OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19317/Design_Your_Own_Desktop_with_Xfce_4_4 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:41:40 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300352 http://osnews.com/thread?300352 Quite some goal you've set for yourself.
Although the pointing out how much flexible and customizable XFCE can be is a good thing, why oh why would you want your _linux_ desktop look like Microsoft Windows? Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (maaxx) Comments RE: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300355 http://osnews.com/thread?300355 Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy the Windows interface. Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flanque) Comments RE: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300356 http://osnews.com/thread?300356 It's because people can and have the freedom to do so. Personally I think it shows just how customizable Linux DE's are without the need of third party utils or programs.

It helps when the Desktop Environment has a format thats standard for icons, png is good because you can make your icon or image in GIMP, rather than having to find the format or convert it. We have SVG which is a standard and great for all kinds of customization, this is one of the many reasons I love Linux DE's, Xfce is real nice BTW. Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (SlackerJack) Comments XFCE developing becomes slow after 4.4 http://osnews.com/thread?300361 http://osnews.com/thread?300361 Sad. And XFCE needs a lot of memory if I have some goodies placed on the panel. So I use a "full" desktop like Gnome instead. ~40MB isn't that much with 512MB.

The developers should tweak _much_ _much_ more and make it bugfree (exo-eject if I press the eject button... knock knock knock hint hint hint...) Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sledgehammer89) Comments RE[2]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300362 http://osnews.com/thread?300362
Personally I think it shows just how customizable Linux DE's are without the need of third party utils or programs.


In fact, it really does. I just could imagine something that's looking more appealing than "Vista", but as it has mentioned before, there are people who like this look and feel, allthough I'd have to admit that I honestly can't consider myself belonging to those people. :-) But we definitely don't need to argue about individual preferences, do we?

Xfce is real nice BTW.


XFCE 4 has developed into a very versatile, flexible, customizable and still ressource saving desktop environment that can lead you to have an "advanced interaction feeling" even on older hardware.

So, you don't need to purchase a new PC to impress your buddies you're running "Vista" now for free and legally. :-)

A final question: In the screenshots, you can see the use of this "Windows" logo, for example here in the lower left corner:

http://www.23hq.com/Vincentt/photo/2871683

and there, just on the left side:

http://www.23hq.com/Vincentt/photo/2871686

Is this allowed? I'm just asking. Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE[2]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300372 http://osnews.com/thread?300372 I think the reason why he did it can be summarised into the first sentence he wrote:

Xfce is just as customizable as KDE or GNOME, so I set myself a goal: make Xubuntu look like Windows Vista. Why? Because I can. ;)


Gets no simplier than that.Edited 2008-02-10 23:47 UTC Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flanque) Comments RE: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300382 http://osnews.com/thread?300382 Instead you should ask yourself why every gnu/linux desktop wants to look like windows. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luminair) Comments GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300384 http://osnews.com/thread?300384 You cannot catenate KDE and Gnome with an "or" if you speak about customization. In Gnome you even cannot delete a file in an "Open Dialog" much less get its properties from the file context menu in this dialog. And this behavior was hardcoded by people who think that "functionality could confuse users". Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (usr0) Comments Meh http://osnews.com/thread?300386 http://osnews.com/thread?300386 I've made Gnome appear much to Windows Vista Aero than that. I've also customized Gnome to appear as an almost perfect replica of OS X Leopard. It really showcases the customizing power of Unix desktop environments with free tools.

In the end, though, I like my desktop to take on a unique identity--not shamelessly mimic some other OS's GUI. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xaero_Vincent) Comments RE: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300387 http://osnews.com/thread?300387
You cannot catenate KDE and Gnome with an "or" if you speak about customization.


Your opinion does not qualify as a fact. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[2]: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300393 http://osnews.com/thread?300393
Your opinion does not qualify as a fact.


My opinion? It is obvious that GNOME is not as customizable as KDE and I mentioned an example for my "opinion" which makes it a fact. Ok, I understand that if somebody uses GNOME, he do not like to hear such "opinions". Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (usr0) Comments Its quite amazing. http://osnews.com/thread?300394 http://osnews.com/thread?300394 Maybe some day I will try to do similar stunt myself ;) Last time I checked "vistaish makeup" on the net for Gnome there were some "basic-mode" gadgets available and no how-to about Aero imitations. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (autumnlover) Comments RE: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300395 http://osnews.com/thread?300395
In Gnome you even cannot delete a file in an "Open Dialog" much less get its properties from the file context menu in this dialog.


while kde is better than gnome about it, nothing is quite as nice as windows, the file chooser (both save and open) gives you the full context menu, I can zip, unzip, cut, paste, rename, make shortcuts, launch files in other applications, start programs, check properties, whatever. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (axel) Comments RE[3]: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300402 http://osnews.com/thread?300402
My opinion?


