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The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:22 pm
by Schoelje
GeneC wrote:EDIT:
Just a thought.. :idea:
Perhaps you should get a moderator to move the XFCE stuff to a new thread?
This is afterall the The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5 thread... :lol:
Good point!

@zerozero
Could you please move the posts from my message where I propose to take up LMDE Xfce (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 85#p655785) to it's own thread: "The unofficial LMDE Xfce"?

Or would that be in any way inappropriate (because it's not official yet that it's not going to be continued)?

The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:39 pm
by GeneC
Schoelje wrote:.............
@zerozero
Could you please move the posts from my message where I propose to take up LMDE Xfce (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 85#p655785) to it's own thread: "The unofficial LMDE Xfce"?

Or would that be in any way inappropriate (because it's not official yet that it's not going to be continued)?
Its pretty much official...
Quote from 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.

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:57 pm
by Schoelje
That's fast: both the new thread (your doing zerozero?) and the official statement of Clem :o

The next few weeks there will not be much work done as it's the always very busy December month, but it's the perfect time to ponder on some things. One of those things will be: how to increase that meager 4% user base. I think because both LMDE KDE and LMDE Xfce are not very well known and that's for the reason Clem has stated above, I suppose.

So many things to do, so many ideas and just two hands and one brain...

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:22 pm
by zerozero
[topic has now its own house as it deserve :wink: ]

on the issue at hand (choosing the default set of applications) there's a thin balance between "lean&mean" and user-friendly that we hardly achieve (but we can try)

some random ideas:
- could be interesting to include the goodies installed ootb
- wicd is lighter and in some aspects better than networkmanager but not as user-friendly and fails short in some situations http://wicd.sourceforge.net/moinmoin/FAQ
- i guess that FF is kind of a standard;
- synaptic's inclusion is unquestionable :shock: ;
- 100% with Gene about xfburn (if we can't have k3b :lol: )
- exaile is my gtk option anytime (we have now 3.3.x in sid, the version in testing is the previous stable 0.3.2 - there was a huge version bump)
- vlc sure!
- transmission: simple and does the job
- image viewer: ristretto does the job, unfortunately viewnior is not in debian (tho is soo easy to compile it)

this is just a first idea :mrgreen:

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:39 pm
by TeaSwigger
Schoelje, may I say I do hope you continue LMDE KDE. I use it exclusively as my full time OS. It runs 24/7 and does all I need from a computer, for correspondence, business, my passions (writing and high quality audio for music) and entertainment. Since I admin the computer for her, my sister is also using LMDE KDE exclusively and I could be interested in a LMDE Xfce for a few old computers if its resource usage is low enough. Low resource usage / speed would be a priority for my interest in an Xfce edition.

In my humble, when Gnome went for 3, it might have been better for Mint to have gone with KDE as its main desktop and for the Mint devs to contribute to perfecting KDE instead of creating, developing and maintaining two Gnome forks. But that of course is only my opinion and rightly their decision to make. It did however make me skeptical of the prospects for an official LMDE KDE, so although disappointing this was not quite a surprise. Likewise the choice to drop Xfce is understandable from their perspective. You have however, together with LMDE, created my favorite implementation of KDE since "the old days" of Debian with KDE 3, so if you would like to carry on I'd be very happy. :)

