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GNU XFce 3.2.0 Desktop Now Available
merc writes "XFce (GNU's lightweight desktop environment based on GTK+) 3.2.0 was just released. Having never used XFce before I was wondering if anyone has used it -- and if anyone would recommend switching from KDE?
Snapshots and RPMs are available from the XFce website."
It definetely doesn't have nearly half the features of either GNOME or KDE, but it is a pretty decent compromise between twm and and the other DE's. It seemed pretty snappy on my p166, and is pretty easy to use. Also sort of resembles CDE, however it doesn't really have a 'real' desktop.
But then since my computer is currently running a graphic card from a tiny company without linux drivers for their chip, I get to see everything in 16 color 640x480 so it doesn't really matter till I replace the card.
Very lightweight...good CDE clone if you like that sort of thing ( I do ). Runs great. He should drop the GNU thing in front though.
I've played with it a bit; if you have used a CDE desktop, HP workstation, or QNX (photon) it will feel very familiar.
--------- Webmaster, http://www.cpureview.com and
If you've used CDE before then you'll die for this. I have it running on the linux dev boxes in our lab and training room because most of the people at the office who have even seen a *nix, have used CDE and since it's what runs on our HPUX,AIX and sparcs, it's a nice way to keep em comfy so I don't have to explain another WM to them ;)
"We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
the site seems a tad slashdotted. are there mirrors?
I've used it back in the 2.0 tree and a bit in the 3.0 tree, and it's generally pretty nice.
It is very similar to CDE with enough things done differently to throw you off a little bit when you first start, but not enough things to make the transition from CDE to Xfce bad or annoying or anything like that.
I'm not so sure that it lives up to its billing as light weight but then again my machine isn't the beefiest in the world, and there are plenty of things that are slower than it. For example, next to, say, enlightenment, it is very light weight but it's not necessarily all that light compared to maybe afterstep or fvwm2 or some of the more graphically simple window managers. (Which are only graphically more simple in comparison to enlightenment)
It's all around definately worth using though, especially for corporate users who are very much used to the standard stock CDE that comes with so many commericial UNIXen - and it's based off of GTK+ which is a plus as far as I'm concerned.
It's not the end all be all, but it's fairly stable, decent looking, not overly memory hungry, looks familiar (and looks good, if you like the look of CDE) - I wouldn't say that it introduces anything radically new into the idea of window managers, but it's definately worth a look and maybe worth using depending on what you want out of a windowmanager.
There are so many people who want so many different things out of window managers that it's hard to say "This is the best" because they seem to have different domains in my mind. For example, I really like enlightenment/gnome combo, but when I'm coding or doing something where I really don't want to be "visually distracted" then I really don't dig enlightenment. Sure it's arguable that you can set up any window manager to look however you want it to, but I really don't spend all that much time hacking into the deepest darkest corners of window managers - and in that respect, I think xfce is good because it works quite nicely right out of the rpm so to speak.
Just my $0.02.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I use it on and off when I want that "professional" CDE feel. It is very much like the CDE, but also pretty quick and light. You also get the benefit of GTK themes, if you're into that sort of thing. The default configuration and icons, however, reveal how old-school the primary developer is. It's interesting to see someone who still considers xclock and xcalc to be among their most important applications. . . The default icons are mostly very simple 8-bit .xpms, but you can replace them trivially (the panel is very easy to configure). Its xftree file manager doesn't come up automatically in the default config, but it's really pretty good as well, considering that it's not meant to be the same sort of thing as a gmc or kfm. If you think that KDE and GNOME's taskbars are too "windows-like", the XFCE panel might be more your thing. I use 3.1.2 and the stability and speed are very good. --JRZ
*DE's are useless...although KDE 2.0 looks pretty fly. I'll stick with WindowMaker thanks! Fast, easy, simple, still feels unixy. "windows hasn't made computer literacy easier, its just lowered the standard."
