LM 17 XFCE

[ktheking]

Yeah ... ,the first one with a LM 17 XFCE thread ...

Anyone with some news on this ?

Greetz,

Koen

[kc1di]

Hi ktheking and Welcome to Linux Mint Forums,

XFCE release cycle usually starts a few weeks after Cinnamon and Mate become stable. So I would look for it about a month or so after final of Cinnamon.

you can following any progress on this page: http://community.linuxmint.com/iso as you can see no mention of XFCE thus far.

In the meantime if you want to try Mint 17 with xfce you can always install Mint 17 RC mate and then go to synaptic package manager and do a search for

Code: Select all

mint-meta-xfce

and install xfce in LM 17 - keep it updated and when the final is released you'll have essentially the same thing already

As Always that is just experimental and you should not use it where critical data is concerned or you should do extensive backups first.

[JRG]

I've been running Mint 17 + XFCE on a test machine since the RCs became available (May 17th?). What I did is:

Installed the Mint 17 MATE release
Used Software Manager to list installed packages (I used "xfce") on my main machine running an up to date Mint 16 + XFCE and then...
Installed xfce4 ("core packages")
Installed xfce4-goodies

Those xfce4 packages were installed first because they include a lot of dependencies.

Then I installed any missing ones from the list off Mint 16 + XFCE. NOTE: mint-info-debian-xfce will not install, but the machine ran fine.

That was working so well, that yesterday (May 20), I installed it on my main machine (see previous commenter about "backups"!). There were a couple of differences in the procedure...

I use a "Custom Install"; that is, I have my disk drive with 3 partitions: a "system" partition (i.e. mounted as / and set to reformat during the install), a "home" partition (i.e. mounted as /home and set NOT to format during the install) and a swap partition. Well, there are other partitions for bootloader, efi, etc. but those aren't specified during the install.

Again, everything worked fine... EXCEPT:

One needs to install "blueman" if one uses bluetooth (it's in the release notes). Presumably when the XFCE RC comes out, that issue will be fixed. I needed it as I use a bluetooth keyboard (I managed until I got blueman installed because my main machine is a loptop).

There is a quirk, probably due to a setting(s) somewhere in my home directory, so that the "Lock screen" command doesn't work.
[Edited 2014-05-23 — The rest of this paragraph deleted and replaced by...]

The problem with the "Lock screen" was an omission on my part (isn't that always the case!). I failed to install the "gnome-screensaver" package. I expect this package will not be required once the LM17 XFCE RC becomes available (it will presumably use more or less the identical code currently used by Cinnamon and MATE)
[End edit]

Cheers,
John

[templar]

How devoid of drama should it be to upgrade Mint 16 Xfce to Mint 17 Xfce when it is finally released? I just installed the 64 bit version of Mint 16 Xfce today because I needed something working today. However, what I am looking for is something that will be devoid of problems going ahead in the future. If that means wiping the disk and installing 17 when its released then I'll do that. I'm hoping a 16 to 17 upgrade won't leave Mint 16 artifacts strewn about the disk. Any opinions on this?

[kc1di]

How devoid of drama should it be to upgrade Mint 16 Xfce to Mint 17 Xfce when it is finally released? I just installed the 64 bit version of Mint 16 Xfce today because I needed something working today. However, what I am looking for is something that will be devoid of problems going ahead in the future. If that means wiping the disk and installing 17 when its released then I'll do that. I'm hoping a 16 to 17 upgrade won't leave Mint 16 artifacts strewn about the disk. Any opinions on this?

I always prefer to do a clean install, simply because I think there is less potential for trouble. But many people do upgrades without problems. You should read Clem's comments on this page before deciding. http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2

[JRG]

How devoid of drama should it be to upgrade Mint 16 Xfce to Mint 17 Xfce when it is finally released? I just installed the 64 bit version of Mint 16 Xfce today because I needed something working today. However, what I am looking for is something that will be devoid of problems going ahead in the future. If that means wiping the disk and installing 17 when its released then I'll do that. I'm hoping a 16 to 17 upgrade won't leave Mint 16 artifacts strewn about the disk. Any opinions on this?

