Whats happened to XFCE

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Tosh
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Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Tosh »

Back just over 10 years my first taste of Linux was with Xubuntu. But the laptop could not cope with my need to dual boot (only had a 20gb HD and still needed XP) so that experiment soon ended. My next attempt was with Mint (probably Maya Cinnamon but not sure now) on a different laptop which worked fine but could not get it to print so gave up again.

When I started doing some serious research earlier this year to find the best Distro for my Toshiba laptop I tried many but when I tried Mint 20.3 XFCE it seemed terribly laggy (surprising since its supposedly for older machines), used more RAM than Mate when I tested that and lacked many features I would miss. Eventually settled on Mint Mate and installed Vanessa as soon as it was released late July and its everything I need. It never feels laggy and has all the features that make it a perfect Windows replacement.

Been looking for the best Distro for the neighbour. Mint Mate is obvious but decided to try some others just in case they are more suited. In a moment of madness I downloaded Vera XFCE onto a stick and tried it, seemed fine so took the plunge and installed it on a 13 year old 250 gb HD. Obviously it takes longer than Mate on a SSD to boot but once its running its just as snappy as Mate (even when using the HD as an external USB drive). The RAM use is now slightly less than Mate (every little helps). But the real surprise has been the fact that some missing features that made it feel old are now there. In my brief use it seems to be just as good as a daily driver as Mate.

If it had worked like this earlier this year I would probably have never tried Mate so what has changed with XFCE?
Last edited by LockBot on Sun Jul 30, 2023 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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kc1di
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by kc1di »

Linux is an always changing landscape. Mint XFCE has gotten better over the years at the expense of slightly higher ram usage. But there is now little difference in the differing desktops. Mate or XFCE are very compatible in speed and resource management. There is a resource jump if you go to Cinnamon. But In my opinion XFCE and MATE are about equal and the difference will be user preference. XFCE just release version 4.18 and it's nice. But not available in Mint yet.

As to what changed in Mint from one version to the next I'm not sure as far as XFCE is concerned as I did not experience the slowness you talked about. So it may be your Hardware and how Mint interacts with it. Anyway Enjoy the progress :)
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thom_A
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by thom_A »

I have tried and installed many distros in the past and eventually settled for Xfce, Ubuntu-based versions. I'm not a young person, so my tinkering days are over. All these disros are, in the end, just operating systems to run browsers, office programs, dabble with graphics apps, manage files, etc. In other words, those are where 90% of my focus have been -- applications. I mean if I'm asked about something mildly technical about Linux, I wouldn't know the answer.

In case Mint developers decides to scrap Xfce, just like they did KDE, I'd most likely move on with Xubuntu or Linux Lite, which shot up to #9 on Distrowatch list of mostly used distros. Not that I care about that, but I have tried both of them in the past and they're palatable as far as my preferences are concerned.

My relatively newest PC is a 2nd gen dual core with 4Gb RAM. It's a used, refurbished PC, which I bought five years ago for $190 something. It still runs smoothly and can run most of the applications I use, with some patience on others. Like many people, I've had old/very old laptops, PCs, which I stopped wasting time with.

But I think Linux is still known for resurrecting very old PCs. Many developers are still into that. I think it's what makes them happy, being able to run ancient computers. Linux Lite for example still have crude graphics and can't seem to go on improving it precisely because the developers worry about alienating users with older PCs, in my opinion.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by ajgreeny »

I'm with thom_A, and I'm a fairly elderly Linux user who started back in 2004 looking at various distros until I originally stumbled on Ubuntu 5.04 with the gnome 2 DE which I loved. When Ubuntu started using Unity as the DE I moved to Kubuntu, didn't like it much, so then tried Xubuntu and have stayed with it ever since, along with many other Xfce distros, eg Mint (of course), Arcolinux which I also like, and many others too numerous to remember, though all using Xfce.

It has become better and better with the versions, now up to 4.18 which I use on the development version of Xubuntu 23.04, which so far is working brilliantly so the version of Mint Xfce based on the next LTS of Xubuntu will, I'm sure, also be excellent.