Hi, I believe it is only fair that we call it GNU/XFCE because it is based largely on GNU's work such as GTK+, GDK, GNU/Linux, etc.
If you work with people who are unix operators as opposed to unix hackers, they may be much more comfortable with a look and feel that they already are comfortable with.
(how many of us had to hand-hold users through a DOS -> Win 3.0 migration? , then Win 3.1 -> Win 95 migration? Or wp5.1 DOS/lotus 123 -> any-windows-office-suite)
Is this flashback relavent? Yes, CDE/motif was designed to be visually competetive with Windows 3.1 and much to UNIX and CDE's testament, it has lived on far longer than Windows 3.1.
I don't personally use CDE, but I expect it to be available on all (non-linux) boxes. Maybe CDE sucks, but at least I know exactly how it sucks and I can count on it to continue to suck in exactly the same ways on each major UNIX. It's a STANDARD.
anyway, It's fast, GNOME-aware, and familiar. If you work in a big Solaris shop, your users will probably require less retraining with XFCE than kde or GNOME (even though they're much cooler)
I hope the distros realize this, and include XFCE as a default WM for "LEGACY" unix operators.
Choice is a great thing!
I do think XFCE needs a beter name, though. Maybe GNU CDE or GDE?
Hey, after reading this article I downloaded it (had to use a mirror because /. was slowing it down ;-) I compiled it and I now have it running. It is a lot like CDE, unfortunately that part I don't care for. But I actually like this better. It is quick. And now I'm going to go look at how to configure it. I've been using just fvwm2 with gnome panel running. Now I have gnome panel running with this. I don't care for enlightenment since it seems to slow my machine down. I used Afterstep for a while, but nothing seemed to beat fvwm in speed. Which is what I need.
So, I like this. If you like the fast window manager, and don't really care about the extras, I recommend this. (you must realize my experience with this is about 2 minutes)
Anyway it is GPL so it may work nicely with other gnome apps. And maybe KDE as well, since the two seem to be kissing and making up.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Just wondering, but why submit to Slashdot an announcment of a new version of something they've never used before?
Also you can goto http://www.baysurf.net/linux/xfce/ but it seems slower.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
XFCE does exacty what its says. Light, clean, bloatless. I've noticed Netscape running snappier with it.
jackchaos.com - The Freak of Geeks
-Oy Vey
The GNU prefix on every GNU/damn product is a silly GNU/rms ego thing.
I am annoyed that the guy that says an
advertising clause is evil, turns around and bashes people because they are not "advertising" GNU in Linux or other product names.
And to be fair, you should call Linux "Linux", as that's what the guy that first put it together called it.
I find it amusing that the name resembles XFeces. This might not be a good idea as it will influence people's predisposition to try the GUI.
1) What's up with the rather prejudicial software plugs? Nothing against XFCE or anything (as you'll see), but I noticed a strong bias in the past towards mikmod and x11amp/xmms when there are/were other good software in the GPL arena that do the same things (xmp and gqmpeg being the top two respective examples, IMO).
2) XFCE rocks. I like its simplicity and yet complexity of design. It does what I want it to do, and it has CDE's small footprint. It is not supposed to have the features of GNOME and KDE if it is a CDE alternative, but mind you, there are utilities in Linux you can compile and install, which XFCE will call on if you want. I would not recommend switching from KDE to XFCE if you like a ton of functionality. KDE simply has more features.
3) I do believe that people who use CDE can use this. My mother actually settled on XFCE when I tried to sell her on the idea of Linux on her machine, instead of KDE/kwm, windowmaker, E/GNOME, etc. And if my mudda likes it, you bettah like it!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
CDE is far better than XFce will ever be.
Does XFce allow me to consolidate thousands of computers all over the world, running on hundreds of different platforms, all onto the same desktop? Does it bring the whole network to my fingertips? Does it have a clean, professional look and feel? Does it use the industry standard Motif toolkit? How about multimedia drag and drop/cut and paste? A complete help system? Complete utilities like a text editor, calendar, mail program? (that all integrate with others' on the network to allow for enhanced collaboration) SESSION MANAGEMENT??? The list goes on and on...
