What is Digg?Sponsored by Dragon Age: Origins
Can't get enough Dragon Age: Origins? Play the flash game. view!
DragonAgeJourneys.com - Play the free companion flash game to Dragon Age: Origins.
70 Comments
- tama00, on 03/04/2009, -0/+43Shortest Hands-on article ever. Just explains what XFCE is, its goals and what makes it special then explains his thoughts on the new file manager and that's it...
I was searching for a next page button for like 2 mins!! - thethorax, on 03/04/2009, -1/+21sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
Log out and select xfce as your session the next time you log in. - bigsteve, on 03/04/2009, -0/+20It isn't Gnome that has the wifi support, it's the operating system itself. I think you meant Gnome's control panels' interfaces for setting up wifi are superior. Which, they are pretty nice. Luckily, you should be able to install xfce4-xfapplet-plugin, which should be available via apt-get.
This package allows you to use Gnome applets, including their network notification and configuration panel, in the XFCE panel. XFCE and Gnome interfaces are both based out of the same library, GTK+. - picpak, on 03/04/2009, -0/+19Here's a better review:
http://xubuntublog.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/xfce-m ... - toomanymirrors, on 03/03/2009, -0/+18XFCE is awesome! Haven't used anything else since the 4.2 release. Still no video thumbnails for desktop icons though.
- BlueGravity, on 03/03/2009, -0/+17Nice release. Thunar originally took a look at the GTK open/save dialog for its design. I wish the GTK developers would now revisit and take a look at what Thunar has become as I would definitely prefer using something like it over what is currently being offered.
- proverbs17, on 03/04/2009, -0/+14Xfce is great, especially for old computers. I run Xubuntu on my old laptop and the performance is great.
- Vinvin, on 03/04/2009, -0/+14Heh, nice review indeed!
Just kidding, I wrote that :P. Thanks for the linking buddy :) - HappyHourChris, on 03/04/2009, -1/+11I currently use KDE, but Xfce might be worth a try! :)
- BigglesPiP, on 03/04/2009, -0/+8Epic, at least one of my wants fixed.
Have they worked out a decent applications menu editor yet? - Toshibi, on 03/04/2009, -0/+7I've used KDE (3 gonna give 4 a try some day), currently using Gnome, but XFCE holds a special place in my heart. Out of all of the light weight Desktops, it's the best (even if now days it might be middle weight!). The other light weights except for Enlightenment are just sorta ugly!
- bigsteve, on 03/04/2009, -0/+7XFCE is a little friendlier on older PCs on which you're using Linux to bring it back to usability. For a PC that's going to be given away, I don't feel like explaining to them the format of the context menu file :) For my own use though, Fluxbox is pretty awesome.
- bentman78, on 03/04/2009, -0/+6I always install XFCE on my systems for a change of pace. I usually use KDE, but sometimes I feel like a switch.
- speedyrev, on 03/04/2009, -0/+6Wow! An article that gets to the point without making me click through 12 pages. Great job.
- Grazfather, on 03/04/2009, -0/+6Never used xfce, I used fluxbox on my crappy pcs
- TheAssMan, on 03/04/2009, -0/+6I run xfce on my eeepc, does the job nicely.
- GavinZac, on 03/04/2009, -0/+5I'm testing out Ubuntu 9.04, and last night on a whim I decided to install XFCE and KDE to try them out, see how they've progressed compared to Gnome (I have Xubuntu on my father's creaking old PC and the last time I seriously used KDE was in Knoppix a few years ago).
KDE4 is atrocious and made me feel like it wanted me to see everything on my computer, all at once. Konquerer is ugy as hell.
XFCE was beautiful, incredibly snappy and smooth, becoming instantaneous when compositing was off. I installed Midori to fully enjoy speed (firefox is nice, but it does often have that half-a-second lag that makes it stand out in XFCE) and I was very much impressed. I'm back in Gnome at the moment, but I will consider switching to XFCE full time by 9.04.1 - kextype, on 03/04/2009, -0/+5I wish i was in the meeting were "MAMA" sounded like a great name for a ropey seo company. And if one of your plans is "SPAM YOUR ***** ON DIGG SO PEOPLE WILL CLICK YOU LOTS" then you seem like a very professional Indian business.
- SniperZero, on 03/04/2009, -2/+7epic fail.
- wigren, on 03/04/2009, -1/+5I doubt this will be available until 9.10. But if you do decide to install Xubuntu alongside your Ubuntu desktop, use aptitude*. It makes it a lot easier to remove Xubuntu if you don't want it.
* sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop or sudo aptitude remove xubuntu-desktop - Vinvin, on 03/04/2009, -0/+4In fact, the network notification application isn't even a GNOME panel applet, it's an application with a system tray. So, now xfapplet plugin needed (which is less performant, obviously).
NetworkManager is included by default in (probably among others) Xubuntu. - specialK16, on 03/04/2009, -0/+4Any way to install in Ubuntu? I don't feel like downloading Xubuntu and reinstalling the whole system.
- brianrlawson, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3Big fan of XFCE, for sure. I really, really hope that the xfce-menu-plugin memory leak gets fixed with this release! I run Xubuntu on a low-resource system, and xfce-menu-plugin will chew up hundreds of MB of RAM over the span of 4 or 5 days...very frustrating.
- srg13, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3XFCE is meant to be simple and lightweight... But you could still easily install a nice GTK theme like Shiki Colours of course http://www.gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/867 ...
- phunction, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3xfce is pretty awesome, especially for older machines, but i'm more of a gnome guy myself.