I have seen the gradual increase of resource usage by the later versions mentioned above, mostly RAM which is higher now that a few years ago, but by no means is it slower now that it used to be and unless something totally unexpected happens to it, I can see no good reason to move away from Xfce; it simply suits my way of doing things and is perhaps, like me, a little bit old-fashioned.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Tosh »

thom_A wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 4:20 pm In case Mint developers decides to scrap Xfce, just like they did KDE, I'd most likely move on with Xubuntu or Linux Lite, which shot up to #9 on Distrowatch list of mostly used distros. Not that I care about that, but I have tried both of them in the past and they're palatable as far as my preferences are concerned.

My relatively newest PC is a 2nd gen dual core with 4Gb RAM. It's a used, refurbished PC, which I bought five years ago for $190 something. It still runs smoothly and can run most of the applications I use, with some patience on others. Like many people, I've had old/very old laptops, PCs, which I stopped wasting time with.
Having thought about it I am not 100% sure I tried Mint XFCE earlier this year. I did try Xubuntu 22.04 which I did not enjoy and like Ubuntu Mate gave me warnings on start up about issues which the Ubuntu Forum never even replied about. So in truth I think its fair to say that Mint has improved XFCE beyond what Xubuntu offers making it much better (just like Mint Mate which never has any start up warnings).

If Mint did scrap XFCE and Mate not sure where I would go. Cinnamon was not great on this machine at all, its dates back to 2011 and has a 2nd gen Core processor and has been updated to 8gb ram and a 500 gb SSD. Originally I paid about £300 in 2012 as a run out model so I think its been good value.

The other Distros I tried that seemed to worked best were Q4OS KDE and Bodhi but I was concerned about the simple fact both run with a team of 3 part time staff and it appears that in the past such distros can quickly disappear. Fedora 36 KDE also worked very well but I never got as far as updating from one version to the next and doing that every 6 months was something I wanted to avoid.

One thing I have to say is on my RasPi 400 I now use Ubuntu Mate 22.04.1. I bought the Pi400 as a desktop substitute but I did not really did not like Raspberry Pi OS. After a while I read that you could install Ubuntu but it was the Gnome version and whilst it was better in many respects it was very laggy so I went back to Raspberry Pi OS, this time the newer version which I have to say was much improved. Around Christmas I spotted that Ubuntu Mate 22.04.1 was available for the Pi400 so I downloaded it and I have to say its made the Pi400 the machine I want it to be. So it may be worth trying that in the laptop but I think I have learned that waiting for the .1 version is the best idea.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Hoser Rob »

I think Xfce has become bloated too, it hasn't been lighter than Mate for some time now. Believe it or not, my MX KDE uses almost exactly the same amount or RAM when first booted as Xfce does. KDE is the most powerful Linux desktop I've ever used bar none, and Xfce looks and feels like something from 1993, because it sort of is.
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stevengarland
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by stevengarland »

I am running XFCE 4.18 with Mint 21.1

System:
Kernel: 5.15.0-58-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.18.0
tk: Gtk 3.24.33 wm: xfwm dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21.1 Vera base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Keep It Simple Sweetheart
Tosh
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Tosh »

Hoser Rob wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:32 am I think Xfce has become bloated too, it hasn't been lighter than Mate for some time now. Believe it or not, my MX KDE uses almost exactly the same amount or RAM when first booted as Xfce does. KDE is the most powerful Linux desktop I've ever used bar none, and Xfce looks and feels like something from 1993, because it sort of is.
But in truth its not all about ram use, I have 8gb which should run Cinnamon or even Gnome in Ubuntu and Fedora (despite the bad press it gets the laptop ran Wind 10 perfectly as well despite using 4x as much ram). Problem was with those distros the laptop felt like a car that was out of tune, plenty of spare power but performing badly. With Mate and now XFCE the laptop feels well tuned and its performing perfectly.
thom_A
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by thom_A »

Users with very old PCs will never run out of Linux distros to choose from. Like I mentioned, many developers will probably be in this category for many years to come. It's what makes them happy and it gives them feeling of self-importance and accomplishment.