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 8:10 pm
by cwwgateway
I'll PM you (Schoelje) momentarily my list of added apps, but as for the general idea of an LMDE Xfce, here are some things that occurred to me while I was looking around at my debian NetInst:
  • LightDM is probably a better DM for Xfce than MDM, considering the lightweight focus
  • I've looked at a few text editors today, and I've found that, while I like geany best, MousePad and leafpad are both extremely similar in UI and functionality, so I guess MousePad would be a good option for a text editor (Pluma would be a little bit heavier)
  • LibreOffice has a lot of functionality, but Abiword and Gnumeric are lighter
  • I personally like GIMP, but there are a lot of lighter image applications (not necessarily editing).
  • Midori is lighterweight than firefox/iceweasel, but for most machines it doesn't add enough speed to make up for the loss of functionality. Chrom(ium) isn't too bad, but currently I'm not sure how much lighter weight it is than firefox (if at all), so I'd use firefox, especially because Mint has now automated the update of firefox (so now there will be little/no delay between firefox updates and them being added to the repos)
  • Thunderbird/Iceweasel are also very good and IMHO the best choice, but geary is lighterweight (although, again lacking functionality)
  • I like VLC for media-related things
  • I also agree that Xfburn is much better than Brasero
  • Transmission is good for torrent stuff, so I agree with zerozero
  • GDebi and Synaptic are very helpful for package management
  • I personally like lxtask better than the Xfce equivalent only because it gives you the actual number of MB for RAM, rather than give you a percentage. However, this is Xfce, so I guess the xfce4 taskmanager is the more logical choice.
  • I like xfce4-goodies, and IMO they add a lot of functionality.
I guess it basically comes down to how far you (Schoelje) want to diverge from the old LMDE Xfce, and how light you want it to be. I think (although I might be wrong) you wanted LMDE KDE to stay fairly similar to the Ubuntu based version in appearance and at least somewhat in application selection. However, since you are diverging a bit from the old LMDE Xfce, it could make sense to change the application more drastically. It also depends on how lightweight you want it to be - midori, geary, abiword, and gnumeric are nice and light (although maybe more for LXDE, E17, and the *boxes), but they lack functionality that heavier apps have. Xfce, while being much lighter than KDE and the Gnome 3 desktops, is still very functional, so I think we should try to balance it out as much as possible.

Edit: I completely forgot synapse, but it is a great lightweight app launcher.
Edit 2: This was a random thought I had, but under Xfce by default there is a white-ish border around text under desktop icons. LMDE Xfce always came with a gtkrc file to fix it. I'll go hunting for it to see if I can find the contents.

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 8:33 pm
by DrHu
I have a feeling that rather than wait for non-essential (not popular desktops) to be dropped, I should either use a generic Linux OS, such as Debian (lmde ./.. what!) and add the desktop of choice which won't likely be either kde or Gnome or Gnome derivatives..
--I really prefer the lighter weight desktops, such as xfce or lxde, but have kinda become dependent on mint being there, despite it's own dependency on Ubuntu and their repositories..

Oh, well I'll stick with the LMDE I have for now and see what happens next
  • I did use the main edition initially (Gnome) and found it mostly OK, but that was before Mint offered Lxde and Lmde (xfce..), and I found I liked them better, and could still use some Gnome apps if I found them useful, as Mint tended to enable Gnome features even within xfce desktops (as in not a pure xfce setup..)
  • And I also used kde, but got a bit disappointed at the beginning from Fedora, since they had jumped right into kde 4x, although I knew it would improve over time (it did..)
    --so I ended at mint main edition with Gnome and got used to that, then jumped out to what to me was a simpler desktop lxde and xfce
    Now I am adrift in the Mint sea again..
And I do prefer Mint's artwork/themes compared to the parent (Ubuntu)
--but of course, they could be mix & match if necessary/chosen..

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:32 am
by dritzominous
dritzominous wrote:An unofficial LMDE Xfce? I'm probably in.

After all, I might be able to help a bit more than I could a few years ago when I started using Mint.

I've been in school for programming and software development, so if time permits, I might start diving into some *nix development.

I'll have to flush that VB.NET crap out of my head though. The syntax is so similar to Python.

(The damages...)
dritzominous wrote:I'll probably try doing a rough respin of LMDE Xfce(old) and slap in some updated packages, and hopefully remove a lot of gnome dependencies by default. (As others have pointed out, those can get on one's nerves.)

I might even try using pure Debian Xfce with some mint packages...

Heck, that's what I have on my old computer downstairs with * XFCE 4.10 *. It's worth a shot I think!

Sometime around December 24th (the beginning of my winter break) will most likely be the bulk of my work I i decide to do this.

I'm starting my C# class tomorrow, so I might have some extra time on my hands since my chapter completion deadlines were somewhat underestimated since the first 3 chapters just cover the basics.

