The First Pre-Release Of Xfce 4.8 Has Arrived

[curaga]

Obligatory smartass answer:
If these things bother you, you might be better off with a different lightweight DE.

Oh, I haven't used Xfce since 4.4. It just saddens me to see another project with "light" as the main goal gain bloat.

Only for the mixer and Parole, as far as I'm aware. Why this is a 'negative' is unclear to me, however.

The mixer is one of the core Xfce components, while the Parole media player is not IIRC. Adding a huge dep like that to the core, does it sound right to you under the project mottos of "Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment", "And everything goes faster"?


As for the registry, while it may be faster due (reading binary vs reading text), I find it a terribly wrong decision. The lessons of Windows.

[curaga]

s/due//

Fsck the 1-min limit (today's official edit limit rant).

[Chewi]

Don't forget that while XFCE has gotten bigger, so have KDE and GNOME. Machines have also gotten faster. I can avoid the gstreamer dependency on Gentoo but I have gstreamer installed anyway.

[etnlWings]

The mixer is one of the core Xfce components

No, it's not. If you can't install Xfce w/o the mixer, take it up with your distro's packagers.

Adding a huge dep like that to the core, does it sound right to you under the project mottos of "Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment", "And everything goes faster"?

I don't accept your premise. Any modern DE is going to need a multimedia backend and gstreamer is easily the lightest option about, while still being competent; gstreamer players like Totem and Parole are the only players capable of smooth video playback on my Radeon 9550. Technically, it's quite proficient as well; the only technical shortcoming I've been able to find is gstreamer's failure to downmix multi-channel AAC streams when using ALSA as the sound server. Never mind that gstreamer pays dividends in the mixer, ensuring that should a new sound server pop up, users won't face the situation they do now with HAL.

As for the registry, while it may be faster due (reading binary vs reading text), I find it a terribly wrong decision. The lessons of Windows.

...
It's not 'reading binary'. Config settings are stored in ~/.config/Xfce4/xfconf/. The Settings Editor merely a) provides a frontend so that you don't have to fiddle with XML and b) triggers changes with the settings daemon, so that changes are instant and file changes don't get overridden by the daemon the next time it flushes it's settings to file.

If you want to criticise Xfce, criticise it for it's keyboard shortcuts dialogues being split between the WM, keyboard, power manager and volume daemon dialogues. That is a usability nightmare. Criticise 4.8 for adding drag-and-drop all over the place: now when you click on the wrong menuitem, you can't merely move the mouse to the correct one and release the mouse button, since that'll trigger a DnD event. Good luck to those saps who drag files onto the panel trash plugin; miss by one pixel and they just created a panel launcher for a file they didn't even want to keep. Criticise the fact that they moved the panel tasklist to libwnk, which provides all the robustness of, well, Gnome's window management. Criticise xfce4-notifyd popups for stealing keyboard focus the moment you switch to something other than Xfwm4, or the fact that the session manager constitutes probably close to a 3rd of support requests. Xfce certainly has it's problems but pulling in (optional) gst deps isn't one of them. As for the Settings Editor, when the day comes that it provides exclusive functionality, then it'll constitute a problem.

[curaga]

Clearly, we have a different set of gripes with Xfce
That does not mean either set is wrong.

I definitely agree with you on the too sensitive DnD issue, I've seen it before in other apps too.

No, it's not. If you can't install Xfce w/o the mixer, take it up with your distro's packagers.

"Core" as defined by the Xfce maintainers, not distro packagers. Yes, even if I can just not build the mixer, the perfectly-working older gstreamer-less one is not there. In a proper set-up it would've been a choice, the old one or gstreamer.

Any modern DE is going to need a multimedia backend

I very much disagree, a multimedia backend has absolutely nothing to do with a DE.
My media should be handled by my media player, not by my window manager.

ensuring that should a new sound server pop up, users won't face the situation they do now with HAL.

Should a new sound server pop up, it's their responsibility to accept either OSS or Alsa mixer apis. Backward compat like that tends to be better for users, and actual improvement is necessary if a new sound server is to be used anywhere.

Oh, and the fact there even is a settings *daemon*...

[etnlWings]

In a proper set-up it would've been a choice, the old one or gstreamer.

Not really. I'm sure there are other mixers you can use.

I very much disagree, a multimedia backend has absolutely nothing to do with a DE.
My media should be handled by my media player, not by my window manager.

DE =/= WM. There's a fundamental difference, here. If all you want is a WM, don't use a DE.

[curaga]

A WM is central to a DE, is it not? However, that was no answer to why a DE would involve a media backend.

[etnlWings]

A WM is central to a DE, is it not?

Again, DE =/= WM. One is a constituent of the other; that doesn't make them equivalent and interchangeable.

However, that was no answer to why a DE would involve a media backend.

Besides future proofing the mixer, providing a common set of APIs for common functionality, that sort of thing? How about 'why should a DE have a file manager?', 'Why should it have a panel, or a means for launching applications, or a toolkit, or a WM?'. Oddly, I don't see your questioning their relevance, despite their inclusion in DEs being just as arbitrary. In terms of modern day use case, they're every bit as relevant as having a multimedia backend. It'd be a little different if we were talking about something obscure like avahi.

[V!NCENT]

Xfce tries to be a lightweight version of modern desktops. Xfce is lighter than KDE and Gnome, without compromises.

Well, there you have it

[gilboa]

A WM is central to a DE, is it not? However, that was no answer to why a DE would involve a media backend.

Come on. Are you seriously asking this question?
Should we start posting links to wikipedia explaining the differences between DE and WM?

Either, you don't like the direction XFCE is taking, good for you. Luckily for you, you're using Linux and you have tons of other options, such as LXDE, IceWM and assortment of light-weight WM's.

Please don't turn this thread into "why I don't like XFCE" spam-thread.

- Gilboa