Submitted by Xfce 4.2.2 has been released. “Xfce 4.4.2 is now available. It’s the second maintenance release in the 4.4 stable series, focusing on fixing bugs and updating translations.” You can download it off the Xfce website, or read the changelog first.
Xfce 4.2.2 has been released. “Xfce 4.4.2 is now available. It’s the second maintenance release in the 4.4 stable series, focusing on fixing bugs and updating translations.” You can download it off the Xfce website, or read the changelog first.
It is nice to know that it is out there a light, useful and flexible alternative to the KDE – GNOME duopoly. And it is good to see that it is alive and well.
In fact, XFCE could be thought of as the standard GNU/Linux desktop, since it is included often in both the KDE and the GNOME oriented 🙂
alternative to the KDE – GNOME duopoly
You just made me realize how obscure of a setup I’m running.
If Linux is the alternative to the Windows – OSX duopoly, and I’m running Xfce under Linux…then I’m running an alternative WM on an alternative OS.
Perhaps a little too obscure.
You just made me realize how obscure of a setup I’m running.
If Linux is the alternative to the Windows – OSX duopoly, and I’m running Xfce under Linux…then I’m running an alternative WM on an alternative OS.
Perhaps a little too obscure.
Awww… You’re not so far away from mainstream as you think. If you said that you were one of those guys still running XFree86 on top of GNU/Darwin and using ion or ratpoison as your window manager then yes, I’d agree that you’re pretty much struggling to not fit in. XD
Edited 2007-12-03 19:19
I wouldn’t really place OSX in the monopoly field of Windows’ market share. According to OSWeekly Apple’s market share for the OS is actually decreasing. “OS X market share fell from 4.35 percent in December 2005 to 4.33 percent in August 2006.” I don’t know what the latest stats are but 4.33 and decreasing is not a monopoly. It is more of a niche OS, no disrespect intended OSX users.
Edited 2007-12-03 22:31
It’s up quite a bit actually.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/12/03/new-high-for-m…
It is if you stop to think how much money those 4.33 make Apple and that they’re high-end consumers. In the luxury end of the personal computer market, OS X is quite the monopoly.
That could be more due to laziness than an active attempt not to fit in.
Now if you insisted on running OpenBSD on an Apollo, CLI-only, and only wrote F77 and assembler using ed on a remote greenscreen WYSE terminal in your closet while wearing women’s lingerie and a velvet cape. Then, I might be mildly impressed.
Edited 2007-12-04 15:55
LOL! That just made me shoot coffee out of my nose!
And it is even better to see that the projects publish maintenance releases. But I still do not like this desktop environment. May be it still remembers me too much of CDE (which I hated), who knows ! Anyway, I hope the XFCE users enjoy this release.
Funny, most of those CDE-like looks and features are exactly why I like XFCE. I would say that’s probably true of most XFCE users, whether they are aware of it or not.
… ashes to ashes, and window managers and desktop environments to choose among them all 🙂
I suspect you haven’t tried Xfce in a while. While the Xfce 3 series was very much a clone of CDE, the 4 series has been rewritten from the ground up, and has sort of gone its own way. I use Xfce regularly, and notice very few similarities with CDE.
It is also not fair to call it a lightweight Gnome-clone, because it is so incredibly configurable. I used it for a long time with no panels whatsoever, due to the highly functional middle-click desktop-and-application switching feature. But in any case, it is very simple to change it to a basic Windows/Gnomish start/quicklaunch/taskbar/notification/clock configuration.
>I suspect you haven’t tried Xfce in a while. While the
>Xfce 3 series was very much a clone of CDE, the 4 series
>has been rewritten from the ground up, and has sort of
>gone its own way. I use Xfce regularly, and notice very
>few similarities with CDE.
It still remembers me of those days. I’m not saying at all that it is a bad piece of software, or telling anyone to dislike it. Each of us have our preferences and I am happy that there are choices for all of us.
The only CDE holdovers I’ve noticed is that last time I used it (around when 4.4 came out) it still defaulted to a centered panel taking up part of the screen on the bottom, and had panel “drawers” that didn’t automatically close on you.
I still actually kinda miss the 4.0 behavior where the size of the taskbar button was completely relative to the number of tasks opened… With one open, it would take up the entire screen. That was changed in 4.2
There’s also the “minimize app to desktop icon” that Gnome and KDE are sorely missing.
No desktop icons for me, but I just love the iconbox panel applet. Leaving all your pdf’s, cbr’s and all other stuff sitting there just a click away is really nice.