I would just rather see them focus on moving forward and compete with commercial OSes so we can all be free of them and eliminate once and for all dual-booting.

https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=11743

Me, I have long gone past the stage where I have to continually monitor my PC's resources, like CPU, memory usage, etc. I used to even install and apply software that claim to magically make efficient use of your machine's resources. I would just save some money and buy a refurbished one if I needed more power.
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MiZoG
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by MiZoG »

It's true KDE and Xfce use almost the same memory OOB these days. Xfce still is much lighter on cpu and, under certain circumstances, on older Intel integrated graphics. Vanilla Xfce, quite ugly and less configurable than KDE, is nonetheless quite customizable and, that shouldn't surprise anyone, much more stable/predictable than KDE. That's the reason why you have so many popular distros come with Xfce as default.
They can turn the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan and have a dependable system all the same.
Mate on the other hand is not having the resources anymore to compete with any other actively developed DE.
Hoser Rob
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Hoser Rob »

Tosh wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:51 am
Hoser Rob wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 10:32 am I think Xfce has become bloated too, it hasn't been lighter than Mate for some time now. Believe it or not, my MX KDE uses almost exactly the same amount or RAM when first booted as Xfce does. KDE is the most powerful Linux desktop I've ever used bar none, and Xfce looks and feels like something from 1993, because it sort of is.
But in truth its not all about ram use, I have 8gb which should run Cinnamon or even Gnome in Ubuntu and Fedora (despite the bad press it gets the laptop ran Wind 10 perfectly as well despite using 4x as much ram). Problem was with those distros the laptop felt like a car that was out of tune, plenty of spare power but performing badly. With Mate and now XFCE the laptop feels well tuned and its performing perfectly.
My main laptop running MX KDE also has 8Gb. Well, more like 7.3 or something because I allocated 512Mb to video RAM in the BIOS (I highly recommend that with Intel video). It also runs utterly smoothly, as good as Xfce, which I also tested on that box.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
thom_A
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by thom_A »

I used to be a KDE guy. I went back to Kubuntu when Mint KDE was scrapped. Unfortunately, things that used to work no longer work for me. Couldn't even get it past the installation stage. Learned that others were experiencing the same issues. Developers were hard at work and bugs were getting fixed... Skipping 2 variants later, I finally got it installed, but steps I used to make post installation, no longer work. Simple things like moving icons around on the panel got complicated, in my estimation.

Over time preferences change. Stayed with Cinnamon but it wasn't playing well with my NVIDIA cards. I never liked MATE, so I focused on Xfce and I thought it's all I ever needed, didn't need the extra features other DE's have other than launch apps, add one-click icons on panel, etc. Then you discover nifty things you never thought were available.

One thing that other DE's I've found lacking is Xfce's Action Buttons where I'm able to Shutdown, Restart, Suspend in ONE-CLICK without any extra confirmation. (Not important to others, I know, but every one has his/her own unique tastes...)

I just have to say that of all the Xfce editions, Linux Mint is the most polished. You could tell it's maintained by serious developers.
Tosh
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Tosh »

thom_A wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 3:24 pm I just have to say that of all the Xfce editions, Linux Mint is the most polished. You could tell it's maintained by serious developers.
Totally agree with that. If I had tried Mint XFCE before settling on Mate in August it would be on my laptop now. Other XFCE distributions were total non starters for me, some would not print, others used loads of RAM, most had missing features, I could go on.

When I upgrade my Mate 21 install (probably when 23.1 is released) if a test of XFCE 23.1 works as well as 21.1 it will be my daily driver.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by rick gen »

Been trying out other Xfce editions in case Mint team decides to stop supporting it, just like others' concern.

