[SOLVED] XFCE over Cinnamon install versus Linux Mint XFCE

[sbroccolo]

I apologize for the lengthy preamble. I want to explain what I was trying to do and why.
I have an old Toshiba Satellite. I use for unattended time intensive tasks that I don't want to tie up my main desktop doing. I use it for things like HandBrake, Torrents, and backing up my router attached network drive. (Yes, I backup my backups).
As you might surmise it was struggling with Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1. I have not done a lot with XFCE but had read that it was a lot less resource intensive. As a test I installed the XFCE DE from the Software Manager. Logged out picked it and logged back in.
It made a difference. Memory usage was reduced by about 35% and watching HTOP while doing a few tasks CPU usage appeared to be down about 10%. Not a huge difference but every little bit counts on those old machines. I've been doing that for a little over a month when 18.2 came out. It has taken me that time to get used to the XFCE look and feel, and especially where certain settings are. But for the tasks that I do on it I have come to actually prefer it.

After I upgraded all the systems in the house from 18.1 to 18.2 and everything looked and acted pretty much the same (except I don't like LightDM) I decided to do a complete reinstall with Linux Mint 18.2 XFCE. I thought that I might even eek out a little more efficiency.
Well if it did it's too small to measure with the meager tools that I have.
Here's the real problem It doesn't look like the old XFCE at all. In fact it looks a lot like Cinnamon. So much so that I did an
echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
to check. Yep, XFCE
Not only is the look and feel different but the settings are in different places than the old XFCE and not where Cinnamon has it either. Still haven't found how to change the default application to "ask what to do" when I load a DVD. It automatically mounts and runs Media Player.
If anyone has a quick answer as to why it is different and how to put it back to the old look and feel I would appreciate it. I liked the task bar on the top for that system.
I have a hard drive to replace on another machine so I won't get back to the Toshiba for a day or two to play around with it.
Since the only stuff I've added on it are HandBrake and Firewalld (UFW gives me heartburn, so I always remove it), and backups of backups. I can easily wipe it out and start over.
Thanks!

[kc1di]

Sorry I can't be of much help here. as I've not played with 18.2 xfce yet.
But can tell you one of Mints goals is to make all the different DE's look as close to the same as possible.
I'm not sure but the Change list may be illustrative of changes made between 18.1 and 18.2.
found here.
https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_sonya_xfce_whatsnew.php
I think it may be just a matter of time and playing around with settings and finding where everything has been put.

Good Luck

[edderland 4]

I tried the same thing. I downloaded mint 18.2 with the XFCE option, but it loaded cinnamon instead. When I did the install, it was set to load along side Mint 18.1. echo $DESKTOP_SESSION returned cinnamon. I've been wanting to use the XFCE Desktop. I tried it once before, but cinnamon desktop clutches the OS like a barnacle on steroids.

How do I get XFCE as my desktop environment?

[Neil Edmond]

Here's the real problem It doesn't look like the old XFCE at all. In fact it looks a lot like Cinnamon...
If anyone has a quick answer as to why it is different and how to put it back to the old look and feel I would appreciate it. I liked the task bar on the top for that system.

Looks like you did not have the Mint version of XFCE with Whisker Menu the first time out. Now you do. Generic XFCE looks a lot like your describe you first round with XFCE.

If all you now want is the panel at the top instead of bottom of screen, just move it. I think you can also switch between Whisker menu and basic XFCE menu, but I don't know how of the top of my head (I prefer the Whisker Menu).

[sbroccolo]

To edderland 4:

When I did the install, it was set to load along side Mint 18.1. echo $DESKTOP_SESSION returned cinnamon

With 18.1 there was a "trick" to get XFCE (or any other DE to run instead of Cinnamon)
First click on the user, even if there is only one, while it is waiting for a password. use the drop down (different themes have it in different places) to pick XFCE, THEN enter the password and hit enter.

With 18.2 which uses LightDM the problem doesn't exist as it is waiting for password, and the drop down is right next to the user name.

As for Linux Mint XFCE

Looks like you did not have the Mint version of XFCE with Whisker Menu the first time out. Now you do. Generic XFCE looks a lot like your describe you first round with XFCE.

If all you now want is the panel at the top instead of bottom of screen, just move it. I think you can also switch between Whisker menu and basic XFCE menu, but I don't know how of the top of my head (I prefer the Whisker Menu).

