The popular X11 DE, XFce, 4.0-RC4 was released. Release notes, download here.
XFce 4.0-RC4 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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xfce really looks nice… can you run this with gnome? they look so similar?
Can you run it with GNOME? Not really.
Its a Desktop Environment, like GNOME, so you can’t run both at the same time.
You can run XFCEs Window Manager (XFWM4) with gnome though.
it does look nice, much better than it used to. i think i’m gonna go home and give it a try.
I changed to other desk managers but I like the earlier versions of XFCE much more, it was much more clean and elegant back then.
You can run xfce along side of both KDE and GNOME, but why would you? You lose xfce’s speed.
Anyway, this reminds me a lot of KDE 1.x or gnome 0.x (pre 1.0)… simple, small, good. Can’t wait for 4.0!
It’s so yummy, so clean, so sexy, disturbingly fast (and so on and so forth).
…but until it handles Xinerama it’s a bit useless for me (I hate having windows spread across two screens when they appear). I use it when I want to log in graphically as root and update KDE/Gnome. Also, the File Manager – though functional – is a bit limited for my taste. I’ve tried using Nautilus with XFCE but that kind of defeats the purpose… 🙂
I just checked out the changelog and it says that Xinerama has been improved (last time I tried it it was a beta)…I think I’ll give it a spin tonight!
I had RC2 in RedHat 9 and it was great. My only complaint was that I lost sound and OpenGL apps acted as though there was no accelleration.
It is very nice and slick.
I changed to other desk managers but I like the earlier versions of XFCE much more, it was much more clean and elegant back then.
chicobaud, I fully understand what you mean. I’ve been using the 3.x series for months an I was happy with its speed and simple, CDE-ish (?) look and feel.
Anyway, the XFCE team is putting together a really fast and nice DE for the ones who prefer a modern yet light interface.
I suggest GNOME/KDE users with older machines to give XFCE a try.
I love XFCE’s XINERAMA support.
Make sure you enable Xinerama Support during compile time though, its not enabled by default.
I’m only running XFce4 on my boxes now. One is older and really appreciated the speed-up from GNOME. The other isn’t that old and GNOME (esp. 2.4) screams on it. But, I grew to like the XFce4 environment.
My main reason is that I really don’t need all the extra bits of Gnome, like elaborate menus and such; I run most stuff from the command line. So, I figured I’d rather have the much faster (esp. at startup) GTK2 environment. (I can’t handle old-school WMs/DEs…I need anti-aliasing!)
And, once I figured out that gDesklets work on XFce4, I was even happier!
I’ve always loved the CDE style interface, XFCE3 has been a preference for a long time (until I learned of the CVS for XFCE4). I’m quite glad that this is nearing completion and I have high hopes that it will be shown across the net to become a popular WM.
Make sure you enable Xinerama Support during compile time though, its not enabled by default.
Aha! That’s why I didn’t have Xinerama support – cause I installed XFCE4 from rpms, and the person who made them probably didn’t compile in Xinerama support.
Any other compilation options I should consider?
>> And, once I figured out that gDesklets work on XFce4, I was even happier! <<
Really? How?
The latest version 0.21.1 works just fine under xfce, they work under most desktops including kde
Ah, good to know. Will try them soon.
Also not that it is really easy to mix and match parts of gnome and xfce. I use most of xfce including xfwm4 (much better than metacity), xfdesktop4 (scroll desktop), and gnome-panel instead of xfce’s panel. You can do this by edition /etc/xfce/xinitrc and just change:
panel=xfce4-panel
to
panel=gnome-panel
etc…
xfce4 just kicks ass. i certainly enjoy xfce4 on my gentoo-duron box at home, and thats even without internet connection but upgrading’s not too much of a pain in the butt
Hello.
One thing I noticed in Linux community is the developers ability to name its creations with horrible names. XFCE is a nice project, the little rat as well, but man you gonna forgive me what SHITE name. Please accept this fact. It’s play to clear that no creativity has taken place to create names in most of the good looking projects.
XPDE also is a very good promissor projects, but look at the name again… and that is why I say that these names are no part in the dictionary of those outside the community.
If developers have the intelligence to write out all code of a clever application, why can’t they offer it a clever name as well? Is creativity that short? Have some creativity people.
Just get over it. It’s a geek thing. Geeks think that this kind of names look cool on screen.
If it helps, I privately associate XFCE as ‘MOUSE desktop environment’. There’s a pretty picture of mouse on the default desktop, and XFCE is small like a mouse when compared to the two elephants, KDE and Gnome. Also, while many window managers are designed to be navigated by using keyboard, you can easily configure and use XFCE by mouse clicking.
Also not that it is really easy to mix and match parts of gnome and xfce. I use most of xfce including xfwm4 (much better than metacity), xfdesktop4 (scroll desktop), and gnome-panel instead of xfce’s panel. You can do this by edition /etc/xfce/xinitrc and just change:
panel=xfce4-panel
to
panel=gnome-panel
etc…
###############################################
CUSTOMIING XFce4
Actually, the proper way to customize XFce4 is NOT to edit the /etc/xfce/xinitrc file, but rather to copy that file to your ~/.xfce4 directory and edit the copy.
Just curious, why do you favor the Gnome panel over the XFce4 panel?
I installed XFce4 and it’s really cool but the only problem I have is that using Xinerama, The tasks bar is up on the left monitor but the program launching menu is on the primary monitor. I tried to move the tasks bar to the primary monitor on the right but it won’t let me move it. Kind of annoying to have the task bar on the left monitor and a big space above maximized windows on the primary monitor where the task bar should be.