Come on, people. CDE is a truly excellent desktop. IMO it's the best desktop/GUI ever. Linux people just resent it because it's closed source and so expensive. But I think it's well worth the money. (Granted, older versions of CDE are not as great, but have you checked out CDE 2.1?)
CDE is a testament to the fact that there really is genius in the world of software design. It is a continuation of my personal experience with UNIX, where I'll be reading documentation, and every time I think "Well, this is nice, but it really should do this also..." the thing I was thinking of turns out to be on the next page. It's like that throughout UNIX. It's like that with CDE.
KDE, GNOME, and XFce just can't do for me what CDE can.
Another Gnome compettitor. I've never used it but I like the smaller size (sawmill [E only no bloat] rules!) but I think I'm gonna be stickin with the short dude... meaning "The Gnome" meaning "Gnome" of course. *sigh*
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am.
If you like the Gnome environment, but think Enlightenment is slow or eats too much RAM, try Sawmill.
n dex.html
http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~john/sw/sawmill/i
It can give you the basic look and feel and is small footprint.
Yeah, those 1992 Cirrus 5201 VLB AVGA based video cards with 256K of memory are a real bitch. Especially with that 486sx-20 CPU overclocked to 25 Mhz. It takes a master hacker to get 1024x768 and 64K colors out of those puppies. But what the heck, we found them in a dumpster, so they can't be all bad. Keep it real, dude.
Are there any screenshots somewhere? I looked at the site, but it's down at the moment and those few pages I saw did not indicate that they have screenshots...
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You may like my a cappella music
I doubt most of us care about the fact that CDE is closed source and expensive. For most of the people here its probably the fact that its ugly.
Dunno what Solaris 7 (sparc) was using for its CDE version, but its ugly as hell, and OpenWindows isn't exactly pretty, either.
But hey, if you like it and it does what you want, then more power to you.
Can you tell me where to find one? I've tried many Microsoft products, but have yet to find anything resembling an OS. :)
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Linux was named Linux by the first Linux ftpmaster, because he refused to put it in a directory called Freax, because he thought the name sucked :-)
Of the things one could clone why the CDE? The CDE is ugly. The CDE is slow (although xfce is faster). The CDE is some of the ugliest source I've ever seen. The CDE is a poor, counterintuitive user interface even when compared to something like fvwm. A lot of other user interfaces (windows, MacOS) are pretty decent, but lack flexibility. The CDE also is not flexible, but has extra flaws in addition. Why the hell would someone want to clone the CDE of all things? At least the KDE and GNOME people tried to take the good points of every GUI and combine them. The CDE does the exact opposite, it takes the worst points of every GUI and combines them. I've never understood why people use CDE, and I can't understand why anyone would want to make a clone of it. I mean with xfce they solved the speed problem, but since it's not heavily tied to motif, like CDE is, and since the CDE libraries aren't available, you don't even get access to CDE apps, you just clone what is perhaps the worst UI still actively maintained.
My personal favorite WM is IceWM. I've used it for years. I keep trying new versions of KDE and Enlightenment and I always keep going back to IceWM. It's very lightweight, fast, and does everything I need in an intuitive way.
You may be wondering, "How good is CDE really? Is this expensive, old, committee-designed Unix 'standard' really that much better than the Gnome & KDE environments I use daily? Should I shell out cash for one of the Linux CDE sellers?"
No, it isn't, and no you shouldn't, unless you want a panel that is more limited and harder to configure, a widget set which is nasty to use and 10 times nastier to program in, a limited utility set (which is admittedly on par with Gnome's selection I've seen, but not up to KDE's), a hideous looking window manager, and a nearly useless file manager. The text editor is OK for people used to Notepad, I guess.
I could see where some people might prefer some of the stylistic decisions behind CDE's interface, (hence XFce, in large part), but nobody could possibly honestly mistake it for "genius" or even "worth the effort that got wasted to make it a Unix standard".