(My classes are in a self-paced structure)

Anywho, I'll be happy to help out this "Schoelje" if time permits.
From http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=118861 - Thank you GeneC!

As I've said, I'll be willing to help in any way possible. :D

So, from what I gather, right now we're just trying to formulate a package list that is free of gnome dependencies/heavy-weight applications?

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 4:38 am
by wayne128
hi Schoelje

I PM you as requested.
Hope that helps you on planning and doing a very good xfce.

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 4:51 am
by Schoelje
I'm very happy to see all this positive response to both the unofficial LMDE KDE and LMDE Xfce!

Both these distributions and the development on DDM take up a lot (sometimes all) of my free time.
So, you're help is very much appreciated.
I want these distributions to be one of the community but both recognizable as being of the same family.

How to deal with the development, maintenance and all other practical things I will decide on in the next few weeks.
In the mean time, I'm building LMDE Xfce from the ground up with the goal to keep it as clean as possible (look and feel is planned after the set of applications has been decided).

Here you find a list with applications for the next LMDE Xfce.
Applications preceded by a minus sign are applications that are excluded from a clean Debian install and those preceded by a plus sign are applications that are to bee added to a clean Debian Xfce install. Please, add your thought, remarks, alternatives to the list:

Code: Select all

Accessories
+ Clipman
+ Mousepad
+ Notes
+ galculator
- Orage Globaltime
- Sensor Viewer
+ Squeeze
- Task Manager
+ Xfce 4 Print Dialog
+ Xfce 4 Print Manager
Graphics
+ Gimp
+ Ristretto Image Viewer
+ Shotwell
+ Simple Scan
Internet
+ Firefox
+ Thunderbird
+ Transmission
+ XChat
+ Pidgin
Multimedia
+ Xfburn
+ VLC
+ Banshee
Office
+ LibreOffice
- Orage Calendar
- Orage Globaltime
System
+ GDebi
+ Synaptic
+ synapse
+ Users and Groups
+ Windows Wireless Drivers
+ System Monitor
- Reportbug
- Sensor Viewer
- Task Manager
+ lxtask
- UXTerm
- Xterm

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:05 am
by wayne128
Schoelje wrote: Here you find a list with applications for the next LMDE Xfce.

Accessories

- Sensor Viewer

- Sensor Viewer
I use lm-sensors on terminal and sensor viewer on taskbar, so that I can keep track of cpu core temps.
I am used to running Linux kernel/distros with core temp 35-38degc when idling...
and not using those that distros/kernel that had cpu temp to 65-68degC idling....
I need my desktop computer to last longer... laptop's battery to last longer...

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:29 pm
by Jesse654
First, Schoelje, thank you very much for all your amazing, outstanding work you've done with LMDE KDE. And many thanks also to the testers here that have helped. I had installed the 201208 ISOs on a couple machines, but due to unrelated (ongoing) issues, I haven't been able to focus on my new OS as much as I'd like. I'm hoping that will soon change. Which brings me to:

Secondly: I want in. While I prefer KDE for my main machine, I'm sure I can use a lightweight version of Xfce for my older machines.
I will help however I can:
If you need to me program, I shall program.
If you need to me test, I shall test.
If you need to me host ISOs on my (no doubt, slow) website, I shall host.

I have asked Clem on the blog comments what is necessary for LMDE KDE to become an Official Community Edition. I hope that there is a response which allows community members to work toward that goal. (Otherwise, who can tell the future...) I'm assuming an official CE status would allow, among other things, posting ISOs to the Mint site to allow users to download faster.

For Xfce, I'm looking for something that will run relatively smoothly on an old PC. It is mainly used as an auxiliary, back up computer:
14+ year old Compaq Deskpro EN
700 MHz PIII CPU
512 Megs memory
9.3 Gig HD
It can boot off USB (no doubt, version 1) with the help of Plop Boot Manager.
It ran Linux Mint 9 LXDE quite nicely. Other versions, like LMDE MATE, run slower (but LMDE Gnome pointed to Debian stable has not-so-bad performance). It does not have the 3D resources to run Cinnamon.

I'm not sure I can give a lot of salient advice when it comes to specific applications. It looks like others are better equipped to make those calls. I might have more of an opinion once something is running.

