition for GNOME and KDE, and in the space of resource light desktops it looks like a clear winner. Better yet, due to freedesktop.org standards it interacts with GNOME and KDE just fine. For a while I had been hoping E17 would provide the impressive option for light desktops but, with interminable delays and XFCE now looking like a perfectly good alternative to GNOME or KDE regardless of whether you are interested in a light desktop or not, it looks as if XFCE is the clear winner.

    • "and in the space of resource light desktops it looks like a clear winner"

      I do apologize, but that statement just forced me to mention ROX Desktop [sourceforge.net], my DE of choice for some time now. It has some very nice features, like drag-and-drop saving (applications have to explicitly support this, though) and support for application directories [wikipedia.org], which are like bundles on OSX. Also, the file manager (ROX) is snappier than snappy. On my system it goes from login (XDM) to desktop in less than five seconds.

      Does any

  • So I guess this would be a place to ask. I spent a bit of time this morning searching for .debs for edgy. I guess I could do the compile route but I'd like to be able to drop the gnome cruft and go back to XFCE now that 4.4 is done.

    Anyone know of any backported .debs for Edgy?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dsparil ( 844576 )
      Xfce in the repos is listed as being 4.3.90. It's technically a development release, but it's been very stable in my experience.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Eulex ( 916528 )
        4.3.90.x would be one of the betas. You may use them if you want... but don't come screaming if they're buggy...
    • Feisty Fawn will be out in April and will probably include it.
    • You could use the instructions from here [debian.org]
      The .txt files with the packages seem to be updated 18hrs ago, with the "XFCE 4.4 released! Woot" comment;)

  • Congratulations for the lightest and slickest window manager ever

    What a load of biased drive! After considering Fluxbox, Icewm, wmaker and a slew of other window managers; Xfce doesn't even come close to being the "lightest." Granted, it is light in comparison to GNOME/KDE but come on people lets be a tad more objective.

    • Re:Biased Drivel (Score:4, Informative)

      by KillerBob ( 217953 ) on Monday January 22, 2007 @10:36AM (#17710774)
      What a load of biased drive! After considering Fluxbox, Icewm, wmaker and a slew of other window managers; Xfce doesn't even come close to being the "lightest." Granted, it is light in comparison to GNOME/KDE but come on people lets be a tad more objective.


      XFCE isn't actually a window manager. It includes a window manager, but it's a desktop environment. There's a difference. XFCE adds features that you simply won't see in any of the ones you mentionned, because they *aren't* dekstop environments.

      TFA isn't biased, it's just ignorant.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Aladrin ( 926209 )
        Well, actually, 'slickest' is the biased bit. 'window manager' is the ignorant bit.

        I haven't tried XFCE yet, but 'slickest', unless you are measure how slippery it is, is a subjective thing. That's bias.
  • i love xfce and everything it stands for; would download again.
  • Oh, not that [wikipedia.org] Thundarr. Thunar.

    Meh.

    I was hoping for Something LIke xfce Awesome Ariel Edition, or maybe Version 4.4 Mighty Mok.
  • Will it do the automagical plug in your USB/FlashDrive and it pops up on your desktop ready to use thing yet?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Constantine XVI ( 880691 )
      Yes it does. Well, it does on Xubuntu anyways
      • Automounting and popping up an icon on the desktop isn't part of XFCE; that's a different daemon you're running. In my Zen system, I've got it configured to automount the USB key/hard drive/whatever at /mnt/usb. It doesn't pop an icon on the desktop, because I don't want it to. In the Zen system, that's all handled by a udev monitor and fuse, not the desktop environment itself. I'd be surprised if any DE implemented that functionality directly, as it's way beyond the scope of what a DE is supposed to do.

        In
    • Assuming that since this iteration of XFCE is going to support desktop icons, I would have to say yea. Thunar is very nice, on par with Finder (OS X) and Explorer (Windows.) IMHO, better. Mousepad works great as well.

      And yea, try and not confuse a Window Manager, such as fluxbox, with a Desktop Environment, such as XFCE. The difference is features such as file managers. I am not a guru, but even I know that you can't compare apples to oranges...

      BTW, Zenwalk has included Thunar and Mouspad since at leas
    • Yes, and it is called thunar-volman, you can see it here http://foo-projects.org/~benny/projects/thunar-vol man/ [foo-projects.org]
  • I've been using Thunar on Ubuntu (compiling my own from the release), and it's a great file manager. I especially like the compact view it gives, which is very similar to the compact view in MS Windows Explorer.

    The one issue I have is that the Trash is not shared with the standard Gnome trash can. Hopefully this can be fixed in time for Feisty.
  • I've been in search for a slim "desktop" (only) software recently, and found ROX [sf.net] very nice. It's a filemanager that can also manage the desktop.

    See my blog entry [feyrer.de] for other experiences made during the quest for a slim desktop, and what ups and downs I found beyond the "big" desktop environemnts. (Includes a screenshot of my desktop [feyrer.de] :-).

    - Hubert

  • Now the file manager looks like OSX Finder. This is thrilling, fantastic, wonderful...

    Wait...

    This is a good thing?

    (and this from a self-confesssed Mac addict)
  • Xfce4 from etch is 4.3.99.2. That seems pretty close to 4.4.

    Thunar, on the other hand is 0.4.0rc1, that seems far off from 0.8.

    Same versions for unstable of debian.

    I guess once etch is declared stable, there is no chance the new thunar will be hitting stable any time soon?

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