You are probably right, although I could not find a way to switch to the Basic XFCE, I tried various options with no luck. I could also not find an easy way to move the panel. I guess I could add a panel to the top, move everything to it and then delete the bottom panel. But it still would not look like the basic XFCE panel without doing a lot of tweaking.

Since I built a replacement hard drive for my wife's laptop today I did a quick test. Installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.2 fresh. When done customizing it for my wife, I installed XFCE4 from the Software Manager. Logged into it and Voila! Looks just like I want. So once the Toshiba is done backing up my network in about 8-16 hours, I will reinstall Linux Mint Cinnamon to it and download XFCE4. I saw no advantages to running Linux Mint XFCE versus that method. I saw no difference in resource usage between those two methods.

For others the advantage of going straight Linux Mint XFCE may be that it has a lot of the feel of Cinnamon, while using a less resource intensive desktop environment. For those who choose to go that way I would highly suggest loading the XFCE4 (says "meta-package" in the description) and XFCE4-goodies from the Software Manager as a lot of settings functionality was returned when I did that. Including an easier way to adjust the settings for mounting DVDs. The original way is in the file manager under Preferences > Advanced. Not very intuitive IMHO.

And just as an aside, it appears that other XFCE distros, such as Linux Lite, are going the way of the Whisker Menu.

I will mark this thread as [SOLVED] in a day or two in case any others want to weigh in.

[edderland 4]

"With 18.2 which uses LightDM the problem doesn't exist as it is waiting for password, and the drop down is right next to the user name."

I tried you suggestion. I chose the Xfce session. I'm not sure if it worked, because all I got was a black screen, with the mouse pointer in the middle. I thought I should click the mouse, or press some function key, but none of that worked. I thought casting a magic spell would help, but I remembered that I'm dealing with a computer with Linux.

I have a back up of my 18.1 install that has my data files. What if I just re-install 18.2, with the option of a fresh install, then recover my data files. I was even thinking of going Debian. I'm not suicidal, just curious...which has cost me a lot of frustration.

Computers! Bha Humbug. They almost make me miss my two EX-s.

[sbroccolo]

It may have been that you had some corrupted or missing XFCE files.
I keep my /home on a separate partition so that if the root becomes corrupted or if I want to say install 18.2 Cinnamon over the top of 18.2 XFCE I can do it without losing any data files. However, a lot of program files live on /home so you may have to do some cleanup. If you installed 18.2 XFCE over Cinnamon, but you kept your old /home then that would explain why Cinnamon is holding on.
If you want to try getting a "clean" XFCE desktop on your current install you can do the following.
Use Synaptic Package Manager to remove everything, it does a better job of finding everything and their dependencies than Software Manager and "Complete Removal" almost gets rid of everything. I say almost as you still need to make sure.
So after I installed 18.2 Cinnamon over the top of 18.2 XFCE on my old Toshiba I did the following:
Completely removed all XFCE4 packages using Synaptic package manager.
There were several showing installed.
In a terminal do: sudo apt-get autoremove
It found a few more XFCE related files to remove.
then do: sudo find . -name *xfce*
just to make sure there were no config files hiding out somewhere in /home, I don't remember if there were any as I was also deleting some other apps that were acting buggy in 18.2 XFCE, and I did delete a few file folders with config files in them.
Reboot
Double check to make sure everything is gone.
With Software Manager install XFCE4 and XFCE4-goodies
Logout
Pick XFCE and login
My old basic XFCE was back

I am not sure what packages you need to install if you want the new Whisker Menu. Probably something like xfce4-whiskermenu.
If you are going to a completely fresh install of 18.2 including a new /home then you won't need to go through all that. I have a few games and other programs that I have configured the way I like and it would take many hours to recopy files back from the network drive. I just did that when I replaced the drive.

[edderland 4]

I did all of what you suggested. The first part worked like champ. I downloaded the install program, ran it, logged out, logged back in, then selected session. No XFCE (Franky throws bricks at his laptop). I have a backup on a network drive of my data files. So, I'm going to do a fresh install.

Thank you very much for all your help. You're a mighty good neighbour to have, EH!

[sbroccolo]

If you just want to see what it looks and feels like you could always install a copy in VirtualBox. I install dozens of distros just to look at them, that way. I should have done that with 18.2 XCFE. Not sure why I didn't. I even installed a copy of the Beta 18.2 Cinnamon that way to be aware of the changes.