Yes.

It is obvious that GNOME is not as customizable as KDE


Yes, but your statement was:

You cannot catenate KDE and Gnome with an "or" if you speak about customization.


Which is wrong. It's perfectly possible to catenate them. "Or" does not mean they're equal.
You're also off-topic since this is not about KDE vs GNOME but about making XFCE look like Windows.Edited 2008-02-11 04:58 UTC Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[2]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300408 http://osnews.com/thread?300408 I think that few people use the Windows and OSX themed Linux desktops.. but they are really good for showing off. They serve as demonstration of functionality - I don't suppose you can make Windows look like OSX or GNOME :-) (WindowBlinds and etc. don't count, I am talking about explorer.exe - the Windows Shell) Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dimitar) Comments RE[2]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300410 http://osnews.com/thread?300410 Instead you should ask yourself why every gnu/linux desktop wants to look like windows

That is a very good question, has anyone thought about it seriously? Perhaps, there is something that MS does right and people like it or quickly get used to it...Edited 2008-02-11 07:49 UTC Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSGuy) Comments RE[3]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300411 http://osnews.com/thread?300411 Well, many people are more or less forced to get used to it, since it comes with their new computer, or they have to use it at their workplace. This does not necessarily mean that they wouldn't like, or be able to get used to other DEs. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flashog) Comments RE[3]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300412 http://osnews.com/thread?300412
XFCE 4 has developed into a very versatile, flexible, customizable and still ressource saving desktop environment that can lead you to have an "advanced interaction feeling" even on older hardware.


Resource saving? XFCE? Yes, I remember the time when XFCE, while using GTK1.x was actually resource-saving compared to a full blown gnome desktop. Nowdays it's almost identical to gnome.

In fact, any GTK2 application, thanks to Cairo, Pango and whatever, is actually slower than any recent QT app. By an order of magnitude.

Very sad.

I've tried "xubuntu" on a 400Mhz box a couple of weeks ago, and I can assure Windows XP has an overall better responsive UI, just thanks to XFCE.

So, you don't need to purchase a new PC to impress your buddies you're running "Vista" now for free and legally. :-)


The actual buddy I tried to impress with Xubuntu and OpenOffice returned to XP with his old Office 2000. The combination was way faster that I can't blame him. Even trimming down all the eye-candy and blinking features didn't help reaching the same performance.

And I'm saying this as a GTK and OSS supporter. They should stop saying Xubuntu is a "lighter" desktop. Xubuntu is just an alternative desktop. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (alias) Comments fvwm http://osnews.com/thread?300413 http://osnews.com/thread?300413 A friend of mine is using fvwm. He says that it is possible to do absolutely anything with it. I remember early RedHat was supplying Afterstep which was tweaked fvwm in fact. My friend created a clone of CDE with it.

A bad thing is that configuration files for fvwm are very confusing. One has to dig deep to understand them.

DG Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (trenchsol) Comments RE[4]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300414 http://osnews.com/thread?300414 You are taking a comparison in performance between Xubuntu and Windows Vista and concluding that Windows XP is "more responsive". Well.. there are probably hundreds of OSes out there which performs better than XP, so if it's just about saving ressources, why don't you just jump onto one of those? Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flashog) Comments RE[5]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300415 http://osnews.com/thread?300415 No, I'm just concluding that XFCE is not "resource saving": neither compared to other Linux dekstop alternatives, nor to a bloated version of Windows like XP. It used to be yers ago; it's time to stop spreading this rumor now.

Consider that the last version of enlightenment is considerably faster than just xfwm4 alone while having ten times as eye candy. And I don't consider enlightenment a good example of "conservative design". Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (alias) Comments XFCE is not light weight? http://osnews.com/thread?300416 http://osnews.com/thread?300416 Hmm, well excuse me for being fooled.
The implementation I have at work is certainly a great deal faster than both KDE and Gnome, unless I'm imagining that it starts faster, launches apps faster etc.?

Perhaps someone needs to benchmark it to get the real story? Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bb_matt) Comments RE[6]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300417 http://osnews.com/thread?300417 I'm not trying to put you down or anything, but if you have any data showing that XFCE4.4 is more resource demanding than Windows Vista, or even XP, on any comtemporary Linux distribution, I sure would like to see it. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flashog) Comments RE[6]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300418 http://osnews.com/thread?300418
Consider that the last version of enlightenment is considerably faster than just xfwm4 alone while having ten times as eye candy.


How do you measure "fast"? Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments Design your own desktop, by copying Windows Vista! http://osnews.com/thread?300423 http://osnews.com/thread?300423 Seriously, this is:
a) Not "design your own desktop" it's "copy someone else's desktop".
b)Lame. Anybody who uses XFCE knows that it's customisable. Making Linux look like something else is not new.

