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GUI Open Source Linux

Xfce Getting a New Version Soon 193

Posted by timothy from the welcome-eye-candy dept.
jones_supa writes It looks like the release of Xfce 4.12 is finally about to materialize. It has been about two and half years since the last stable release. There is now a concerted effort underway to ship a new release of this lightweight GTK+2 desktop environment out around the end of February or early March. "As we have discussed the status and progress of core components with many of you individually, we feel confident that the state of Xfce is good enough to polish some final edges and push more translations until then," wrote Simon Steinbeiß on the xfce4-dev mailing list. The official list of showstopper bugs does not look too bad either. However, looking at the long time between releases certainly makes one think if the project could have use for some extra resources.
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Xfce Getting a New Version Soon More

Xfce Getting a New Version Soon

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  • I don't want to come off as too negative, but let's be realistic/objective as a tech community. Does this release really matter? I doubt! In my last 7 years supporting schools and small businesses, I have seen several KDE and GNOME desktops. I have come across zero XFCE installations!

    I guess slashdotters can tell me where XFCE is making a difference. Does such a place exist?

    • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by danbuter ( 2019760 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @09:49AM (#49010389)
      XFCE is way better than Gnome or KDE for home use, in my opinion. Others may not agree. It has been in limbo for a while, so hearing that it is finally getting an update is great news.

      • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:4, Informative)

        by e065c8515d206cb0e190 ( 1785896 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @10:10AM (#49010511)
        Agreed. At home I use lightweight WMs such as XFCE or Openbox. Not a fan of the bloat...

        • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Lord Apathy ( 584315 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @11:00AM (#49010697)

          Best reason to use XFCE? It's not KDE or Gnome.

        • "I use lightweight WMs such as XFCE or Openbox. Not a fan of the bloat..."

          XFCE isn't that much lightweight compared to MATE (i.e., Gnome 2), only compared to Gnome3/Unity/KDE.
          https://flexion.org/posts/2014... [flexion.org]

          Where did XFCE get this lightweight reputation? It surely doesn't look very polished (based on looking over other people's shoulders only).

          • "I use lightweight WMs such as XFCE or Openbox. Not a fan of the bloat..."

            Where did XFCE get this lightweight reputation? It surely doesn't look very polished (based on looking over other people's shoulders only).

            This. Openbox is a good example of a light WM, but XFCE is more like a desktop environment, with all the Windowsy cruft like the start menu, and all the panels that take up screen space and visual attention.

            Personally, I use Fluxbox with plenty of virtual screens, because I want to focus on doing one thing at a time. I don't want constant reminders of what other programs are running or might possibly be running somewhere in the background -- I trust the computer to handle them for me.

          • Where did XFCE get this lightweight reputation? It surely doesn't look very polished (based on looking over other people's shoulders only).

            A long history of not adding new crap that is turned on by default, or trying to change people's paradigms. The install isn't particularly smaller, but there is generally less running.

            As far as MATE, I was a user for 3 weeks, until I realized the maintainers were dominated by people who disagreed with specific Gtk3 decisions, but they didn't reject the desire to "innovate." They actually were emphasizing that, with an attitude sortof like, "we don't want to be backwards or not push new features, we just did

        • I don't mind bloat itself. The real problem with the bloated software is the feature thrash and paradigm thrash that usually causes the bloat. Things that are bloated because they have lots of optional features run full speed, they just take longer to install. Features I don't use don't cause much damage. Even as a developer... parts of some bloated software I don't use, I won't need to change either.

      • You will hear of such users now, I think. Gnome has become much too large to be reliable or even stable anymore I have clients preferring to use CygWin's X windows, and ssh access to X applications, rather than use current Linux releases and deal with the excessive bloat of Gnome.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Perhaps these schools used old distros which still shipped Gnome 2. After the Gnome 3 debacle pretty much everyone except perhaps a couple of Red Hat employees switched to Xfce. It's now more or less the standard Linux desktop, so yes it will matter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I guess slashdotters can tell me where XFCE is making a difference. Does such a place exist?

      *Raises hand*

      I've been supporting university and small business systems for twenty years now. For some small businesses who want to get stuff done but do not feel the need for all of the latest desktop whiz-bangetry I field Xubuntu LTS (14.04 nowadays). It just works, and they don't have to refresh their hardware every three years.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Does Linux ebven matter? In the lasy 10 years at all the companies I worked I saw several versions of Windows and zero Linux installations.

        You are probably not looking in the right place. Yes, linux still matters but not where you are looking. If you are looking linux desktops, good luck to you. My current shop is the only shop I've seen that chose linux desktops over windows.