I do think that a lightweight focus is a good one for Xfce, either from installation or able to be achieved easily after install.

Thanks again and let me know how I can help.

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:40 pm
by Jesse654
OT: It looks like my post was time-stamped with EDT? Is the forum server still on Daylight time?

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 5:04 pm
by cwwgateway
I posted the following on the November 2012 blog post:
cwwgateway Says:
December 5th, 2012 at 5:03 pm

I am an LMDE Xfce user, but after reading the replies that Clem has given, I understand.

What I would like to know, however, is what happens to people who currently have Xfce installed? Since LMDE is rolling (moreso if you track testing like I do), it can conceivably roll until the end of time.

Also, I believe Schoelje is continuing the unofficial LMDE KDE and starting an unofficial LMDE Xfce, for anyone who still wants to use Xfce.
And Clem replied:
Edit by Clem: Hi cwwgateway. It should continue to roll and if you find bugs or if there are little things we can do to accommodate Xfce users on LMDE we will.
I do really like that Clem took the time to reply to a lot of the responses (although he hasn't replied to Jesse654's yet). What he says does make a lot of sense for linux mint overall, especially supporting two different versions of xfce.

I'm going to try to make my xfce netInst look similar to Schoelje's app list just to get a feel for what it would be like. I'll post some comments soon.

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 7:29 pm
by dritzominous
It's too bad Clem can't clone himself, because I know he would lol.

It's great to see all of this support!

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:26 pm
by zerozero
Schoelje wrote:Here you find a list with applications for the next LMDE Xfce.
my opinion (overall it looks good)
- banshee? can't we get rid of mono just because of this app?
- xterm: i guess you will need it http://pastebin.com/fpzPcLdK
it doesn't look a radically light xfce edition (we see some choices for more mainstream app) and that is ok as long as we don't fall in the traps lmde-xfce fell


and what were those?
- it was an ed. meant to be more mainstream (fill the gap left by the end of gnome2.x); the blog post announcing the first release is symptomatic http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1725
One of the most significant improvements is the performance boost given to this edition.
This performance boost allowed us to give Xfce a more mainstream software selection, replacing Exaile with Rhythmox, adding VLC and giving Xfce almost the same software selection as Gnome.
all this was great but one thing was forgotten (or overlooked): nautilus dependencies:
- the first iso (2011.04) had no nautilus yet (but had already several nautilus libraries)
- the 2012.04 had already nautilus installed http://pastebin.com/fhpURGZs and a huge part of gnome as well
and this was probably the major issue users had over time with lmde-xfce (the intrusion of nautilus handling/messing the desktop)
of course that seeing gnome-shell being installed (when some of them are/where running away from it) is not exactly a nice view either
- and building the system from the ground-up is possible without *nautilus http://pastebin.com/J5en2y8G (i would lose very little and no functionality at all)

anyhow i see here a bright future :D

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:38 pm
by cwwgateway
I agree with zerozero that we should avoid nautilus dependencies/packages as much as possible. On the subject of banshee, I personally don't care - having mono installed or not isn't a big deal for me, but I guess exaile would be a better choice for a lighter application set. I've been using these apps on an old system to get a feel for them on older hardware, and they are decent. I think that FF and Thunderbird are important (although a little bit slow on this machine), but libreoffice could be replaced by abiword and gnumeric. It's up to you Schoelje, but I find libreoffice a little bit too heavy for me personally on an old system. On a new system though (like my laptop) I much prefer libreoffice. I guess I'd rather have to install it than remove it, but my guess is most people will want it anyway.

Also, what DM are you planning on using? I'm going to try some DMs over the weekend (namely lightDM vs MDM), but I'm curious what you're thinking.