I have a strong preference for a variation on Clem's "Fresh" install. It is a very logical technique that I've seen described in a number of places.
FIRST: Regardless of whether you are even updating/replacing your OS, you must keep reasonably up to date backups of your data. It should be on an external drive (or USB memory stick if you don't have vast quantities of music and photographs). I find doing the backups a pain, but they are necessary — I do mine in the evening (I start the backup just before going into another room to watch TV with my wife and then check that it completed alright before heading up to bed).
===
SECOND: Install your OS "correctly" in the first place. I use the word "correctly" to reflect an opinion I've held for decades. Separate your data from programs (applications) and the OS. As part of "separate", I like to include "on separate disks or partitions". If you don't have your computer set up this way, I urge you to change it to this kind of setup when you next "upgrade"/"switch"/"install" your OS. You can use the program "gparted" to re-partition your hard drive. The investment in setting things up correctly pays a high return.
===
Then, when it comes time to "upgrade" your OS, or even switch to a different OS/Linux distribution, follow these steps to do a "FRESH" install. It is painless and fast.
1) Logout and then login as root using a terminal window. You can do the login by pressing (for example) control+alt+F3 to get one of the available terminal windows under Linux Mint.
2) Change the name of your home directory. Mine is called "john" and my initials happen to be "JRG" so I use the following terminal commands (the second is optional and I use it just to double-check I'm in the right place in the file system; the last is just to double-check that my "home" directory is now called "jrg"):
cd /home
pwd
mv john jrg
ls
3) Put the install CD/DVD in your drive and reboot. You can reboot by issuing the following command in the terminal window you already have open:
shutdown -r 0
(That's a ZERO at the end, to all intents and purposes it means "immediately".)
4) Install the OS, supplying your original user Id when asked to identify yourself (e.g. I use "john"). The other CRITICAL thing is to do a "custom install" (or whatever it is called in the OS/Distro you are installing) — set it to format the system partition, "/" but NOT format the home partition "/home".
5) After the install (and the reboot that is involved), immediately run Software Update
6) Re-install any special applications you use (e.g. luckybackup, virtualbox, etc.). I keep a little 1/2-size binder with the installation process, my preferred settings, the applications I have installed and any installation quirks... That may be more than you want to do, but at least keep a list of the appplications you use that do not come as part of the OS distribution.
There is a program that is supposed to automate this process (making a backup list before you do the fresh install and then re-installing automatically). I tried it once and found it didn't do a good job — it may have been improved, but nevertheless I prefer to do this automatically so it is independent of the OS or distribution
7) Now the critical part: open a terminal window and "move" your data from the old "home" directory (in my case "jrg") to your newly setup one (in my case "john"). Copy over any special setting files/folders that you need — BUT only the ones you need (for example, those for Thunderbird emailer that includes all your mail boxes and Mozilla Firefox that includes all your bookmarks; Filezilla FTP; etc.).
8) Now re-apply any customizations and "tweaks" (themes, desktop backgrounds, etc.). In a pinch, you can skip this step and do it later. I find I can get along quite fine for a day or two with Linux Mint's default settings. In fact, I tend to think of the example "settings" mentioned in the previous step as really being part of my "data".
===
For what it is worth, in my earlier post I mentioned a problem with "lock screen". I'm "re-installing" right now, because I'm quite sure the problem was that I got sloppy and didn't follow my own process faithfully and some leftover "detrius" as you put it, caused the problem :-(

[JRG]

@JRG ...
However, until that's available, do you think i stall can install XFCE4 + *goodies, and run it side-by-side with Cinnamon, my current LM17-RC test system? And if that's workable, how do a switch from Cinnamon to XFCE? Thanks for 'xplaining

The short answer is yes. However, it does require a bit of work and, of course, the Linux Mint team do not have a Release Candidate of XFCE, so it's quite possible some things may break depending on what hardware you are using. Clearly there won't be the degree of "integration" with LM 17, even though "mint" packages are being used.

