Design Your Own Desktop with Xfce 4.4
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 10th Feb 2008 21:58 UTC, submitted by Vincent
Xfce "Xfce is just as customizable as KDE or GNOME, so I set myself a goal: make Xubuntu look like Windows Vista. Though you won't be told how to achieve the exact same end result, this guide provides comprehensive instructions helping you make Xubuntu look the way you want it to. In any case, I would certainly not recommend such a setup for someone new to Xubuntu. Xubuntu is different than Windows; making it look similar is only confusing."
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RE[2]: the goal, pfft
by Doc Pain on Sun 10th Feb 2008 23:09 UTC in reply to "RE: the goal, pfft"
Doc Pain
Member since:
2006-10-08

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.

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[3]: the goal, pfft
by alias on Mon 11th Feb 2008 08:19 in reply to "RE[2]: the goal, pfft"
alias Member since:
2007-02-11

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.

Reply Parent Score: 9

RE[4]: the goal, pfft
by flashog on Mon 11th Feb 2008 08:25 in reply to "RE[3]: the goal, pfft"
flashog Member since:
2007-07-25

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?

Reply Parent Score: -1

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RE[4]: the goal, pfft
by Doc Pain on Mon 11th Feb 2008 19:40 in reply to "RE[3]: the goal, pfft"
Doc Pain Member since:
2006-10-08

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

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[4]: the goal, pfft
by UltraZelda64 on Mon 11th Feb 2008 21:07 in reply to "RE[3]: the goal, pfft"
UltraZelda64 Member since:
2006-12-05

"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.

Reply Parent Score: 2