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:19 pm
by cwwgateway
Ok, so I've worked most of this evening on my Debian NetInst box with 485 MB of detected RAM and a 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 HT. I've used only the apps Schoelje has installed by default so as to experience them. I'd say overall things were mostly decent, with firefox being a little bit slugish when opening tabs and doing other actions that didn't involve typing and scrolling. LibreOffice was fine other than on startup. I was very impressed by memory usage - it hovered around 220 and never went above 240 with iceweasel, icedove, libreoffice writer, synapse, and lxtask running. CPU usage was a little bit worse, with it ranging from 10-20% while I was writing or browsing, to 90-100% when opening new apps, and around 40% when switching apps. I tried it briefly with compositing turned off, which lessened CPU usage to 60-70% when opening apps, but it had no effect on the "feel" of the system.

Overall, everything was fluid and decently fast other than libreoffice taking a long time to load. I was surprised how relatively speedy iceweasel and icedove were - they were faster than my laptop (with 8 gigs of RAM and a quad core i7 CPU) running firefox/thunderbird under windows, but that isn't saying much considering firefox crashes daily under windows. I think I'll stick to midori, but if I needed the features they provide, I could use them without too much problem. Based on this experience, I'd say the application selection is very good for lightweight machines, but I think I'll still suggest (and use) abiword and gnumeric due to libreoffice's slow loading times. I think synapse being installed by default is great, especially because xfce has no built in panel search. The only thing to note is that it doesn't look as snazzy if compositing isn't turned on (it still looks ok and has all of the functionality, but transparencies don't really work).

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 2:14 am
by Schoelje
Jesse654 wrote:Secondly: I want in. While I prefer KDE for my main machine, I'm sure I can use a lightweight version of Xfce for my older machines.
I will help however I can:
If you need to me program, I shall program.
If you need to me test, I shall test.
If you need to me host ISOs on my (no doubt, slow) website, I shall host.
I'll keep that in mind!
How is your Python? I'm working on DDM at the moment and I could use some help: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=113559

zerozero wrote:- banshee? can't we get rid of mono just because of this app?
Yes, but what is the alternative?
It should at least be able to work with play lists.
zerozero wrote:- xterm: i guess you will need it http://pastebin.com/fpzPcLdK
it doesn't look a radically light xfce edition (we see some choices for more mainstream app) and that is ok as long as we don't fall in the traps lmde-xfce fell
Let's keep working on that and get the number of Gnome dependencies down, without losing (too much) functionality, of course.
zerozero wrote:- and building the system from the ground-up is possible without *nautilus http://pastebin.com/J5en2y8G (i would lose very little and no functionality at all)
So...Nautilus is a big no, no :D

Here's a slightly adapted applications list:
  • Xarchiver instead of Squeeze
  • No banshee, but what then? (see above)
  • Wicd (we need some network manager)
  • Keep UXTerm/Xterm, but not in the menu
  • What about alacarte?

Code: Select all

Accessories
+ Clipman
+ Mousepad
+ Notes
+ galculator
- Orage Globaltime
+ Sensor Viewer
+ Xarchiver instead of Squeeze
- Task Manager (replaced by lxtask)
+ Xfce 4 Print Dialog
+ Xfce 4 Print Manager
Graphics
+ Gimp
+ Ristretto Image Viewer
+ Shotwell
+ Simple Scan
Internet
+ Firefox
+ Thunderbird
+ Transmission
+ XChat
+ Pidgin
Multimedia
+ Xfburn
+ Xfmedia instead of VLC
- Banshee, but what is the alternative
Office
+ AbiWord/Gnumeric instead of LibreOffice
- Orage Calendar
- Orage Globaltime
System
+ GDebi
+ Synaptic
+ synapse
+ Users and Groups
+ Windows Wireless Drivers
+ System Monitor
+ Wicd
+ Alacarte
- Reportbug
+ Sensor Viewer
- Task Manager (replaced by lxtask)
+ lxtask
+ UXTerm/Xterm, but not in the menu

Re: The unofficial LMDE XFCE

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 4:57 am
by dritzominous
Wicd is perfect for a network manager.

As for a music manager, how about Exaile? (similar to Amarok, but uses GTK+)

I use it, and it's actually pretty good. It's probably the best alternative to Banshee.

As for alacarte, you might want to check out this:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=50850

^ I've never used it before though. And no, I don't think it's in the Debian repos. :(

Either way, I think a menu editor is a requirement.