I'm certainly no marketing genius, but does anyone else think the name could use a powder? How would average Joe pronounce XFce?
Not trying to rain on anyone's parade or anything, but might help the cause to change the name.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Personally I have been quite disappointed with KDE and GNOME. They are just to clumsy and bloated to be top quality desktop replacements for WinXX. Maybe in the near future they'll be viable but for now, XFce is the best there is.
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--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
I want source and I am done paying for software that comes without source code and a free license.
Its that whole freedom issue that too manny people ignore.
Look at KDE and GNOME... they are better because they are free. I would never use CDE even if it was the most pleasant looking desktop ever.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
I have used KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, Afterstep, Windowmaker, FVWM, TWM, etc... They're all fine if you like them. There was always something about the simplicity of CDE that I liked, with better wallpaper and icons, of course. Now I have it. I use it on my Linux boxes at work, and I use it on my Linux box at home. I REALLY liked Windowmaker and it's dockapps, but there is something that keeps pulling me towards XFCE. It's fast, crisp, and lean.
==============================
Windows NT has crashed,
I am the Blue Screen of Death,
it would be lovely if all the greatest technical works of mankind were widespread ... but guess what, when something costs hundreds or thousands of dollars it doesnt matter how 'good' it is , people are just not going to have the opportunity to use it or look at it. when are you techno elitists going to learn the lessons of the internet? the most expensive brilliant toy in the world means dick compared to 10,000,000 5$ toys hooked together.
I didn't find anything on the front page identifying it as being a part of the GNU project. I didn't even find a FSF or GNU link.
So why is this a part of GNU? Did XFce join GNU, or did GNU add them to their lists? Do the authors of XFce even know that they're GNU?
If it really is a part of GNU, then why? After all, GNU has Windowmaker and Gnome, with the possibility of an "official" Gnome WM real soon. Why another WM or DE?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Use it at work. Gnome was such a hog when trying to use vmware. With XFCE people don't know I'm using Linux, they think i'm running CDE and HP/UX.
CDE is just plain too old guys. My school comp labs used to "standardize" on CDE, but I guess even they figured out CDE is not going anywhere. It's pretty much old, shitty, and slow. A step above twm but not much.
After this summer, we have KDE installed on all the Sparcstations =). Everything looks so much nicer, even though the hardware is the same, it looks like they did a major upgrade to all the computers. Plus KDE comes installed with a shitload of applications and games. Now everyone has stopped using the NT machines so they can play games on the Sparcs. KDE has truly revolutionized the Unix desktop experience.
For those who say CDE is the only viable solution for running on "thousands of desktops".. well you obviously haven't tried KDE yet, have you?
Find and share links to celebrity profiles on MySpace! http://www.myspacecelebrities.com
hmmm...I don't think Microsoft's OS is that functional. And it ain't pretty either. I seem to see the same screen all the time..Blue background and white letters all over it. Something about a fatal exception error or something...How do I get my mouse to work anyway?..and while were on the subject, how can I get anything to work right? This blue and white screen is making me nauseous...
I really don't know why they're announcing it at /., since it's not new. Maybe I should announce the next version of my favourite software here? But I'm pretty sure that my post will be disregarded.
after all the bloated eye-candy of many other WMs, and the horrid, expensive, restrictive Qt licence issues (yes, they affect me) I decided to try XFCE.
I will not go back! Even though I liked the Corel Demo at Comdex (they use a modified version of KDE) I would still prefer to stay detached from all things Qt. My preference. The way Qt/KDE has fully embraced OO technology is refreshing, though.
As a personal thing, I support and use free software. As a Unix programmer, I prefer partitioned things over blobs. Massive, intertwined things like KDE and Gnome are pretty disappointing for me. I was always hoping someone would just release an object repository infrastructure for Linux -- but no, they want to take over the desktop. Sigh. The OO backend should be completely decoupled from the GUI.