Now if this article was about some new desktop theme system in XFCE then it would be cool, but no, it's just another "make Linux look like something else" tutorial. Linux is not Windows. Linux is not Mac OS X. If you want to use those systems, use them. Making Linux look like them is like putting a bodykit on a Ferrari. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mallard) Comments RE[2]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300424 http://osnews.com/thread?300424 Which Windows interface? XP or Vista? Personally, I don't see that much of a difference between XP & Vista other than the eye candy, unwanted DRM, the rather irritating "security" popup boxes, and the lamentable speed decrease from XP to Vista. Oh, yes, and the vastly increased license cost for the OS. Oh, Ah, and my old games don't work so well...

Perhaps, after all, there are some rather glaring (albeit unwanted/unneeded) differences.

Microsoft must have their marketing rather pat though, when people expend such effort trying to mimic Vista's rather lame look- probably patented to boot; careful there- don't copy it too closely.

Folks go to the store and purchase a new notebook pre-installed with Vista, since stores no longer offer XP as an alternative. "My!" they say "look how much sexier and faster Vista is than XP on my old notebook!" never stopping to think that perhaps the speed increase might have something to do with the new hardware they just purchased...

PC users are just a bunch of "Sheeple" and MS knows it.Edited 2008-02-11 09:33 UTC Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Lousewort) Comments RE[3]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300432 http://osnews.com/thread?300432 Erm, says who?

Sure, every Linux DE has users who want to make it look like Windows. But I see no proof that this is a common overall aspiration for any Window Manager/DE. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stestagg) Comments RE[2]: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300436 http://osnews.com/thread?300436 The really, really, astonishingly sad part is that we're still stuck with open/save dialogs in mainstream systems after all these years. Being forced to work with this mini-filer while preparing the place to save your document is just so very backwards.

According to this comment; http://osnews.com/thread?42369 the reason why we have to put up with this is that the first few versions of the Macintosh System Software didn't support multitasking. If it did, they would probably have let you use Finder as the open/save "dialog". This is quite doable, but nobody dared to change much in the "feel" part of "look and feel" over the past 20 years. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bogomipz) Comments RE[3]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300438 http://osnews.com/thread?300438
PC users are just a bunch of "Sheeple" and MS knows it.


its funny how that goes for people switching to any operating system. guy right next to me at work just explained to me why osx is so much better, since his new macbook with 2gb memory is so much faster than his 4 year old 512mb windows notebook.

most all users are sheep. only some are ignorant fanboys as well to top it off.

and bashing microsoft and vista is cool these days, right?

/stoneEdited 2008-02-11 13:01 UTC Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stone) Comments RE[6]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300439 http://osnews.com/thread?300439
No, I'm just concluding that XFCE is not "resource saving": neither compared to other Linux dekstop alternatives, nor to a bloated version of Windows like XP. It used to be yers ago; it's time to stop spreading this rumor now.


In my humble opinion I agree. Canonical should move their attention from Xubuntu to Fluxbuntu. I tried Xubuntu 7.04 on system equipped with Celeron 400, 128 MB RAM and old PCI Virge DX card. Result was disastrous. Even XP was a little bit faster on that system. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (autumnlover) Comments RE: XFCE is not light weight? http://osnews.com/thread?300442 http://osnews.com/thread?300442 I dont see how xfce can launch apps faster unless you have not much ram and KDE/GNOME tips it over that, then xfce would be faster.

A while back I was able to use xfce on a P266 with 96mb of ram laptop(last version) and it ran great. XFCE was made for that in the first place, other DE's(Like KDE/GNOME) openly admit that they need 256mb to run optimally, so there's a difference. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (SlackerJack) Comments RE: Design your own desktop, by copying Windows Vista! http://osnews.com/thread?300443 http://osnews.com/thread?300443 You've missed the point of the article haven't you, I'll elaborate.

It's not about how to get your xfce desktop to look like Windows/Vista, it's a test of how customizable xfce is, they just happen to pick Vista because it's quiet a tall order for customizing since the layout and look are much different. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (SlackerJack) Comments RE[4]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300450 http://osnews.com/thread?300450
"PC users are just a bunch of "Sheeple" and MS knows it.


its funny how that goes for people switching to any operating system. guy right next to me at work just explained to me why osx is so much better, since his new macbook with 2gb memory is so much faster than his 4 year old 512mb windows notebook.

most all users are sheep. only some are ignorant fanboys as well to top it off.

and bashing microsoft and vista is cool these days, right?