- frase, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3Entirely a matter of opinion... I'm partial to the OS X GUI, but it has its flaws, and more importantly, it's not free software. I go crosseyed at most aspects of the Windows UI. I use Xfce on my desktop and wouldn't have it any other way, but that's simply a matter of taste.
- Vinvin, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3Hell yeah, it's free :)
- Grazfather, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3True enough. Needing to create a specially formatted text file to make new menus = unfriendly for most.
- ha3er0, on 06/16/2009, -9/+12If it takes you 2 minutes to look for a "next page" button, you are better off sticking to KDE 4.
- abbathdoom, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3Get Shiki Colors from Gnome Look. It makes gnome pretty.
- Vinvin, on 03/04/2009, -0/+3Nope, 4.8 will support the fd.o menu structure better so you can then use Alacarte or (perhaps) an Xfce-centered menu editor (Alacarte hides applications that e.g. say OnlyShowIn=XFCE).
- inactive, on 03/04/2009, -0/+2I hated KDE. I briefly used the 4.0 release, which was trash, and didn't bother with it again until the supposedly "fixed" 4.2 release on OpenSUSE 11.1. 4.2 is a LOT better, but still...
it's like they took Vista's sidebar and exploded it all over the screen. Everything is annoying glassy transparent widget eyecandy, even essential things like the Network Manager applet. It's cool when you see the screenshots, but in reality, it's just...annoying. Also Plasma is still really unstable...it crashed countless times. I really like some of the other normal, non-Plasma programs like Dolphin and Kate...but still overall, KDE just feels unintuitive and bloated and gimmicky. If anything, it made me admire GNOME's simplicity. - inactive, on 03/04/2009, -0/+2Is KDE 4.x really that bad???
I've never used its just wanted to but people make it seem so bad it sounds like i'd rather stay with a stable GNOME. - Kabloink, on 03/04/2009, -0/+2I installed it on both Debian Lenny and Ubuntu 8.10 with the graphical installer. The refinement is rather impressive and it still uses minimal memory. Total memory used, (including all the other crap running in the background) was 98megs in Lenny and 154 megs in Ubuntu.
I did one into one problem installing it in Ubuntu. For some reason it didn't like my previous xfce config settings. Which caused it to open multiple desktops. I had to delete all the xfce and thunar directories in the .config directory. I did remove Xfce 4.3 through synaptic before installing 4.6.. So, I suspect it was trying to load something listed in the config files that was no longer available. - DivineMonkey, on 03/04/2009, -0/+2Haven't used XFCE in years, recent screenshots of it look really sweet though....Gonna give it a shot, might be nice to get away from the KDE 4.2 bugs for a while.
- deadbaby, on 03/04/2009, -0/+2XFCE is GTK based so it's pretty much seamless with GNOME apps.
- MattBD, on 03/04/2009, -0/+2@wigren
Actually I heard this was coming in Jaunty. - Vinvin, on 03/04/2009, -0/+2It's supposed to have improved with this release but I have but one monitor.
- BilliD, on 03/05/2009, -0/+1xfce should give my laptop more battery life per charge....but is it really gonna do that?
i mean ubuntu is lighter than vista by all means...but it lasts only half the time period that vista does on a single charge.
is switching to a distro with xfce 4.6 gonna give me a battery life at least as long as windows? or is it gonna be the same story as with ubuntu--just a not so good drivers / power save features for linux issue? - ace214, on 03/05/2009, -0/+1You should try to searching for a more better translator.
- volcompimp, on 03/05/2009, -0/+1I love Fluxbox but I use XFCE on my EEEPC. I like the composting work they've
put into it and these days I don't really have much need for grouping windows since
a lot of apps have tab support. - kroon78, on 03/05/2009, -0/+1I've only used Xfce on vector Linux, but it was a good experience. Ran so damn lightwieght on a celeron 700 with 128 ram. I would not mind trying this out:)
- pitdog, on 03/04/2009, -0/+1i have ubuntu 8.04, installed this Xfce , changed the session, saw the new look for about 4seconds and then everything changes to the way gnome looks, and i see gnome again...
i liked the new look, ***** - volcompimp, on 03/05/2009, -0/+1I use XFCE on my EEEPC. It's not perfect but for a nice usable lightweight WM
it does the trick. I think I'll be more happy once Gnome-Do's docky adds plugins
for certain features that will help me get rid of the XFCE panel. - bigsteve, on 03/04/2009, -0/+1@Vinvin: Oh okay, good to know. I figured it was either an applet or a stand alone app. I never really played with Xubuntu to see it's default config.
- Vinvin, on 03/04/2009, -0/+1Xfce's configuration system changed with this release (I don't think the Ars article mentions it - I did in my post linked to by picpak above. I don't know why it wasn't mentioned because it allows for powerful things) so old configuration files can't be used anyway. It does try to convert your old files to the new system. Several bugs have been reported regarding multiple xfdesktop processes (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfdeskto ... and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfdeskto ... it's being workd on and a workaround is available (see those links).
- Vinvin, on 03/04/2009, -0/+1Never had the panels crash on you? Come hang in #xubuntu on IRC and you'll get a few of those passing by ;-)
- MattBD, on 03/04/2009, -0/+1Fluxbox is pretty cool. I like IceWM too - it may be ugly but it's a very productive, quick environment, and it's easy for people used to Windows to grasp.
- wigren, on 03/08/2009, -0/+1@MattBD
Orly? Sweet. - MrTea, on 03/04/2009, -0/+1does thunar have tabs yet?
-
Show 51 - 76 of 76 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 