Submitted by “Today, after 1 year and 4 months of work, we are pleased to announce the release of the Xfce desktop 4.10, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.8. In the 4.10 cycle we mainly focused on polishing the desktop and improving the user experience in various ways.” A detailed overview of the changes compared to Xfce 4.8 and Xfce 4.10 preview releases can be found in the ChangeLogs. Xfce 4.10 will make its way to your distribution of choice, but of course, you can always download it and build it yourself.
I used Gnome as my primary desktop until v3 arrived. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I went out to take a look at the alternatives available.
Finally the choice came between LXDE or XFCE, and the latter came out on top. It just “felt right” when it comes to usability and customization.
Some may say it lacks polish, but I could not care less. It works wonderfully and allows me to be very productive.
Yay for XFCE!
I really like the possibility to use a vertical deskbar. The other improvements also are ok, but I mainly welcome the small changes like this one:
“Don’t use deprecated g_format_size_for_display.”
Code cleanup! Not only adding new features, but also keeping the code clean 🙂
No need to point to a few “big” desktop environments who do not do this and add features no one wants…
I guess when I’m back to my Arch PC, the new packages will be a pacman away.
It looks like like the Xfce devs have made a nice, evolutionary release. I’m giddy!
For many years now I’ve used XFCE – it a good balance of functionality and keeping out of your way. And the functionality is generally thoughtful – aimed at improving your workflow, not slowing you down. I love tha fact that I can roll up/down windows with a scroll, and scroll between virtual desktops again with a scroll.
As for modern fancy stuff – the fact that an icon appears when I plug removable media in – that’s just enough automated wizardry for me ..
Maybe the new paradigm desktops (unity?) will be the future but for many of us, coming from the “old” desktop paradigm this is a good one.
Hurray for cleanups and removing code! Maybe we should shout about how small code is not how big it is when bragging ….
“I love tha fact that I can roll up/down windows with a scroll, and scroll between virtual desktops again with a scroll.”
Well, it’s not the only thing that makes your life easier. I also use this feature that lets you switch workspaces by moving your mouse over the left/right edge of the screen. Super easy and super useful for productivity! It saves me a lot of hassle with double/triple keyboard keybind for switching desktops. All I have to do is to move mouse right or left. It takes a little time to accustom yourself, but it’s worth it as it speeds things up. A-W-E-S-O-M-E!
I am a big fan of that feature myself. It’s also useful for moving windows to other desktops. Also, it works with the top/bottom of the screen if you have your pager set to multiple rows, which I do on my netbook (less screen space, so I use more desktops to make up for it).
It should be noted that a problem (extra feature? ;-p) is that whenever anyone else uses my computer, they are constantly accidentally switching desktops. This can be alleviated somewhat by increasing the edge resistance (velocity of mouse necessary to switch desktops).
I usually don’t use Xfce, but whenever I do I find it’s a good experience. The developers really seem to get that people prefer slow and steady improvements instead of big, game changing, revolutions. Each Xfce release seems to be a little more polished, a little more capable than the previous release, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Xfce take a drastic step. If you’ve been wondering where all the level headed desktop developers went, they’re working on Xfce.
Xfcenow my default DE. Gnome 3 might be very great but I am not used to it and have trouble navigating. Xfce has always felt faster than gnome imho and thunar has always been great.
What would be a good distro to try XFCE 4.10?
Debian Testing or Unstable gets new Xfce releases really quickly – Mint Xfce is based on Debian Testing now for that reason.
Arch Linux already has it.
Fedora’s XFCE spins are usually pretty nice
Is the Xfce spin any different than running the Gnome based one and then installing Xfce on top of it?
I have done the latter and it feels like a 2nd class citizen. You almost have to log into Gnome, use it for a week or so, get everything setup configuration-wise, then start using Xfce.
I’m using this right now, works well.
http://widehat.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/xfce/openSUSE_12.1/
I’d give Xfce a try, but I just can’t get over their stance on Thunar and tabbed file management (not gonna happen).
If PCManFM is good enough for me, bugs and all, then the rest of LXDE is unlikely to bother me, so I might as well squeeze as much performance out of my hardware as possible.
You can always run PCManFM under Xfce, you’re not “stuck” with Thunar. Some of my favorite desktop setups in the past have mixed components from different projects with little to no issues. I tend to use Thunar as my file manager when I build an E17 desktop, for example.
But you’re right, as fast and stable as Xfce is even on older hardware, LXDE is even faster. If you don’t need the extra features Xfce has over LXDE, you’ll probably find the latter to be a better fit. Personally, I prefer Xfce by a wide margin, but LXDE is a great desktop in its own right.
*nod* I used to run Konqueror 3.5 under desktops like GNOME, Xfce, and a homemade Fluxbox-centered mixture back in the days before I found less gaudy KDE 3.5 theming resources.
Once I did find better theming options, I was a loyal KDE 3.5 user.
I switched to LXDE when I finally couldn’t wait for KDE 4 to become fast and stable any longer (somewhere around KDE 4.4) and GTK+ had finally fixed the Save/Load dialog to perform well.
LXDE has its annoying flaws, but since they’re actually GNOME-inspired “features” in GTK+ common dialogs, Xfce wouldn’t fix them.
(Stuff like buggy keyboard support, forcing “Open” to start in the “Recently Used” section with buggy support for being emptied, lacking “show this bookmark only in this application”, and having neither “Delete” and “Rename” context menu entries nor an “Open in File Manager” one.)
Edited 2012-04-30 01:52 UTC
At this pace, xfce will turn into the second or maybe first desktop environment for linux/unix environments.
When a new release of a desktop environment is released, I generally read odd or very bad reviews telling about the new different features, the unstability added or the poor performance; but for Xfce, everything I’m reading are cool and nice reviews.
So, congratulations Xfce team; you understand what people wants a workable and nice environment instead of an eye-candy one!
1) Rename XFCE. Simple as that. If it’s too difficult, grab an astronomy book and you’ll come across some cool name. I AM SURE YOU CAN DO IT. IT’S NOT THAT DIFFICULT!
2) Please remove the Machintosh dockbar, as you end up losing 5% of your space using your screen.
3) Please, rearrange the MENU like the GNOME 2 was. Applications, Places & System. This is where good things should be copied.
4) Remove those spacers in the menus which are just horrible. If you want to split specific categories do what number 3 suggests.
5) Please find and stick with a BETTER and NICE looking font, and enable hinting by default set on slight and rba. It’s what most screens need to look pretty. Come on, it’s not that hard.
6) Write a better window border & titlebar, a good one like Adwaita and make it default. Drop all the crap that is in the bundle since they are unusable on 22″ screens.
7) Fire the rat. He’s done his job and it was just to scare people away. If companies like Red Hat can come up with clever logos, why “XFCE” can’t? Laziness? You can do better than this.
Edited 2012-04-30 22:57 UTC