LMDE XFCE questions

[pappfer]

Hi!

I'm just switching from LMDE Gnome to LMDE Xfce because I don't want to have Gnome 3 in the future.
I never used XFCE before. In Synaptic I found two Mint softwares for Xfce which are not installed as default. They are mintconfig-xfce and mintdesktop-xfce.
How come that even though they are Mint softwares, they are not installed by default? Is it because they are old softwares and since then Xfce has the same features built in?

Also does Xubuntu have any advantages over LMDE Xfce? I know that it's Ubuntu based so it has a different software centre and message-indicator, but does it give any useful plus to use that? Is it more heavy they are both ~equally lightweight? I prefer LMDE because of the rolling nature and I'm a satisfied Mint user for years now.

In the future are the LMDE Xfce update packs coming at the same time as the Gnome ones? AFAIK the update pack 4 is not released because the team is waiting for Gnome 3.2 to be available in Debian testing. But it doesn't affect Xfce users so we could get an update sooner, couldn't we? Or is it because of that it's easier to maintain to release it at the same time? (I guess there's no other possibilities while they're using the same repositories)

[rjs]

Hi!

I'm just switching from LMDE Gnome to LMDE Xfce because I don't want to have Gnome 3 in the future.
I never used XFCE before. In Synaptic I found two Mint softwares for Xfce which are not installed as default. They are mintconfig-xfce and mintdesktop-xfce. How come that even though they are Mint softwares, they are not installed by default? Is it because they are old softwares and since then Xfce has the same features built in?

You can do a sudo apt-get install xfc4 from a term and it will install it. However, my recommendation would be to download the xfce ver of LMDE and start from there. No need to have all the gnome packages on the machine if you aren't going to use gnome. While you can install xfce4 on the gnome box, it may or may not be a completely clean install. Thus the recommendation to use the xfce LMDE for getting started in that direction. Keeps it simple and doesn't take all that long.

Also does Xubuntu have any advantages over LMDE Xfce? I know that it's Ubuntu based so it has a different software centre and message-indicator, but does it give any useful plus to use that? Is it more heavy they are both ~equally lightweight? I prefer LMDE because of the rolling nature and I'm a satisfied Mint user for years now.

I used Xubuntu for a bit. Just to try it out being Unity was out of the question. Xubuntu is okay, but not quite what I wanted. It's quite a bit slower for one, and the overall look didn't appeal. Xubuntu doesn't really have any advantages over LMDE XFCE in my opinion. They are "not" equally lightweight and LMDE XFCE is quite a bit snappier than Xubuntu.

In the future are the LMDE Xfce update packs coming at the same time as the Gnome ones? AFAIK the update pack 4 is not released because the team is waiting for Gnome 3.2 to be available in Debian testing. But it doesn't affect Xfce users so we could get an update sooner, couldn't we? Or is it because of that it's easier to maintain to release it at the same time? (I guess there's no other possibilities while they're using the same repositories)

Releases of service packs are based on "when they are ready". Recommend LMDE XFCE and love it here. If you want the mint-menu, it too can be installed on XFCE LMDE and its' quite nice as well.

[pappfer]

Yes, I installed LMDE XFCE and I love it so far.
I also tried Mint Menu on it but not everything was working (for example monitor and display options), so I switched back to it's original Xfce menu.

About the updates I was wondering what happens if the Xfce updates are stable and as you said "ready" but there are some problems with Gnome. I guess it makes no difference we - as Xfce users - also have to wait for Gnome fixes to get the new update packs. Which is of course not good for us, but yeah, I can understand it.

[rjs]

Yes, I installed LMDE XFCE and I love it so far.
I also tried Mint Menu on it but not everything was working (for example monitor and display options), so I switched back to it's original Xfce menu.

Super.. Yes, it is very nice. Glad you have it working for you.

About the updates I was wondering what happens if the Xfce updates are stable and as you said "ready" but there are some problems with Gnome. I guess it makes no difference we - as Xfce users - also have to wait for Gnome fixes to get the new update packs. Which is of course not good for us, but yeah, I can understand it.

Not quite sure if I follow, but for example Debian stable (http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/) squeeze had not updated to XFCE4.8. It is still in the 4.6.X release. To judge "stable" in just text terms is to compare to Debian stable to Linux Mint which doesn't use Debian's stable branch.

In real life terms Debian testing (unstable) is still pretty much stable. But of course it's not considered a no bug venture.

In terms of bugs with XFCE itself, it's maintainer puts out the fixes for it and releases it. However, you won't see the same type situation most likely with XFCE as you did with Gnome 2.X. Gnome's latest 2.X is not supported by Gnome anymore as Gnome 3.X is the supported release. The last gnome release in the 2.X or 2.3.2 was considered the last 2.X gnome.

XFCE4 is supported and bug fixing is provided by the XFCE devs. I've used XFCE for years on Linux. It may have a bug or two, but I wouldn't be all that concerned with comparing XFCE to Gnome in terms of updates and bug issues. Two different creatures.

[pappfer]

Sorry, English is not my native language maybe that is why the misunderstanding.

What I was meant to say is that Mint team handles LMDE Xfce and Gnome together considering the update pack. In other words they are not releasing separate update packs for each. This means that even there are updates for the Xfce version they're not going to be released until the Gnome version updates not confirmed stable enough. I hope this makes sense.

Btw I finally replaced Xfce menu with MintMenu again, I just got used to it so much I "can't live" without it. I hope Mint team is going to fix the MintMenu bugs in Xfce (what I mentioned above).

[wyrdoak]

I've been tracking Debian Testing until the update packets restart. The few Gnome apps' that are in the system update to Gnome 3, but really the only bug I can see is that, the themes not taking in those apps', kinda goes back to the Win95 looking but just in those apps'. I did find one that seems to work still for all, atolm-gk3 I got from Xfce-look.org. Might have a few more problems if your running a Nvidia card, but haven't have too many problems with the Intel chipset.

mintdesktop-xfce helped with a few visual effects and some with Compiz if you want it.

BTW: testing is using XFCE4.8 right now.

[rjs]

Yes, I installed LMDE XFCE and I love it so far.
I also tried Mint Menu on it but not everything was working (for example monitor and display options), so I switched back to it's original Xfce menu.

As far as I'm aware, monitor(Display), appearance, and control panel items are the only ones not working from the mint menu. You can access this via the control center, click "Display" or "Appearance", and set it from there. Certainly not enough reason, for me anyhow, to not use mint-menu on xfce debian. I really like mint-menu and create my own front menu favorite links.

[gavinhc]

You can do a sudo apt-get install xfc4 from a term and it will install it.

If you want the Mintified xfce install, from a LMDE Gnome install you can use

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install mint-meta-xfce

which will install all the required packages from the Debian repos, plus all the Mint-specific themes and such for the xfce install.

[pappfer]

As far as I'm aware, monitor(Display), appearance, and control panel items are the only ones not working from the mint menu. You can access this via the control center, click "Display" or "Appearance", and set it from there. Certainly not enough reason, for me anyhow, to not use mint-menu on xfce debian. I really like mint-menu and create my own front menu favorite links.

Unfortunately there's lot more menu items which doesn't work and there are many apps which are not listed.
It's obvious that it's been designed to use with Gnome, but - as Gnome 2.x is not supported in the future - I hope Mint team is going to concentrate to fix all the bugs for Xfce in the future.

Anyway as I mentioned above I'm still using MintMenu despite of these bugs.