interesting xfce distros?

[ufugu]

While we have an intermission before the next release of the Xfce CE (which is going to be great I'm sure!), what are some other distros you enjoy running Xfce with and the pros and cons of each?

Might be an interesting way to see Xfce's potential and then bring these ideas back and someday apply them to Mint.

I tried Zenwalk and it was very, very fast, but the package manger and selection was pretty sad. I could install from source but was getting frustrated tracking down dependencies.

Xubuntu Jaunty was not bad, but I preferred just installing Xfce 4.6.1 over a regular Ubuntu install much better. By disabling unneeded services I got RAM usage down to about 120MB after start up, but would like to get that lower.

I'm also going to try Sam this weekend (tried it a few years back but all I remember was all the green color) and the Fedora Xfce Spin when Fedora 11 is released next week.

What have you tried that you liked (and didn't)?

[alexxx24887]

You should try Dreamlinux, a very nice Xfce distro.

pros:

very stylish, fast, own apps (like mint), and xfce

cons:

way too much Apple/OSX like look

[FedoraRefugee]

Fedora offers an Xfce spin. The F11 live preview is pretty smooth. Not as good as the Mint version, but not bad. I will certainly be trying the release version when it finally comes out.

http://spins.fedoraproject.org/

[Zwopper]

Sidux is a fast one!

[ufugu]

Great! I had never seen Sidux but that's definitely looking like a fun one to take for a spin.

And looking forward to Fedora when 11 final is released.

It looks from the Dreamlinux forums that they are advising people not to upgrade to 4.6 (and those who do are having trouble). Too bad, because the small but important changes that came with 4.6 are what lured me back to Xfce.

Anybody used Kate or Sam or Wolvix recently?

[kc1di]

If you like xfce you should really try Vector Linux 6.0 Standard. It does xfce very well.
Cheers,
Kc1di

[linuxviolin]

Wolvix is quite good but based on an "old" slackware, the final new version is not yet here I guess. GoblinX is also good and of course Debian Xfce is excellent (and better than Xubuntu)! Also you can want to try Frugalware...

[Meteor]

Anybody used Kate or Sam or Wolvix recently?

Just looked at the SAM website (via Distrowatch). It shows that the "latest" active release is from March of 2007. An update released as "RC1" was at Christmas, 2007 and nothing since then. It ranks in the basement of Distrowatch at 97th, holding up the entire stack of listed distros.

The SAM forum has postings about PCLOS 2009.1 (on which SAM is based). I doubt very much that SAM has received any major updates. The "RC1" would be based on whatever version XFCE had at that time.

I had a CD of one of SAM's versions at one time but I guess it's become a placemat for paint cans now. I recall the desktop being green (in colour) but not attractive to me.

Wovix, according to Distrowatch, is more active but I've never tried it. Distrowatch shows the active version is 1.1.0 released in August, 2007 and Beta 2 of version 2.0.0 was released in April of 2009. Beta 1, IIRC, had received favourable reviews online.

I, however, am awaiting Gloria in XFCE CE trim, hopefully not with an extremely dark desktop, line Mint 7 Main. Bright, cheerful green is my vote and hope.

Meteor

[Zwopper]

Sam actually uses an old version of the mintMenu.

[ufugu]

Since I first posted I've given Sidux, Fedora and Debian Xfce versions a decent testing on an extra hard drive. All three ran zippier than Xubuntu (and maybe even a hair zipper than our fave distro, too ). All three were easy enough to get the "extra" things working that some might need (nvidia drivers, codecs etc), all it takes is a little poking around in the forums/wikis.

Sidux was really interesting, a "stabilized" version of Debian Sid (unstable). There is a lot to learn to get it set up how you want it, but there are scripts that will help (smxi). It seems like a good distro for a tinkerer. FWIW, the Sidux forums heavily favor the KDE version, but there is a dedicated live CD for Xfce that works well. The live CD has a handy list of "cheat codes" which is helpful for getting it up and running with your hardware. The installer was easy to use and unique (to me).

Debian Xfce was OK but for some reason it didn't do anything special for me. The packages were oooold. I gather you can change the "stable" to "testing" but at that point it looked like Sidux would be more fun to learn. I could not find a live CD for Debian Xfce (only the main Debian releases seemed to have live versions) but the installer booted up fine.

The real surprise for me was the pre-release Fedora 11 Xfce "spin". It was my first go-round with an RPM distro. The live CD booted off my nvidia card without any input from me, and I could even turn on window compositing running from the CD. The install was easy and the apps were right up my alley. Thunderbird 3 and Firefox 3.5 were already loaded and I felt like I was living in the future. I think I might keep playing with this one for a few days.

I think Xfce and LXDE are truly neglected middle ground DEs and I hope they get more exposure. Especially the Xfce 4.6 release. Easy to use and light is a great combination. Frankly, I cannot figure out what I can't do in Xfce that I could be doing in Gnome...

Thanks for the Sam info. More, more!

[Meteor]

I think Xfce and LXDE are truly neglected middle ground DEs and I hope they get more exposure. Especially the Xfce 4.6 release. Easy to use and light is a great combination. Frankly, I cannot figure out what I can't do in Xfce that I could be doing in Gnome...

Thanks for the Sam info.

I've never tried anything with LXDE but will hunt around for a distro and peruse it. I agree that Xfce (to write it in it's correct format) is fine for my aged system (3 - 4 year old laptop with a label screaming "64-bit Powerhouse"...). I, too, haven't found anything that Xfce can't do where Gnome could as I haven't really used Gnome to any great extent. I'm not sure what sub-version of 4 is in Felicia but it works and works well for me. If there's an "itch", I haven't had to scratch it yet, When Gloria XFCE CE is released, she'll be doing the work on my system.

You are welcome re SAM. It's a dead system as far as I'm concerned.

I've thought about Fedora Xfce but haven't taken the time to download whatever version is currently available and I know there's a delay on another version due to some glitch or another. If someone I know is running it, I'll play with it but not on my single system.

Zwopper, I wasn't aware that SAM used some Mint programs but they must be ancient versions by now. I'm glad that you mentioned it. I found my SAM LiveCD. It has a paint brush stuck to it so probably won't boot in my system anymore...

Meteor

[ufugu]

I found my SAM LiveCD. It has a paint brush stuck to it so probably won't boot in my system anymore...

Just to be clear, I'll be back on the Mintwagon when the next release comes out. No doubt.

[FedoraRefugee]

A little late to do you much good, but RE proprietary drivers and codecs in Fedora, there is an auto-installer out there made by dangermouse and called auto(whatever version number), for instance, autoten or autoeleven. It takes care of most needs.

http://www.dnmouse.org/autoten.html

And for compiz-fusion needs check out Leigh123@linux in the forum. He builds git head packages and while not "official" they work great. This is the one HUGE advantage Fedora has now with Shane (of the shame repo) passing away.