The popular X11 desktop environment XFCE, which originally created to offer a free CDE-like DE for Unix/Linux, is closer on releasing the next big version, 4.0. XFce 4 has a radically different architecture from XFce 3. It embodies the traditional UNIX philosophy of modularity and re-usability. All of XFce 4’s core components have been written from scratch in order to fit into the new architecture. Another priority of XFce 4 is adhereance to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop.org (new screenshots, the first one in that list is the newest and most relevant one, showing the components of the DE). You can visit the CVS, or you can download a daily CVS snapshot and compile it. XFce 4 is under active development and should be considered alpha quality.
XFCE 4.0 a Step Closer to Final Release
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Eugenia Loli
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It does look good, because of GTK 2.2.. Serious, it looks pretty similar to Gnome2 by look, but not inside like control panel and etc. Also, the menu is different. Which does XFCE use metacity or swordfish by default?
Where can I find the GTK2 and border theme? -> http://members.home.nl/jbhuijsmans/screenshots/20021021.jpg
Looking at the shots, it looked like it was GTK+ 2, but I wasn’t certain. (It’s a shame … my current LFS box doesn’t have any GTK on it.)
XFCE uses its own windowmanager, XFwm. (I suppose you could use a third-party WM, too, but you’d best check the docs.) Of course, if it’s using the freedesktop.org standards, then it’ll be able to operate with the same settings/etc files as GNOME2 and KDE, right? …
— Rob
>Serious, it looks pretty similar to Gnome2 by look,
Sure. It uses GTK+ 2 themes for the widget set and it follows the Freedesktop.org standard.
>Which does XFCE use metacity or swordfish by default?
If you had read the CVS page you would read that XFCE 4’s window manager is based on highly modified Oroborus. Also, it is “Sawfish”, not swordfish.
>Where can I find the GTK2 and border theme?
Probably this comes with XFCE, not sure… I know there is a GTK+ 1.x theme that looks like BeOS, but I am not sure that there is one for GTK+ 2.2.
It’s so clean, its something to look forward to. This would look great on a laptop system.
>XFCE uses its own windowmanager, XFwm.
It used its own XFwm until version 3.x. The new version is based on Oroborus, but is has changed a lot to become more xfce-ish…
>it looked like it was GTK+ 2
Yes, it uses GTK+ 2.x for its toolkit. But XFCE is NOT Gnome. But it interoperates well with both KDE and Gnome, because it follows the Freedesktop.org guidelines.
If you had read the CVS page you would read that XFCE 4’s window manager is based on highly modified Oroborus. Also, it is “Sawfish”, not swordfish.
Oh, I knew it! I felt funny when I wrote “swordfish”, which I keep figure what’s bother me. Hehe, thanks for point that. I need to sleep. 😉
Thanks for answer about Oroborus.. Umm, I think the most themes of Oroborus look little funny there, but not BeOS one.
Probably this comes with XFCE, not sure… I know there is a GTK+ 1.x theme that looks like BeOS, but I am not sure that there is one for GTK+ 2.2.
Ummm, maybe I can download and find if it has few themes include by default.
Probably this comes with XFCE, not sure… I know there is a GTK+ 1.x theme that looks like BeOS, but I am not sure that there is one for GTK+ 2.2.
Ummm, maybe I can download and find if it has few themes include by default.
By my last count xfwm4 had 58 window decoration themes, including a BeOS one
I don’t know about the GTK theme, though.
XFce, of course has far less features and integration than gnome or kde, but it will cooperate nicely most of the time. Especially gnome apps will fit right in, being based on the same toolkit.
Looks nice. If you added the transparency / shadowed text / other eye candy that waimea (.org) brings to the fold, I’d be sold.
Hello,
I don’t think you can compare Waimea with XFce4 since XFce4 is a whole DE whereas Waimea (AFAIK) is just a window manager. For further info on XFce4 visit the XFce4 resource page at http://members.home.nl/jbhuijsmans/xfce4-cvs.html.
Thank you.
This is without a doubt the best environment in the Linux world. Everything that I wished for while using XFce3 has been included.
Its sad that I’ve never heard of XFce until last week (thanks to OSNEWS). I’ve been running Linux at home for 5 freakin years. Maybe going to OSNEWS is not a waste of time after all.
Someday I might contribute to this project and not let that CS degree go to waste.
Great job, XFce and OSNEWS.
>This is without a doubt the best environment in the >Linux world. Everything that I wished for while using >XFce3 has been included.