You can switch back and forth between Cinnamon and XFCE (or as I do, between MATE and XFCE). I stick to XFCE but MATE is there if I need it (I haven't). I only tried Cinnamon very briefly a few releases ago, so I'm not terribly familiar with it, but I imagine the Login screen has some similarities to MATE. It should have an icon or button somewhere that you can click to choose which of the installed Desktop Environments to login using (and then enter User-id & Password or just Password if it remembers the last user to login). It sounds like LM 17 has rationalized the login screen, so hopefully both LM17 MATE and LM17 Cinnamon are the same one. In that case there is a one or two letter "button" (it has no outline!) in the upper right of the login dialog. If you click on it it shows a "Select a session" pop-out dialog. Mine shows: "Last", "Run Xclient script", "MATE" and "Xfce Session". When you select a different Desktop Environment than what is currently set as the default, you are asked if you want to make the choice the new default. So mucking around with Desktop Environments is pretty safe as long as you have a solid one to fall back on (i.e. Cinnamon or MATE). Oh, beside the text in that pop-up a littled rounded-square button shows (on the left) that has the one or two letters in it — lamda for "Last" & "Run Xclient script" and "M" and "Xf" for MATE and Xfce Session respectively.

The catch with installing XFCE (at least with the Software Manager, which is what I use), is that neither installing "mint-meta-xfce" as suggested by kc1dl or "xfce4" and "xfce4-goodies" does the trick by itself. If you really want to go ahead, here is the list I used the last time I did this (I wrote it down ) :

mint-meta-xfce
xfce4-goodies
xfce4-notify
xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin
xfce4-power-manager
xfce4-power-manager-data
xfce4-power-manager-plugins
libgtk2.0-bin
libxfce4util-bin
libxfce4util-common
libxfce4util6
mint-artwork-xfce
mint-backgrounds-xfce
xfce4-indicator-plugin
gnome-screensaver (this is required so that "Lock Screen" will work)

You can see a list that includes most of these if you type "xf" into the Software Manager's search box. Then you can double-click on one and click install. After the install is finished, click back on the "Search Results" tab at the top of the window (I think it's called that, you'll recognize it). Then you can select the next one and repeat the process until they are all installed. One or two will appear to stall at the 50% or 80% mark, but just leave it alone and the Software Manager will complete the job.

Once you've finished, logout and then login again (choosing the "Xfce session").

I've used this technique to install LM17 MATE + XFCE on an old (2007) white MacBook and an old (2006) MacBook Pro. The former is my "test machine"; the latter, my main machine.

[Yet another Edit — 2014-05-23]
I edit my posts rather than submitting new posts as that keeps the information together.

Some of my experiences today suggest the following warnings if you are going to install XFCE on top of LM17 MATE (and presumably the same applies to LM17 Cinnamon):

1) Do not make changes to the settings of the Desktop Environment that you install (for example MATE). There appear to be incompatible interactions between the older (i.e. non-LM17) XFCE and the LM17 installation. I suspect these are because of the two Desktop Environments using some common setting files. I found this out the hard way when I tried to change MATE settings so I could use either DE. I use an external monitor as well as the laptop's display and when I logged out of MATE and attempted to login using XFCE, the laptop's monitor was not visible and I couldn't make it visible using XFCE settings. Even rebooting did not solve this problem.

I imagine suitable mucking with MATE setting files (possibly deleting some) would have resolved this problem, but I took the "clean" approach of simply re-installing.