        Where you are going to find most linux installs are on the back end. In my shop we have over a 150 linux boxes churning away doing work. In another shop down the hall they have more than that. The last 3 jobs all had major linux backends doing the work.

        Better q

      • Thankfully, linux doesn't matter. I could switch to any BSD and keep running XFCE, keep running the entire same development toolchain, I could even copy all my application settings directly over to the new system just by mounting my old home directory.

        Praise be to Freedom, praise be to *nix, praise be to Portability!

    • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @10:41AM (#49010639)

      I see XFCE every time I boot up my computer. They seem to be the only Linux desktop willing to maintain a working relationship with sanity.

    • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lord Apathy ( 584315 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @11:08AM (#49010731)

      I have seen several KDE and GNOME desktops. I have come across zero XFCE installations!

      I use XFCE and have for several years. I believe the Supreme Penguin uses it too. There are lots of people that use it but I will admit it is not as popular as the big two.

      Another thing that linux has lost over the years is the truly breathtaking desktops we used to have. I remember when if you wanted a gui for your linux box you had to roll your own. You had a frame work to work with but every ones desktop was truly there own creation at the end of the day.

      Enlightenment. There was a truly breath taking windows manager. Window maker, and good old xfvm2. I know they are still alive but only on life support.

      Best reason to use XFCE? It's not gnome or kde.

      • I use XFCE and have for several years. I believe the Supreme Penguin uses it too.

        In a video from 6 months ago where Supreme Penguin shows his treadmill desk setup [youtube.com], a GNOME3 desktop can be seen. It's true that he did use XFCE at some point though.

      • I have been using XFCE for several years.It comes with Studio Ubuntu, which also uses a kernel optimized for audio editing and CG rendering. My passion is CG, and if using XFCE helps to shave a half hour off a 10 hour rendering task, then you bet I'm going to use it.

        Another benefit I have noticed is that I spend a lot less time messing about in the GUI time sinks. I look for an OS to provide a fast and economical way to get to the applications where I do my work. Code that supports fifty different ways to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hitmark ( 640295 )

        Sadly said penguin has enough social clout that when he yells about something, the devs of his distro of choice (That so happens to be Fedora) jump to it.

    • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @12:14PM (#49011101) Homepage

      My company has standardized on XFCE. When Debian switched to GNOME 3, my users revolted so I switched them to XFCE.

    • I guess slashdotters can tell me where XFCE is making a difference.

      I used XFCE for years and it worked great for me. Then it got more bloated and I had to switch to LXDE/Openbox. I don't want the desktop/window manager doing stupid shit when I just want to get work done. Popup notifications, desktop "effects", and the like I can do without. Also, my memory belongs to me, not the desktop environment.</rant>

      I'm hopeful the LXDE/Openbox developers don't follow in the same footsteps as the XFCE crew as I fear my next option is bare X server.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        I honestly hope the following is helpful...
        It sounds like you just need a decent window manger, rather than a whole desktop environment.

        You can configure it as one would have done with startx (editing ~/.xinitrc), and instead just edit ~/.xsession. For example, have it include:
        #!/usr/bin/env bash
        export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
        export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
        export LANGUAGE="en_US.UTF-8"
        export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
        xterm &
        exec xfwm4

        You may have to tweak your desktop manager (gdm/xdm/kdm/lightdm/etc) to use an xses

    • I use xfce on my main home system. It compiles quickly, runs fast, is easy to use, has lots of configurability, and with a little tweaking and some themes can even look pretty nice. It is also very low maintenence. This can even have thumbnail previews of folders and plenty of other convenient features if you load some of its plugins. A great combination of usability, aesthetics, and frugality.

    • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sjames ( 1099 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @01:03PM (#49011305) Homepage Journal

      XFCE is seeing a resurgence now the gnome screwed the pooch and insists on depending on systemd.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hitmark ( 640295 )

        Supposedly the consolekit support code is still there, but needs a maintainer.

        Not helping tough that the person that put in the logind code is the same guy that maintains systemd as a whole, and used to maintain consolekit. And who very loudly declared consolekit dead and buried on the mailing list (to the point that if Canonical wanted to continue maintaining consolekit, they needed to find a new name and set up a new repo), and then finally shut down the same mailing list under the pretext of spam.

        Yep, Po

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by epyT-R ( 613989 )

      Actually, it would be great for such installations.. It's stable, relatively lean, and mimics common desktop conventions.