XFCE has been a very satisfying experience for me. I like CDE a lot, and even though this doesn't do a lot of CDE things, it still looks great to me.
And the menus are TRIVIAL to update/configure! I installed all my favorite apps and utilities under them in minutes; it's just so simple.
One thing I'd like to see on the XFCE site (at some point) is an area for people's favorite menu setups.
EVERYTHING is faster under XFCE! It rocks.
although i haven't run benchmarks, XFCE certainly seems MUCH faster than any KDE I've used.
and you refer to this as "CDE". It's nothing like CDE, except in appearance.
Plus, the author is making ONE THING, and one thing well. A WM. Many people (like myself) are offended by the whole KDE/Qt binding, esp. the expensive and restrictive licences (as they affect pros).
I haven't seen anyone say "CDE is the only viable solution", but you seem to promote KDE as the only viable solution!
It definetely doesn't have nearly half the features of either GNOME or KDE...
You are confusing the window manager with the entire GUI environment. XFce is a window manager. While it does include a couple of extra "environmentish" tools like a launcher panel, its main purpose in life is to decorate and manage windows.
In contrast, GNOME and KDE are full GUI environments. They are not single programs. They are a collection of programs and shared libraries which use a common protocol for IPC. Both need a window manager. KDE provides one in the package; GNOME distro's generally ship with Enlightenment.
You could use XFce with GNOME or KDE if you wanted. Indeed, the GNOME people may want to "adopt" XFce as their window manager, as it seems to be pretty light-weight, and uses the same GTK toolkit the rest of GNOME does, while Enlightenment doesn't seem to quite "fit" with the rest of the GNOME stuff.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I've tried out XFCE a few times, and of all the window manager I've used, it is the fastest, most stable one out there. Unlike others which take a short while to Load (ie, KDE), this one is ready within seconds. It's not as customisable or as functional as KDE or Gnome, but with a bit of effort and tinkering, it is definitely the best window manager out there.
Politics killed CDE's performance. XFCE isn't ruled by politics. Infact, it complettely restructured to use Gtk instead of XForms. XFCE definately is not CDE but I personally think that is a *good* thing. If I wanted a non-commerical license to CDE I could just get a copy with Solaris for $10. It isn't a money issue. CDE just isn't what I want. As far as Motif goes, one of the major things I like about project Mozilla is there is finally work to release a version of Netscape that does *not* use Motif.
There is a GNOME module for XFce. It's right there on the front page. That makes it GNOME-aware for everyone that has to have it.
Off-topic, for GNOME there is also sawmill which uses gtk and has a VERY small footprint. Heck even enlightenment isn't that much of a hog anymore.
I have tried this long time ago, before the author switched to GTK. It was nice, CDE like stuff ...
...
I am quite sure that it is more usable now but this terrible heavy-dirty look of GTK toolbars is too much for me
I use XFCE right now and i like it. At school I use Solaris with CDE so the GUI feels familiar. Applications start with it and it is pretty small. It's handy to have buttons for switching desktops in the main panel, I use ten desktops and named them "Music", "Chat" "Code" "School" "Games" etc, and therebysorting things up pretty well. Then, of course, I have Licq as a "sticky window" :) XFCE is worth a try, try it :)
Only dead fish follow the stream
How is "Linux" pronounced, anyway?
If I wanted light weight, I'd go FVWM.
You'll never fool ppl who uses CDE with a look alike.
People who use CDE are those who stick yellow post-it on the computer monitor panel remind them how to do telnet, ftp, and email;
They are the same people who write down root pass word and put it in their wallets. They are the same people set window screen saver to be "Jesus Loves You" scrolling thru the screen.
They are the same people who send reply email to entire mailing list, and the same people replying the reply by saying "please remove me from this list".
Mark Twain : "You made the thing fool prove, and they'll find you a damn fool".
Okay, I might be a little bit stressed out.
--- You make things foolproof, and they'll find you a damn fool.
