Xfce 4.2 Beta1

[Psquared]

I was finally able to get Xfce 4.2 Beta 1 installed. I always liked the simplicity of Xfce4, but it was hard to configure and there was no menu to start apps. You had to know the command. The new beta is more configurable and it has a menu when you right click on the desktop. Now its easy to navigate and start apps.

To me Xfce is a cross between Gnome and Fluxbox. Its faster than Gnome (and more slimmed down) but more graphics intensive than Fluxbox.

I have not found any problems yet and it has not crashed. All of my apps are there and so far all of them work. The release version will be available in the middle of November, but the beta is worth trying. I may make this my default DE.

I downloaded the tarball from www.xfce.org (there is a version for Fedora) and unpacked all the rpms in a folder called ~/Xfce-4.2Beta. It creates subfolders called /xfce-4.1.90/rpm/fedora which contains the rpms. I had to uninstall all of xfce4 first. Once I did that I simply CD'd to the fedora folder and typed "rpm -Uhv *.rpm". (-ihv would not work because of some file conflicts so I used -uhv and it worked perfectly)

Somebody else give it a try and tell me what you think.

[redhat71]

just installed bets2, seems fine

[IceNine]

I'm using Beta2... I love it!!!

[redhat71]

any idea how to modify this part of the xfdesktop-menu?

<include type="system" style="simple" unique="true"/>

i mean to add an app to it or remove one or change some icons and so on ... the only access i found to this "system" submenu is the "xfce4-appfinder", which is kind of read-only

[Psquared]

The only issue I have found so far is that GKrellM crashes if you change "skins" and there is a mispelled word in the menu. "Instelligen Icon Box" under "Settings." It looks like it might be a German word that never got translated.

[jzke]

I love XFCE 4.2 aswell, I'm still using beta1, and will get the full version when it's released soon. Can't wait =) Haven't had any worries yet. Except I don't like the fact that you have to install GNOME first to install it. I wish FC3 had it as an option...

[jzke]

Oh btw, I found the easiest way to install it was to grab the RPM's from GnomeFiles...

[IceNine]

I used the installer! I think it's about the best way to do it. :)

[marcus-cat]

I installed XFce 4.2 from RPM's. It is really nice to work with -- and pretty too! I was previously using KDE but I felt after installing FC3 that KDE had become too slow and bloated. Wow, I was really suprised by the performance of XFce. I am running the gnome services and set Nautilus as my file manager using the configuration editor -- the spatial mode really bothers me. I changed the browser environment variable to Firefox.

I saw a lot of UI speed increases in Mozilla Firefox 1.0 after moving to XFce. I will probably never go back to using KDE or Gnome.

I set all the panel icons to the Crystal SVG theme from kde-look.org. I am using Firestarter 1.0 pre-release as a firewall. It integrates nicely with the XFce taskbar. The icon changes in the taskbar if intrusions are detected.

[stonecrest]

any idea how to modify this part of the xfdesktop-menu?


i mean to add an app to it or remove one or change some icons and so on ... the only access i found to this "system" submenu is the "xfce4-appfinder", which is kind of read-only

If I'm understanding you correctly, you just want to edit the menu? Just go Settings > Desktop > Menu > Edit Desktop Menu.

As for the person who sees "Instelligen Icon Box", it says "Lil' Star - Iconbox" over here so I don't know how you managed to get that ;)

I've been using Xfce for a while now and I've been extremely pleased with it. For anyone that tried 4.0.6, I'd highly recommend trying the new betas (or waiting for 4.2 to be officially released). It's vastly improved, very stable, fast, and looks great. I love it.

[marcus-cat]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you just want to edit the menu? Just go Settings > Desktop > Menu > Edit Desktop Menu.


If you want to hack the files with a text editor it is really easy. take a look at the XML code in your configuration folder for xfce4. I actually found this the easiest way to rearrange items on the panel.

/home/<user_name>/.config/xfce4/desktop

-mark

[yanik]

will the installer replace xfce4.0 from my initial FC3 install?