Does XFCE really work?

[flyingfsck]

until you try and do stuff like using a USB headset. xfce mixer cannot set the usb device as output (there is a dropdown that lists devices, but selecting a device there simply lets you change the volume/channels on it, it does not let you actually set the device to be used as output, which is a huge lack of functionality compared to gnome or kde's applets). You can use something like pavucontrol or pnmmixer to be able to set the output device, but multimediakeys will still only work on my laptop's speakers, and do nothing for my usb headset.

The above all work perfectly on all my XFCE installations (The missus, son and I).

It helps buying a Linux friendly laptop I guess. Ours are all Lenovo, but five very different models - yes, only five laptops between the three of us...

As for multimedia keys, you got to hook them to the correct applications of course, otherwise whaddyaexpect?

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by RupertPupkin

I don't think kid's cereals have contained any fruit since the Harding administration.

You mean Fruit Loops is fruit free?

And as Flyingfsck said, Linux friendly hardware goes a long way. If you have the chance, test hardware with a live cd before purchase or use (install).

[screamin_jesus]

My laptop is pretty linux friendly (asus u52f), and the usb headset works flawlessly out of the box in both gnome and kde.

[flyingfsck]

"You mean Fruit Loops is fruit free"
Fruit Loops certainly do contain fruit, but the fruit are not carbon based fruit from this planet, so the nutritional value for a standard humanoid carbon unit cannot be evaluated...

[MrVideo]

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

As I mentioned earlier, I do have a "work-around" for lock-up problems and that is to use FC 16 and install Xfce 4.10 from an unofficial repository.

And just where might the unofficial Xfce 4.10 repository be?

[owl102]

Originally Posted by MrVideo

And just where might the unofficial Xfce 4.10 repository be?

http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/kevin/xfce-4.10/

[MrVideo]

Originally Posted by owl102

http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/kevin/xfce-4.10/

Thanks.

FODDER FODDER FODDER

[tashirosgt]

I had another miserable experience with an Xfce LiveCD spin ( the FC 17 64 bit XFCE spin LiveCD, to be specific). It's probably not all the fault of Xfce, but since this is the Rants And Raves section, a little guilt-by-association should be permitted.

This is a newly built system with modern hardware. It has blu-ray drive. There was no old OS on the hard drives.

Problem 1: The blu-ray drive would not start Fedora. It would bring up the menu with the option "Start Fedora" but if you select that option the drive's LED blinks but nothing happens. (I have another thread about this). I haven't diagnosed this problem, but a work around was to burn the LiveCD iso on a different DVD-RW drive that the one I used to make the first copy. (The *.iso file I used for both copies has the correct checksum for the image. I burned the first copy on an FC 12 machine with Brasero with no problem. I burned the second copy on a FC 17 Xfce 4.10 machine with Brasero. I found out I couldn't make Brasero work by starting it from the menu in the file manager. I could get to the point where you select "Burn", but then nothing happened. I solved this by starting Brasero from a terminal. Even then, I had to click "Burn" twice before it burned.)

Problem 2: I got Fedora started. Before I could do anything, a window popped up that said there was problem with the kernel package. I clicked the option to show details and nothing happened.

Problem 3: After the Xfce desktop apepars, opening a few applications (like one terminal and one file manager) causes the desktop to stop responding to mouse clicks except in the window where the mouse happens to be when this bug happens. After discovering this, I knew to start Fedora and not open any applications.

Problem 4: I selected the icon to install Fedora to the hard drive, the USB mouse (an ione Lynx R-22) worked until I got to the section where I selected a custom configuration for partitioning the hard drives. Then the mouse cursor was visible but nothing responded to the mouse clicks. I used the tab key and up and down arrow keys to navigate and accomplished the partitioning.

Problem 5: The installation began copying Fedora to the hard drive. It reported that there was a problem installing the boot loader and advised that the system may not boot. The installation did continue. When I tried to boot from the hard drive, the system didn't boot. It didn't even get to a grub prompt. I booted from the liveCD again. I looked at the files on the hard drives. They looked correct except most of the files missing from /boot/grub2. There were a few files in /boot/grub2 and It had a directory called "/boot/grub2/-" ( a minus sign) which had some of the *.mod files that are (according to my other FC 17 machine) supposed to be in /boot/grub2. There was no grub.cfg file.

Being a person who is determined to torture himself by using Fedora LiveCd Xfce spins, all this was more that I could have possibly hoped for!

[DBelton]

Just wondering.

Instead of the XFCE live spin, have you tried installing it from the DVD media?

I have had much better results in the past installing from the DVD media rather than the LiveCD. You get much better control over what is installed, how your drives are partitioned, filesystem formats, etc...

[tashirosgt]

Originally Posted by DBelton

Just wondering.

Instead of the XFCE live spin, have you tried installing it from the DVD media?

I haven't tried that in the recent Fedoras. (When I only had dial-up, I used to order the DVDs from Cheapbytes.)

It's interesting how the current Fedora Project site steers people to the LiveCDs. I didn't notice any easy way to navigate to other types of downloads, although you can still modify the links to the downloads in the browser address field and get to the old fashioned type of ftp-looking directories.

Last night, I did succeed in getting FC 17 64 Xfce spin installed on that machine. I temporarily replaced the blu-ray drive with DVD-RW and replaced the ione Lynx R22 mouse with a Lenovo M028UOL mouse. I haven't tested whether the Xfce desktop still malfunctions when applications are open yet.

[mikee]

Last time I posted here, I said there was some funkiness in teh Xfce.
I have since upgraded my work laptop from F14 to F16 and gone Xfce there too.
It forced me to work out the issues. So far I am very happy.

---------- Post added at 10:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 PM ----------

Originally Posted by RupertPupkin

Not as well as it used to. In the Xfce 1.x-2.x days it was a clone of CDE. It was such a good clone that I managed to fool my bosses into thinking I was using Solaris instead of Linux. Back then Xfce was based on the XForms toolkit , and it was very fast and lightweight. Then for version 3.x it got re-written in GTK+ and it all went downhill from there. It's lighter than GNOME and KDE, but that's not saying much. In fact with all the GTK+ dependencies it's approaching some of the bloat of GNOME.

Geez. If you want lightweight, you could always install good ole TWM.
I still have some config files laying around from when I used that.
I should try bringing it up for old time's sake.

[jpollard]

I believe CTWM would be a better choice as it has multiple workspace support.

[mikee]

Originally Posted by jpollard

I believe CTWM would be a better choice as it has multiple workspace support.

Must be a special repo:

[root@math16-16 VGA]# yum install ctwm
Loaded plugins: auto-update-debuginfo, presto, refresh-packagekit
No package ctwm available.
Error: Nothing to do


But xcfe has multiple work spaces?

---------- Post added at 10:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 PM ----------

Originally Posted by jpollard

I believe CTWM would be a better choice as it has multiple workspace support.

Oh! but you are commenting on TWM!! lol

[jpollard]

xfce does have multiple workspaces.

CTWM is Claude's Tab Window Manager and is based on TWM and includes multiple workspaces.

Most people don't care for either one, as it is only the window manager and neither try to be (or do) everything including the kitchen sink.

But that is what makes them fast.

[stevea]

Can't look right now but LXDE supports multiple desktop (not workspaces - eh ?) without being TOO minimalist.
Lots faster than xfwm4, but overall the lxde DE is more minimalist - maybe too much.