Looks like we took care of www.xfce.org ;-)
What de we need all these different, barely campatable if at all, desktop environments which are all based on a different set of base libraries when one could be facilitated in a more generalistic, protocol based approach? I have been thinking on such a thing a little bit (but right naw am a full time college student) and know that it would be possible to build, and would be much lighter than any of the other environments which are out there. Something to think about. jik-
Let's look at this from a valid linguistic point of view, OK?
It's "GNU Emacs", meaning, "Emacs, made by GNU".
It's not "GNU/Emacs", meaning "GNU, AKA Emacs" or "Emacs GNU (GNU, subclass `Emacs').
"GNU/gcc" is even worse. "gcc GNU"? "GNU, AKA gcc"? "GNU, subclass 'gcc'"?
"GNU GCC" would make more sense, but still not that much, because then we've got "GNU GNU Compiler Collection".
But, then again, there are lots of people who enter a "personal identification number number" at the "automated teller machine machine"....
"GNU/Linux" is either big-endian categorical naming, or it says "the combination of GNU+Linux". In either cause, it's about equivalent to the English `adjective+noun' form, "Linux GNU". Are we happy with "Linux GNU"?
Hm. What about "Microsoft Window" and "DEC Windows" ("Windows/MS" and "Windows/DEC", respecticely?)?
-rozzin.
you just said it correctly, though. Good job!
It really doesn't matter how you say it as long as you use it. Eventually, when all of your peers use linux, you'll have a hard time remembering way back when you weren't absolutely certain how to pronounce Linux or Linus Torvalds or XFCE (x-fece?:)
In all seriousness, if memory serves, the XF was from when this WM relied on the XForms toolkit
--
All the people at Micros~1 know how to pronounce "Linux" now... - Fear the penguin.
You can find a mirror of XFCE which is accessible
only in Australia/NZ (the cost of international
bandwidth - sigh).
XFCE's web site having been slashdotted is currently turned off..
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/xfce/
-jason
I have been trying linux's GUI's for the last three months. I wonder why the GUIs in linux look ugly when compared to win98 GUI. Is it because of the lack of good fonts and Widgets or what? There is something missing. Win98 looks more elegant and consistent. The icon box in E is just a laugh. It does not have any purpose at all. GNOME/E put duplicate menus everywhere. The fonts and widgets are very ugly compared to win98. Both KDE and GNOME use large buttons and icons every where. Is it difficult to draw smaller buttons and icons or what? I am not an artist but my instinct tells me that something is missing from these GUI's. They just don't look solid, elegent and consistent like win98.
I know this is off-subject, but Slashdot readers, will you please, please all learn to spell "definitely" correctly; repeat after me: D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y. Thank you. Now I can sleep more easily.
Adam:What kept you?
God:Rome wasn't built in a day
I've got a Pentium 100 with only 24 megs of RAM. Yes it's REALLY old but I'm pretty poor and am saving up until I get enough money for a REALLY good system. But until then this suits me just fine. Now for my current system, Gnome and KDE are just too memory hungry, and Enlightenment brings everything to a crawl.
So I had to choose between windowmaker, blackbox and icewm. I chose icewm because it had a smaller memory footprint than the others, had adequate theme support, and was gnome-aware (so I could easily set up gtk themes to match my icewm themes, for example).
I tried XFCE this evening, and it's great. I recognize the layout from all the old Unix machines in my lab, but I like the layout, it's simple, but easy to extend as much as I wish. Plus, it is gnome aware. Even though it has a slightly higher memory footprint than icewm, it runs noticeably faster.
The thing I like best of all though, is that I no longer need to configure two sets of themes - GTK and the Window Manager. XFCE does both together. Nice!
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Loban Amaan Rahman ==> Anagram of ==> Aha! An Abnormal Man!
Xfce is my favorite and Olivier Fourdan has been very responsive to suggestions from existing Xfce
users. Olivier is very friendly and really does a fantastic job trying to make Xfce the perfect window manager.