Indeed…I tried them all but only xfce4 made me happy 🙂
I have been using xfce3 as my primary DE at home for the last 6 months and it is indeed an excellent environment – I guess now I will have to upgrade. I have been drooling over the xfce4 screenshots as they have been trickling out onto the website – it looks awesome.
> Its sad that I’ve never heard of XFce until last week (thanks to OSNEWS). I’ve been running Linux at home for 5 freakin years.
hmmm… odd. XFce has certainly been around for a long time. 28-Sep-1998 was the registration for the xfce.org website
Agree with above, a very beautiful and clean desktop. Can’t wait to give it a spin on my Gentoo
I’ve never used it (nor heard much about it) unitl recently, so I’m asking any XFce users:
How does its functionality and usability compare with the big dog desktop environments (KDE & Gnome)????
just give me Blackbox and/or ICEwm and that is plenty, or if i want X with a VERY light WM twm is plenty (just launch everything from xterm)
How does its functionality and usability compare with the big dog desktop environments (KDE & Gnome)????
There is really no comparison. Where GNOME/KDE provide a complete, functioning environment with applications and system integration, XFce on its own is probably only good for looking at, and managing files.
Basically all XFce provides is window management, a way to launch programs, a pretty background and a file manager.
So, you will have to install other apps and that probably means installing at least the libraries of GNOME and/or KDE plus their applications.
XFce is somewhere between the big, full-featured desktop environments and bare-bone window managers.
It is all a matter of how you want to use your computer. Many people prefer the simpler XFce system over the bells and whistles of the big environments, many people don’t …
XFce requires a lot more knowledge of the operating system to be useful than GNOME/KDE, for instance to find the applications and system utilities that you want to use.
Just try it and find out. Let us know what you think.
Yes, it uses GTK+ 2.x for its toolkit. But XFCE is NOT Gnome. But it interoperates well with both KDE and Gnome, because it follows the Freedesktop.org guidelines.
For that matter, ANY DE/WM that follows the freedesktop.org will interoperate well with KDE/GNOME. Isn’t standards great?
XFCE 3 is a great little DE for all those with low resources – my work computer is a P233MMX with 48 MB RAM and runs XFCE quite happily (Mozilla and Evolution runs remotely, sure.) I haven’t tested XFCE 4 yet, so CVS here we go
I’ve been running XFCE4 since November and it works really well. There are some glitches in compiling and using but over all it’s in great shape. The project leaders are also great on the mailing list, swift answers and fixes.
I’ve got two files for getting the CVS files and compiling at www2.park.se/~peder/files/unix/XFCE4
>Agree with above, a very beautiful and clean desktop. Can’t wait to >give it a spin on my Gentoo
>I’ve never used it (nor heard much about it) unitl recently, so I’m >asking any XFce users:
>How does its functionality and usability compare with the big dog >desktop environments (KDE & Gnome)????
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=28029
i must be one of the few who’ve been using xfce for a good while now… i’ve tried gnome/kde and although their looks have improved… they still take lots if cpu and ram … and most importantly for someone actualy doing work (rather than playing with backgrounds and transparency) it takes up very little screen space… it doesn’t attract attention to itself away from your work….
for these reasons alone… i was using windowmaker before i discovered xfce… but i moved away because i could never understamd the various windowmaker icon types … launchers, minimsied,… and some other wierds ones which appear mysteriously…
I shuddered at the screenshots… i realy hope xfce by dfault is still on the clea, minimalist side of things….
t
At least some of icons and the window borders do. I’ve always like XFCE. You could use it on a really slow machine and it was easy to add programs to the launchers without going nuts editting config files. It also comes with its own small filemanager. I’m glad to see its see around and improving.
I used XFCE several years ago (before it used GTK) when it used to be a CDE clone. Even though its been rewritten twice since then, XFCE has always been lightweight compared to the other desktop environments without sacrificing style or ease of use. This is definantly recommended for anyone tired of all the unnecessary bloat of Gnome/KDE, but who doesn’t want to stray too far from traditional desktop environments (Blackbox, etc).
These small desktop environments will really start to shine when X is ready to support drop-shadows and real translucency.
I tried a cvs version of xfce4 about a month ago and while I did not find it ready for me as an everyday DE, it really has some features that blew me away.
The biggest of these features was the samba browser which is seamless with xfm. Unfortunately the version of xfm which I tried was realy ugly. That said, it was awsome to just open it up, pick my XP workgroup out of the icon list, and browse to my hearts content withought the slightest setup on my part.
