Does LMDE Xfce Still Exist?

[odo5435]

I've just read in this thread that (according to that member) the Linux Mint Debian team are no longer supporting Xfce. Yet, I can find no other announcement anywhere in this forum or on the blog site.

Is LMDE Xfce officially dead?

[xenopeek]

Yes, LMDE Xfce has been discontinued for future LMDE ISOs. You can of course still use Xfce on LMDE.

Was announced on the blog: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2237

Going forward, LMDE ISOs will be released in two versions: MATE and Cinnamon. The decision was taken not to maintain a KDE version of LMDE and to stop maintaining the Xfce version. This was a painful decision to make considering the quality of LMDE Xfce and unofficial LMDE KDE, but one that made sense for Linux Mint since LMDE Xfce represented only 4% of the Linux Mint audience. This is also consistent with our strategy to focus on what we do best, to do less and do it better and to invest less time in maintaining editions and more time in developing the core technology that they use. It was a tough call at the time when Linux Mint lost its Fluxbox and LXDE editions. They were great but they only appealed to a minority of our users and we can see the benefits of this decision now, we can release all our editions and switch to focusing entirely on the development of the next iteration much faster in our release cycle. Whether it’s Cinnamon, MDM, the Software Manager, the Mint tools, the LMDE live-installer or even new projects such as a Driver Manager or R&D plans related to the installation and/or base underneath Linux Mint, development is extremely important to us.

[odo5435]

You can of course still use Xfce on LMDE.

Please excuse my ignorant persistence but we've been successfully using LMDE Xfce in our ASUS EeePC for a couple of years now. To put it simply, it just works.

How, apart from resorting to an "Unofficial" version, can we expect our little netbook to keep performing? Could we download Update Pack 7 when/if it occurs? Will our existing software cease to work at some point?

[xenopeek]

You can continue to use your LMDE Xfce installation, there just won't be an official LMDE Xfce ISO for future releases. The LMDE Xfce ISO conveniently lets you install LMDE with Xfce as customized by the Linux Mint developers. Those customization packages for LMDE Xfce won't be maintained for future Update Packs I imagine, but Xfce packages are maitained by Debian developers and will continue to be imported into LMDE just as any other packages available in Debian.

So what are the customization packages for LMDE Xfce? Having a quick look at the repository, here: http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Debian. It seems that will be:

1. mint-artwork-xfce - Icons, themes, backgrounds and all the artwork which comes installed by default in Linux Mint.
2. mint-backgrounds-xfce - This package contains quality desktop backgrounds made for Linux Mint.
3. mint-info-debian-xfce - Base package. This package is needed by the Mint tools and the system to uniquely identify the edition and release of Linux Mint you're using and to get information related to it.
4. mint-meta-debian-xfce - Set of packages required to run the Xfce Desktop Environment.
5. mintconfig-xfce - A central configuration tool for Linux Mint Xfce.
6. mintdesktop-xfce - Extra settings for Linux Mint XFCE.

I'm not sure whether these will remain in the repository, or will be deleted at some future point in time.

[rijnsma]

That's a pitty in my humble opinion..

I have a new computer, did install Xubuntu 12.04 LTS and on another partition LMDE Xfce and after all those years
of rejecting Xfce I accept the desktop because it is really usable, mature and fast. I did like MATE too on my old
machine, it is fantastic, but not as snappy as Xfce. I'm not much a lover of Cinnamon although it is usable.
I still don't like KDE (certainly also on the point of supply of information and help, for me it's very chaotic what
they are doing, and it is processor-hungry, which is not good in Linux).

Very nice to have a 'rolling distro' (LMDE Xfce), thanks, but if things go this way I don't know what is so very
'rolling' about it?