    • Re:I don't think this [release] matters at all... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @05:18PM (#49012715)

      That is the value of XFCE!!! They're not pushing a new paradigm onto unsuspecting users. Will a new version release "really matter?" No, never. Thank goodness for that! Users of something like XFCE don't want a new paradigm, they want shit that worked already to keep working, and they want the new shit to integrate with the old shit so people using the old shit can keep using it in exactly the same way that they used it before.

      You came across zero XFCE as an end-user supporting end-user "desktops," that is normal. XFCE is heavily used, but by more technical people who want to make their own technical choices, and have their software respect those choices.

      As a software developer, of course I encounter other XFCE users all the time. No, we don't care what you think of our choices. No, we're not asking you to run XFCE. If you don't already care about XFCE, or have a theory as to why you should care... please, don't care. It doesn't help us in any way.

    • FWIW I am using it on a chroot on my Chromebook. Lightweight is good for the small hard drive.

  • Don't fuck up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shadow of Eternity ( 795165 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @09:45AM (#49010375)

    All you have to do is not suck. Just don't completely fuck this up like gnome and ubuntu did and you'll be fine.

    • Not sure which release was worse, Gnome 3 or KDE 4. In both cases, the UI devs went insane and for some reason, all of the other devs followed their lead.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        Not sure which release was worse, Gnome 3 or KDE 4. In both cases, the UI devs went insane and for some reason, all of the other devs followed their lead.

        RE the bolded part, it's a well known syndrome known as the second system effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
        "The second-system effect (also known as second-system syndrome) is the tendency of small, elegant, and successful systems to have elephantine, feature-laden monstrosities as their successors due to inflated expectations.
        The phrase was first used by Fred Brooks in his classic The Mythical Man-Month. It described the jump from a set of simple operating systems on the IBM 700/7000 series to OS/36

    • Re:Don't fuck up (Score:5, Insightful)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @10:18AM (#49010561)

      Exactly! I've seen way too many "2 steps back" releases lately. Better to take your time than to screw everything up like Ubuntu did a few years ago. Features for the sake of features is worse than useless. Lets have stability and usability before all else.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hitmark ( 640295 )

      Best i can tell, they neither have the manpower nor the personalities to go full Gnome...

    • If you have kept an eye on XFCE during the slowly unrolling (and still ongoing) Gnome 3 fiasco, you know that they very much represent the "it just works", "don't break things just because" etc faction.

      I remember using XFCE as far back as 2004. It doesn't look all that much different today (and can be made to look identical - heck, they even keep the old themes around still), and all I can think of that changed since then are incremental improvements, nothing earth-shattering and ground-breaking.

  • keep it simple (Score:5, Informative)

    by e**(i pi)-1 ( 462311 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @10:48AM (#49010665) Homepage Journal
    all I need for a windows manager is extreme stability, low footprint, a slick way to organize menues, the ability to configure and independence of as many other components as possible. No gimmicks like fullscreen modus if a window is moved to the bottom. Light weight windows managers fullfill all this already nicely. I still use blackbox and have essentially not changed my setup since 15 years. Its all I ever need. fluxbox, xfce are very similar and would work for me too. Nice to have one text file .blackboxmenu which gives the menu and one file .blackboxrc which controls the features. There is nothing to learn about it except that right clicking anywhere on the desktop produces the menu. Also nice, the finder in OSX can be configured so that the workflow is essentially identical on both platforms (the doc is the essential difference). But its important for the workflow to not lose fractions of seconds here and there due to poor or `clever' interface design or when moving from one operating system to an other.The problem of designing a good user interface on the desktop is solved and its based on KISS. On the phone it took longer.

  • They both seem to be on the same side.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hitmark ( 640295 )

      Dunno, Cinnamon is a continuation of the Gnome2 code. Xfce uses GTK but is otherwise unrelated to Gnome.

    • Cinnamon is recreating Gnome2 on top of Gtk3. Xfce was never really a Gnome clone - you could make it look kinda sorta similar, but it always had being a "lightweight DE" as a goal, which isn't something that was ever said of Gnome.

  • Always revert to XFCE (Score:3)

    by future assassin ( 639396 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @12:01PM (#49011009)

    at least on Linux MInt. I've been using Mint for about 8 years now and I always end up going back with XFCE when Gnone, Mate, Cinnamon end up having weird usability issues and glitches.

  • I have read the same complaint from others.

    On the other hand, some CentOS users say XFCE4 works fine them on CentOS 7.

    Everything worked for me on CentOS 6.5.

  • xfce is very usable (Score:3)

    by bytesex ( 112972 ) on Sunday February 08, 2015 @02:32PM (#49011773) Homepage

    I have it on all my computers that run Linux and need a GUI. It could be making a bit more work of drag-and-drop in its own elements (panels etc) though.

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