How does this compare to enlightenment v16 and v17?
Less eye-candy, helluvalot faster. I really don’t care much for KDE/Gnome since they are lots slower than your average windowmanager and since I discovered that the XFce filemanger supports drag-and-drop I see no need to run anything else. The only drawback (perhaps) is that you can’t place things on the desktop, but who really wants it anyway ? (and there’s been some tentative discussions to maybe add it at some point if there are enough requests)
I just hope they stay away from useless bloat like translucency or drop-shadow. Features like those are just wasting resources without providing any real value (that is also my main gripe with MacOSX). Sure, they are fun to play with for a while, but who needs them to get any actual work done?
This is one of the things I always liked about XFCE (and the real CDE): it tends to stay out of the way most of the time while focusing only on useful features. And, unlike KDE or GNOME, it is actually usable on a slow cpu like a 160MHz 604e.
I never understood the multiple menu concept in CDE or XFCE. Why would you want a bunch of menus spread across the taskbar instead of having everything in one easy-to-find place? That is one big reason why I never stayed with XFCE, although I did try it out a few times.
Actually, I’d have to take the contrarian view that XFce is just as easy to use as the major “desktop environments.” Just like them, you can do all the configuration graphically, and while KDE and GNOME have made a lot of strides in the 16 months since I’ve used them, back then XFce was clearly ahead in terms of basic usability. No, it’s not astoundingly pretty, but as someone else put it: it stays out of the way. Really that’s one of the highest compliments a computer work environment can be paid. In some ways XFce does better at that than the two work environments I spend most of my time in these days, Mac OS X and Windows 2000. (I know that’s a straight line for people to kick Mac OS X for having too much eye candy and being slow in resizing windows, but in practice I’ve found OS X’s eye candy to be remarkably non-interfering, unlike, well, most Linux desktops.)
I’ve been using XFCE3 with FVWM2 now for over a year. It works great, though I’m sure the author of XFCE probably never intended that. So long as FVWM is compiled with Gnome support, the virtual desktop buttons on XFCE’s panel will actually tell FVWM’s pager to switch desktops. It all works.
> It works great, though I’m sure the author of XFCE probably
> never intended that.
It’s obviously intended. Originally, back in 1996/1997, xfce version 1 had no window manager and was designed to run with fvwm/fvwm2 – Compatibility was kept in xfce 2 and 3.
Cheers,
Olivier.
> The new version is based on Oroborus
Just for clarity, yes, xfwm4 was initially based on Oroborus, but the changes are very deep. The “core” of the window manager is essentially the way it handles and treat X events, and there are lot of differences between Oroborus and xfwm4 at this level. Another difference is that xfwm4 is gtk 2.x based.
Cheers,
Olivier.
… that Waimea window manager is gorgeous! Man, that’s sexy. Those realy transparent apps got me hooked. Must try this someday.
Now, back to the topic:
Yeah! XFCE rocks! 🙂
I like them on the taskbar since it is faster.
E.g., I mean its faster to go the the “multimedia”-menu in the XFCE taskbar and select MPlayer than to click “K” or “G” or “Start” and then select “multimedia” and then MPlayer. It just saves time in my opinion.
And XFCE is great. I’ve used Gnome for 1 year, and thought that Gnome was fast (or at least faster than KDE), but XFCE is the first DE which can nearly compete with the speed of Windows.
I disagree with the person who claims that XFCE is more difficult to use than KDE or Gnome. Configuring menus is a breeze. Just click add menu item at the spot you want the item. No other desktop is better in that respect. Also the file manager is very sleak and fast, unlike konquerer which is crowded and slow. With a good background, and maybe E-term set to transparent the environment even looks pretty good too.
Sure you have to use the command line for some stuff, but if your using *nix, you’re just going to have to use the command line. Even with KDE or Gnome and their graphical tools, it is usually simpler to use the command line. The command line is what makes linux (or BSD, etc etc) powerful and should not be hidden, but embraced.
Can you access and navigate the taskbar with just the
keyboard, or is the mouse required ?
Hopefully having as a mouse as it’s mascot doesn’t preclude
this.
I also must say I am surprized there seem to be many Linux users who have not heard of Xfce.
Google for “best windowmanager linux”, or “recommend
windowmanager linux” and xfce is always in the running. b
Also
http://www.plig.org/xwinman/others.html
tells all.