The installation with MX Xfce was a bit confusing, but I finally got past the partitioning part and was able to install it for a clear examination.
I thought it was okay and started to find my way into doing the exact same things I do with Mint Xfce after installation.
For a user with visual issues, the showstopper for me was the zooming in and out function. I don't know why they disabled it.
In Mint I would just press the Windows button on the keyboard and scroll the mouse wheel.

MX is number one in the Distrowatch list of most popular distros, yet Googling about the issue produced only one hit, which didn't solve the problem.
Seemed strange for a most popular distro producing very little support.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Dullard du Jour »

Well, being an old man I just do not have the need for the "most powerful desktop environment" there is. Technology wise I also have a very, very current motherboard and CPU with 16 gig of memory and, I do not care how bloated some DE is because I am already fat, dumb and happy with Mint Vera and XFCE. :lol:

Just how powerful does a DE need to be? Just what are the attributes of that most powerful DE? The ability for 300 modification tweaks, is that what makes it more powerful?

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 6.0.0-1010-oem x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.23
    wm: xfwm dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy

Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASRock product: H670M Pro RS v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: ASRock model: H670M Pro RS serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC.
    v: 10.06 date: 11/22/2022

CPU:
  Info: 12-core (8-mt/4-st) model: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700 bits: 64 type: MST AMCP
    arch: Alder Lake rev: 2 cache: L1: 1024 KiB L2: 12 MiB L3: 25 MiB
You have the right to go through life unoffended. Children under the age of 13 get a pass on this...others do not.
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About me and my Mint computer components
Linux Mint 21.3 - Virginia - XFCE 4.18.1 - 5.15.0-97-generic
bin
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by bin »

rick gen wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 3:42 pm Been trying out other Xfce editions in case Mint team decides to stop supporting it, just like others' concern.

The installation with MX Xfce was a bit confusing, but I finally got past the partitioning part and was able to install it for a clear examination.
I thought it was okay and started to find my way into doing the exact same things I do with Mint Xfce after installation.
For a user with visual issues, the showstopper for me was the zooming in and out function. I don't know why they disabled it.
In Mint I would just press the Windows button on the keyboard and scroll the mouse wheel.

MX is number one in the Distrowatch list of most popular distros, yet Googling about the issue produced only one hit, which didn't solve the problem.
Seemed strange for a most popular distro producing very little support.
The MX parttion tool is a bit confusing first time round isn't it...
Not every keyboard has a Windows Key. By default the desktop zoom function in XFCE is bound to Alt + scroll wheel. Provided the XFCE Compositor is switched on - even with just basics enabled - then this works. So in this case Mint has overridden the standard method. It is worth noting that MX does use a modified set of keyboard shortcuts - though this does not affect the Alt + scroll zoom. I reset those to default as I like my keys to be consistent over different distros.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by rick gen »

bin wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 2:53 amProvided the XFCE Compositor is switched on - even with just basics enabled - then this works.
Compositor is on by default. Turning if off also didn't work. Sorry, I'm not familiar with this. I have never tinkered with this compositor thing.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by bin »

rick gen wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 11:13 am
bin wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 2:53 amProvided the XFCE Compositor is switched on - even with just basics enabled - then this works.
Compositor is on by default. Turning if off also didn't work. Sorry, I'm not familiar with this. I have never tinkered with this compositor thing.
Well, if that's the case then Alt+Scroll wheel will work for desktop zooming in MX. (off definitely stops it...)
How exactly have you been testing MX? Different computer? Virtual Machine?
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by Artim »

In Mint Xfce it's Ctrl / wheel rather than Alt / wheel. It's not "disabled" in Mint.
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Re: Whats happened to XFCE

Post by rick gen »

bin wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 3:05 amWell, if that's the case then Alt+Scroll wheel will work for desktop zooming in MX. (off definitely stops it...)
How exactly have you been testing MX? Different computer? Virtual Machine?
I don't test any OS on virtual machines. My PC has decent spec (not current) with fairly large hard disk. One terrabyte to be exact. So there's enough space to multi-boot 5 OSes max. Been doing it for years.
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