I recommend Xfce to everyone I talk with about linux, especially those individuals that don't have a really high powered system. It is as easy to configure and use as KDE.
There are times when I like to use KFM, so I added that in one of the terminal windows. A simple click and I have my personalized desktop icons and folders, another click and I am back to running just the XFCE toolbar.
Before you make any judgements, install XFCE and try it.
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
#definetely just side effects from C/C++ hacking
Interesting subject, even though you never followed it up. Anyway, for anyone interested you can download a Tooltalk-like message bus from ftp://koala.inria.fr/pub/KoalaTalk. X license.
Using this, lesstif (see my earlier post), pdksh, and a few other utilities I know of you could set up something for free under Linux very like the 'standard' CDE machines you have to use at work. However, the big question is, would you want to?
I use x48, I didn't do much digging, but have a look here for a screenshot and an explanation.
It's considerably faster than the real thing, and even if the interface is a little akward (well, I gess it's only something you have to get used to) it's usable.
Only slight problem... still no ROMs available legally unless you own the real thing.
Anyway once you have everything set up you will need some cool tools
I'm writing this on my AMD K75 at work, which is actually an overclocked 486. This is the first time I have an easy to work with desktop running on it, that is still very fast. I think I'll stick with this one for a while! Excellent software!
If you're such a UNIX "hero", why don't you just use the command line interface??? Why bother with any semblance of a GUI???
The answer, I'm afraid, is that you are full of shit!!!
Too CDE for my taste... hell, I built WM and GTK and xmms and.... etc. etc. just to make my sun look as far from CDE as possible. However, I think I'm gonna build it and throw it on the linux boxen here so the normal sun users have something they'd be a little more familiar with...
We have to start working on pooling our resources better. We are concurrently working on KDE/GNOME/ENLIGHTENMENT/WM/GNU-FORCE etc. desktops, Microsoft is working on exactly one, Active Desktop. It doesn't matter that we have so many more developers than MS if they are all working on projects that are all simulatanously working at the same goal on completely seperate trees. The whole advantage of Open Source is pooling of resources to gain advantage, if we keep writing all of these seperate projects we are watering down our talent. Of course, many of these projects do not completely overlap, but surely Enlightenment/GNU-Force do or will, as do KDE and GNOME obviously. Clearly we need choice at the desktop level, but is there such a thing as too much?
;P
-ShieldWolf
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Unfortunately this method isn't very useful with older hardware. If you only have 1-2 MB or video RAM you need to reduce the color depth in order to switch to higher resolutions. XFree86, unlike Windows, can't switch color depth while running, so the hot keys mentioned above only work if you run in 8 bit color all the time.
Linus Torvalds can be heard pronouncing Linux in both Swedish and English in the "silly sounds" files. They are included in many CD distributions and can be found on many ftp-servers.
S ounds/
t em/SillySounds/
e.g.
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus/Silly
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.2/linux/tsx-11/sources/sys
just my .02cents..
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
I just have to vent. Whenever there is a posting on /. about environments and/or window managers, people get all up in arms about what they feel is the best or worst or whatever. It is getting pointless. Just use what you like, people. That is one of the great things about this software is that there is so much to choose from. Why does there have to be a "standard" Linux "desktop"?
Also, I am just getting fed up with all the yahoos constantly comparing desktop environments with window managers. Apples and oranges people!
A desktop environment is *not* the same as a window manager. You cannot compare KDE/GNOME to WindowMaker/FVWM/Enlightment/SCWM/IceWM/BlackBox whatever.
KDE/GNOME are desktop environments. You can compare them to each other. They are each a set of programs that allow interoperability and shared information between programs for a seamless desktop. Both KDE and GNOME are largely window manager independent. That means I can run KDE on top of WindowMaker if I want. Or I can run GNOME on top of BlackBox. As long as the window manager supports the environment, things will work. It just so happens that both KDE and GNOME have either a built-in window manager or a prefered window manager (KWM and Enlightenment, respectively).