As for the difficulty moving the panel to the top that I mention in an earlier post. Well I feel dumb. I had turned off "Lock Panel" and couldn't move it. I just figured it was broke or it wasn't allowed. Turns out that you have to grab the panel in a specific spot, the far left, then move it anywhere. Doh!

Doesn't matter to me at this point since I really like the basic XFCE look that I have now. But if it disappears in future upgrades, like 19.0, I'll at least know what to do to get it close.

IMHO, if someone really wants to commit to the XFCE environment then they should seriously consider Linux Lite. They seem as committed to XFCE as Linux Mint is to Cinnamon.

Personally, I prefer Cinnamon for my daily machine. It is also very easy for novice Linux users, like my wife, and easy for me to maintain. I will also stick with Linux Mint since I want all my machines on a single distro. When my main has new updates, I try them out then go update all the others. I will do XFCE on single cpu, low memory "utility" machines to squeeze more out of them.

[LienRag]

I installed a computer with Xenial Xerus, then installed both edubuntu-desktop, xfce4 and xfce-desktop, which resulted in so many troubles that I had to reinstall the OS.
As I had a Mint ISO and no working Ubuntu ISO, I installed Mint Serena XFCE 32 bits (my mistake, but since the computer has 4 Go of RAM, non-extensible, it's not a problem).
I did keep the /home partition intact, which had 3 users on it.

When trying the installed mint, the main user (which is in the sudo group) had XFCE as I know it, but the other users (and the one I created after that) had Cinnamon (or maybe, as I discovered in this topic, XFCE with a Cinnamon feel : Whisker menu and such things - I don't have access to this computer now, so I can't check).
Actually, it had so much of the Cinnamon feel (though the background images where fetched from the xfce-backdrop folder) that it sometimes freezed...

I read this here:

If you installed 18.2 XFCE over Cinnamon, but you kept your old /home then that would explain why Cinnamon is holding on.

is a similar explanation applicable to my situation?
But why on 4 users but not on the main user?

I do love the graphical appearance of Cinnamon, actually (including the Whisker menu) but it's a resource hog and I need something light - what would be the resource consumption of a Cinnamon-looking XFCE (if that's really what's installed on this computer)?

[sbroccolo]

is a similar explanation applicable to my situation?
But why on 4 users but not on the main user?

You may be having a similar, but reverse situation. Why only on the non-main users I am unsure.You may need to go through as each user and delete any config files as I described above. I do know that I have problems getting the different desktops to actually load. Sometime I have to logout and back in several times before it actually takes. I am still using MDM not LightDM so I don't know if the same problem occurs with LightDM.

Yes, Linux Mint XFCE with Whisker looks so much like Cinnamon it's hard to tell the difference.
To see which desktop environment that you are actually running, in a terminal do:
echo $DESKTOP_SESSION

On my Lenovo M78 desktop, the Cinnamon DE uses around 850mb and the XFCE DE uses around 450MB. On other machines I've seen that as low as 380mb.
There are several tools that you can get from the Synaptic Package Manager to check resource usage. Some may already be on your system.

Htop - very light and simple, the default is memory percentage used but you can change it to show memory as a number.

hardinfo - Probably the most comprehensive tool to display everything that is going on with your system and includes several benchmark apps. It will also tell you the DE and its version. For some reason it shows up on your application menu as System Profiler.

gtkperf - Does a benchmark on the gtk GUI interface. I like this, as the speed of the GUI is what we actually see and therefore most users often base their judgment on "how fast" a system is. Running this on the two DEs on my Lenovo showed a significant improvement in all areas on XFCE except drawing circles.

I've already stated why I will stick with Linux Mint, but there are distros that use less resources than Linux Mint. If you have a very old machine, say one that came with XP or Vista and only have a Pentium or the first Duo Core from Intel, have 512mb-1gb memory, there are a few better choices. IMHO. Just looking at the ones that can be installed to the hard drive, are fairly intuitive to install and configure, and have a decent repository of available applications are (from largest to smallest) Linux Lite, LXLE, and Vector Linux. Vector uses around 200mb, but it is Slackware so if you are used to the Ubuntu derivatives it will take some getting used to.
Some will yell that since LXLE is just a derivative of Lubuntu that Lubuntu is a better choice. I didn't like the Lubuntu install, why it doesn't use Ubiquity, beats me. It was also very glitchy on the machines I tried it on.
So that's my two cents on the subject. May only be worth that.