/stone "

Couldn't have said it better myself. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (optimusg4) Comments RE[3]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300452 http://osnews.com/thread?300452 on the other hand:

make Windows Vista look like Ubuntu: No ! Why? Are you serious !? ;)
Edited 2008-02-11 16:30 UTC Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pseudocode) Comments RE[2]: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300453 http://osnews.com/thread?300453 If you want a full file manager as your open/save dialog than go ahead, there are Linux desktops that offer that possibility. Gnome states that an open/save dialog should be just that: a way to choose a file or a location to save a file. Period. Do one thing and do it well, sound familiar? Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wirespot) Comments RE[4]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300464 http://osnews.com/thread?300464
Resource saving? XFCE? Yes, I remember the time when XFCE, while using GTK1.x was actually resource-saving compared to a full blown gnome desktop. Nowdays it's almost identical to gnome.


Sadly, this is true. I've experienced this fact when trying XFCE based Linux distros on older hardware. Sadly, that's something I've noticed with most Linux distros. They are not aimed at speed anymore, they seem to want to benefit from the new possibilites of modern hardware. Don't get me wrong, that's nothing bad per se, but if you intend to use hardware that's not up to date, you will need to use older software of tailor a system by yourself.

In fact, any GTK2 application, thanks to Cairo, Pango and whatever, is actually slower than any recent QT app. By an order of magnitude.


That's impressing. Allthough I prefer Gnome over KDE (allthough I don't use neither of them regularly), KDE seems to be more responsive in some cases, as you mentioned. But on the other hand, that's just my individual feeling.

The actual buddy I tried to impress with Xubuntu and OpenOffice returned to XP with his old Office 2000. The combination was way faster that I can't blame him. Even trimming down all the eye-candy and blinking features didn't help reaching the same performance.


Maybe geubuntu (using Enlightenment, as far as I remember) could be an alternative. I tried it on a 300 MHz P2 from the live system CD. The impression sentence would be like: "Hey, this is Mac OS X!" :-)

On the other hand, a "self made" FreeBSD with XFCE 3 and OpenOffice 1.1.4 gave a good solution. Together with XMMS and mplayer, even multimedia playback wasn't any problematic. And the XFCE 3 desktop (btw, using "simple old" GTK), was very easy to use, and this was the impression of a very computer illiterate person. I would not dare to try the same with "Windows"...

An earlier XFCE 4, such as the one from the FreeSBIE 1.1 live system CD, could be a solution, too.

And I'm saying this as a GTK and OSS supporter. They should stop saying Xubuntu is a "lighter" desktop. Xubuntu is just an alternative desktop.


Okay, maybe it'sn not because of XFCE itself, it seems to be the problem of the many stuff GTK2 involves which makes the environment heavy (but still alternative). XFCE is a viable desktop alternative to KDE and Gnome, but sadly, I think you gonna pay for this amount of funtions with response speed. :-(Edited 2008-02-11 19:54 UTC Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE[4]: the goal, pfft http://osnews.com/thread?300468 http://osnews.com/thread?300468 "Resource saving? XFCE? Yes, I remember the time when XFCE, while using GTK1.x was actually resource-saving compared to a full blown gnome desktop. Nowdays it's almost identical to gnome."

Huh? I've had the complete opposite experience. Xfce is relatively lightweight, quite full-featured, and fast. Certainly much less resource-hungry than Gnome, and faster. Much, much faster and less resource hungry. Comparing it with Gnome is just... wrong.

"I've tried "xubuntu" on a 400Mhz box a couple of weeks ago, and I can assure Windows XP has an overall better responsive UI, just thanks to XFCE."

Ah-ha. That's your problem. (Tries to hold laugh...) Xubuntu... that distro is the bloated, huge, might-as-well-be-Gnome disgrace to Xfce that you're talking about. Try to use a REAL Xfce distro, one that doesn't neuter the desktop environment by making it try to be Gnome (both in look and feel, and sluggishness) or something else it's not. I would recommend KateOS, Zenwalk or the Xfce install disc of Debian if you want a good representative of the Xfce4.

Kwort also seems to be very nice, although at this point it seems to be too young and slow-moving in terms of releases for me to recommend it. VectorLinux is also a speedy distro using Xfce, although its GUI is modified to look more like Windows'... it's one of the fastest distros out there.

SAM Linux is similar in its desktop layout to VectorLinux, but it's based on PCLinuxOS, and is of course an installable live CD as a result (though Vector has a live CD as well).I'm not a fan of PCLOS or SAM, but they are pretty decent. Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (UZ64) Comments RE[3]: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300475 http://osnews.com/thread?300475
If you want a full file manager as your open/save dialog than go ahead, there are Linux desktops that offer that possibility.


actually, no, there isn't Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (axel) Comments RE[3]: GNOME vs. customization http://osnews.com/thread?300529 http://osnews.com/thread?300529
Gnome states that an open/save dialog should be just that: a way to choose a file or a location to save a file. Period. Do one thing and do it well, sound familiar?


But what happened to the bit about doing it well?
It's got its hands tied behind its back by a bunch of loonies that think everyone is a fool!Edited 2008-02-12 07:37 UTC Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (RawMustard) Comments