A window manager is a single program for drawing windows to the X root window, or desktop as people like to call it. A window manager, well, manages windows. It controls what your windows look like and how they behave when you move them or shade them or minimize them. Window managers allow some ability to launch programs and applications through root menus. A window manager is not a file manager. It is not an application launching panel. It is definitely not a fully integrated desktop environment. A window manager may be only a part of a desktop environment.
Now XFCE would seem to fit into the category of desktop environment since the window manger is only a single piece of the whole "environment". But you will notice that XFCE supports GNOME and is not a truly integrated environment like GNOME or KDE, so it is really just another window manager with associated programs which explains why people seem to think it is so much faster than KDE/GNOME. Of course it is faster! It is just a window manager!
The only reason I am tirading here is because I have seen several posts about how people want a "fast" window manager, but then talk about how bloated and slow GNOME and KDE are, especially on older machines. Well, what did you expect? GNOME and KDE are not window managers. Running fully integrated desktop environments is an expensive task. Why do you think Windows sucks so much? Microsoft cannot even distinguish their underlying operating system from their graphical environment.
In summary, run whatever you want, whatever environment/manager that suits your needs. And stop confusing desktop environments with window managers. They are not the same and you look a bit silly when you try comparing them.
Nothing can possiblai go wrong. Er...possibly go wrong.
Strange, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong.
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
In the KDE article, I posted some notions about how to go about building something that's Unix-friendly instead of Winix-pandering. Rather than reposting the whole thing here, you can just follow the link.
It is too heavy for my machine to run KDE/WindowMaker when I start the oracle server. So I need a lightweight WM which do not take me a lot of time to learn(because I want to learn oracle!). Finally, I find XFce.
I'm not a "winix kid" or any other pejorativethat you care to throw around. I've been using CDE since the time it used to be called HP VUE. CDE IS A TERRIBLE USER ENVIRONMENT. It is slow, buggy and counterintuitive. It is slower and does far less than KDE on Linux/x86, Sparc/Solaris and HPUX. I've yet to find someone who is fully comfortable in CDE. Most use it because they have to (many commercial apps misbehave in other winmgrs) or because they do not know how to start another window manager.
The same cannot be said of twm (BTW are you the Tom who wrote twm? I know that you are the Perl guy) or fvwm. These are both fast and stable user environments.
Hari
This is the whole point of the different WM/DEs. You may not like the Windows-like interfaces, but most people will be coming to Linux from the M$ world. Why can't they have a WM that looks like what they're used to?
If you like FVWM, fine. Use it. I do at times. If you don't like KDE or GNOME, don't use them. This is where we have an advantage over Windows.
I came from the Windows world and I like KDE. I also like FVWM2, WindowMaker, and IceWM. XFCE I'm just not impressed with, although it certainly has it's place. Just like all the others.
And I do agree with you on one point: FVWM2 has far better documentation than the others. Since there is no configuration utilities, however, it needs the docs the most.
That was operator error, the same answer is above, with my name in it.
| 1) man is standard for documentation only on Unix Systems
| 1b) Linux != Unix, its merely Unixlike
Arguing that Linux isn't Unix is IMHO using a marketing definition of Unix that plays into the hands of foes of Unix, who would love to exploit the resulting market fragmentation.
Unix is many things, from a trademark to a culture and a way. In the ways that matter I maintain that Linux is Unix.
Although Linux (really, a Linux distribution) doesn't currently have the right to use the Unix trademark, and although the Linux kernel is not descended from a kernel written in Bell Labs, it does have the Unix culture and the Unix way. As a long-time Unix user, I can say that Linux and Linux distributions are Unix in all the ways that really matter in practice, from either a user's or a system administrator's perspective (and more like Unix than some, AIX being the popular target).
Linux is a Unix. It is no more strange, no more different, no more counterintuitive than any of the various other Unixes I've used. And it's a lot better than some of them.
RICHARD STALLMAN NAKED AND PETRIFIED
... ick.
on second thought