Xfce can be pretty much configured to look like anything, windows, gnome, mac or something custom (within limits of course). And its window manager can even utilise compositing to draw shadows and translucent windows! It does not remind me of CDE much personally.
Figures this would happen during the FreeBSD port freeze.
Yours is the only comment that appears to have been based on the article, noting something about the new bugfix release rather than a xfce popularity poll.
I been running XFCE 4.4 since the day it went gold and its rock stable. But bug fixes are always good to have. Will compile this tonight.
I intend to yum update this version as soon as it hits the repos. I have been using XFCE 4.4 and I love it. I think the great thing about desktops that run on Linux is the way you can mix and match components. I like XFCE but I prefer Gnome’s panel so I run that instead. It is nice to be able to select which components you want to run to take advantage of memory saving and speed. Thunar is also a very nice file manager without the Nautilus bloat.
What I especially like is that XFCE’s composite manager for decent shadows and transparency also works with the generic vesa driver!
As far as I know it is the only window-manager that supports this feature.
From the documentation:
xfwm4 includes its own compositing manager, which takes advantage of the new X.org’s server extensions. The compositor is like a WM on its own, it manages a stack of all windows, monitor all kinds on X event and reacts accordingly. Having the compositing manager embedded in the window manager also helps keeping the various visual effects in sync with window events. If you want to use the compositor, you have to build xfwm4 using the –enable-compositor configure option. In any case, you can disable the compositor on xfwm4 startup using the ‘–compositor=off’ argument.
My work colleagues run a highly customised fvwm, which is a little too hardcore for me
I opted for XFCE when I started working at my current company.
My Linux dev box is an old PIII with a 16mb graphics card and XFCE runs great.
I originally had Gnome on the box, which was just too slow.
When it comes to productivity, a responsive desktop is of major importance – and eye-candy really is a waste of time.
XFCE delivers.
Gnome and KDE are the alternative. If you don’t like speed, simplicity and well design desktop, maybe you could try Gnome or KDE. Both desktops provide you with a unique experience that you can’t find with Xfce (long greatings, lot of complicated ways to do the same thing, confusing menus and sub-menus, inconsistant bars and very much fun). KDE and Gnome are fuzzy alternatives if you like that.
The more I use Xfce the more I like it. And the way it handles minimized windows in the desktop, like CDE does, is far more usable than having a list of opened windows or any other alternative I have seen.
Is fast, beauty, stable, usable, simple, light, … everything I want for a DE.
The only thing I miss, … drive icons in the desktop when using minimized windows icons.
Edited 2007-12-04 10:31
Related to my previous comment, what XFCE delivers is the simple fact that you can pretty much ignore the Desktop and just get on with work – it’s that simple.
There’s no flash whiz FX, no compiz, wobbly windows, 3D desktop changing – iow, no fluff.
Yes, those things are cool – cool for about 5 minutes, after which you find yourself wondering, why?
Do they enhance the UI in any way?
Do they increase your productivity?
Or do they just slow down the process of getting from A to B in the shortest time?
9 times out of 10, it’s the latter.
If I want to switch between virtual desktops, I want to switch NOW, I don’t want to see an effect that takes 2 seconds to play out.
Yes, I tinker with different desktops, because I find UID interesting (I’m a web developer), but to get my work done all that matters is speed, simplicity and continuity.
XFCE has it’s problems, it’s not perfect, but I vastly prefer it to Gnome or KDE because it focuses on the tasks at hand.
I don’t need a multitude of menus and configuration options, I simply need a launchpad for the applications I use on a day to day basis.
compiz works on XFCE.
I like cool looking desktop and I use xfce.
You can do anything with xfce. You can configure it so as to look exactly like gnome or kde. You can even start kde or gnome daemons at boot. To me, the difference is clean design. KDE and Gnome are so big progect that they tend to over-engeneer. Why the hell do you need CORBA to change the color of the background? It’s just extreme over-engeneering. XFCE implements all the functionalities with straight design and the result is that it is consistant, fast, reliable and simple to use.
XFce is great. I’m using it even now. I only hope that the Xfce project could get more developers. Their developer team is very, very small when compared to GNOME or KDE. I hope that competent programmers who like Xfce would also support it more in one way or other. I’m not sure but maybe Xfce could also market itself a bit more to potential users, and developers – as long as that would not mean taking away from development resources.
If they had more resources and developers, this desktop environment could really shine. Not saying that it wouldn’t be very good even now
Edited 2007-12-04 20:07