2) The "fix" for the Lock Screen problem (i.e. installing the gnome-screensaver package) causes display issues. It appears to interfere with re-drawing the screen (viewport or whatever). When I did the re-install to fix problem (1), I did not install that package. *** This conclusion was wrong (the problem is just intermittent) so I reinstalled the screensaver package. ***
[End Edit]

[usbtux]

Nice tutorial JRG, works well

You dont need to install the options for xfce one at a time - in synaptic choose each item from the list and mark for installation (for each item) once you've completed the list; use the install button.

- after the install you may want to change your wallpapers to /usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint-quanta for the mint 17 wallpapers.

[MtnDewManiac]

In regards to the need to install gnome-screensaver, would xscreensaver do the trick? I've never been able to stand the former as it always appeared (to me) that its author went out of his way to prevent users from being able to individually configure the various screensaver hacks' options - which made some of them useless IMHO (for example, what use is the one that displays text when the user cannot even specify what bit of text to use?).

Another question to those who've installed XFCE on Mint 17: Do those components include the (more or less) recent 4.11 ones, or is Mint still using all 4.10? And has anyone added the XFCE 4.10 & 4.12 PPAs (with good results)?

Thanks,
MDM

[JRG]

Nice tutorial JRG, works well

You dont need to install the options for xfce one at a time - in synaptic choose each item from the list and mark for installation (for each item) once you've completed the list; use the install button.

- after the install you may want to change your wallpapers to /usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint-quanta for the mint 17 wallpapers.

...snip...

Both good points. I prefer to use the Software Manager, though occasionally I use "apt" from the command line. I missed the point about the Mint 17 wallpapers as I always use my own... different ones on my laptop screen and the external monitor — FWIW, I use appropriately clipped and resized versions of pictures taken by the Hubble telescope (there are some unbelievable ones of the Helix nebula)

[JRG]

I just updated my post about installing XFCE on Linux Mint 17 - MATE. By accident, I seem to have discovered a package missing from the list I supplied. I found it when I was playing around with the "Appearance" settings and had to issue a command in a terminal (it was to do with the icon cache). There was a very informative message telling me I needed to install libgtk2.0-bin

It appears to have resolved the screen drawing problems

I edited my post to add this package for anyone who simply cannot wait for the XFCE RC

[templar]

Any guesses when LM 17 Xfce RC will be released? How long after the RC is released should we reasonably expect to see the actual release of LM Xfce 17?

I have been thinking of just going with MATE 17 , but I'm really liking Xfce 16 (and Xfce 12 prior to that) and am reluctant to switch.

[konjad]

They will work on Xfce when they are done with KDE.

[Crewp]

Any guesses when LM 17 Xfce RC will be released? How long after the RC is released should we reasonably expect to see the actual release of LM Xfce 17?

I have been thinking of just going with MATE 17 , but I'm really liking Xfce 16 (and Xfce 12 prior to that) and am reluctant to switch.

Hang in there, it should be out this month. Not much longer.

[usbtux]

Any guesses when LM 17 Xfce RC will be released? How long after the RC is released should we reasonably expect to see the actual release of LM Xfce 17?

I have been thinking of just going with MATE 17 , but I'm really liking Xfce 16 (and Xfce 12 prior to that) and am reluctant to switch.

Usually about a month after the main releases - cant see this taking much longer as there doesn't seem to be major changes between 16 and 17.

[Umbra Polaris]

just installed it , no particular issues at the moment

[ktheking]

Seems clem and other are working on the first RC's
The 64-bit RC (Release Candidate) is out.
Cheers for that guys.

http://community.linuxmint.com/iso

[jsalpha2]

How do you download the RC? Don't see a link.

[catfish12]

hi here they are


http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/linuxmint. ... bit-rc.iso

http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/linuxmint. ... bit-rc.iso

[MtnDewManiac]

I thank you for the links.

Respectfully, is there also available a link to a thread on this web-forum or on Clem's Segfault blog which states that the .ISOs found on the ftp site you linked to are true, unaltered copies of Clem's .ISOs?

Thanks,
MDM