Debian Now Defaults To Xfce Desktop

[diriel]

I am subscribed to the Razor-QT mailing list.

[bkor]

I really wish the Gnome haters and the Gnome Whiners would give it a break already

The reason is the inaccurate articles. Phoronix should start reporting more accurately and stop with the bashing. And with reporting I mean do actual research and ask questions. At the moment this site is like Fox News.

Even this article, people partly involved in Debian are responding on their own to the most recent inaccurate article and saying e.g. "It was changed in the git but it wasn't actually released yet. Several GNOME packages have already been rebuilt with xz compression to make the binaries small enough to fit on the CD.", followed by "Switching the default desktop would be controversial and there's a lot of inertia behind GNOME.".

Seems to be someone is using a big stick over the heads of the Debian GNOME packagers to ensure they fix the issues asap.

[hooluupog]

I prefer dvd iso with larger packages and haven't used CDs for several years. My network connection is poor. It's extremely slow to install extra packages,codecs,updates and softwares via apt-get. So i always use an external multithreading p2p download tools to get dvd iso(with more packages in it) and have a complete installation.

[crazycheese]

apt-get install catfish tracker-utils (<- or the engine of your choice).

What have filesearch utils to do with session saving? Try simple trick on your favorite LXDE desktop: RELOGIN. Nothing is saved, clean desktop is started. You are free to write your own openbox.rc or autostart.sh at will. This is not userfriendliness at all.

I'm not talking here about extremely weird approach to adding a link on desktop or taskbar, about lack of LXPanel plugins and the latter inability to work correctly as vertical panel, about actually LXDE website gone MIA.
The current problems with XFCE are: thunar unable to handle properties of multiple objects and the panel is still very primitive, compared to GNOME2/3 or KDE3/4. This still makes XFCE an under-developed desktop, but it can be used by newbies.

[kazetsukai]

Until Gnome 3.4 I didn't, but after reading what they are doing to Nautilus in the next version you can bash all you want.

In case noone knows: They're deprecating features left and right with the reason being "doesn't work well on touch". Can someone PLEASE tell me:

Who exactly uses Gnome exclusively with a touchscreen?
Seriously, who in the hell are these developers catering to? People who DON'T use their software?

Edit: Volume down!

[anonymous]

What have filesearch utils to do with session saving?

He/she was responding to the second part of the quote:

But both have nothing to search on true desktop machine

[Artemis3]

What have filesearch utils to do with session saving?

I'm not talking here about extremely weird approach to adding a link on desktop or taskbar, about lack of LXPanel plugins and the latter inability to work correctly as vertical panel, about actually LXDE website gone MIA.
The current problems with XFCE are: thunar unable to handle properties of multiple objects and the panel is still very primitive, compared to GNOME2/3 or KDE3/4. This still makes XFCE an under-developed desktop, but it can be used by newbies.

I was answering the "both have nothing to search on true desktop machine" part.

I'm using a vertical panel in XFCE just fine, this is buggy in gnome2, and they never cared to fix it. Thunar could use some polish but nothing stops you from using nautilus or anything else. Also i don't see anything wrong with the panels; have yet to try 4.10.

I was talking from an XFCE perspective which is the topic of discussion here.

[Stedevil]

Think of it. You are a regular user, say at the workplace, used to work with gnome2. You don't care about the desktop much, you just come and sit to work with a web browser and office suit (openoffice). Wheezy becomes stable and IT upgrades all machines from squeeze.

Which choice hurts users more when they go to work next day? Gnome3 or XFCE? Fitting the CD might be compelling enough, but there is a strong usability reason to switch from gnome2 to xfce.

Gnome developers (the few that remain) have already said they are not catering to the needs of former gnome2 users. For them, Gnome3 has nothing to do with gnome2 and are not targeting their former users (as silly as that sounds). It would have made much more sense to rename the project entirely to avoid confusion.

Thus, ignoring gnome3 idiocy, what is left for the IT deployer? You need to switch to the closest thing, that would be either xfce, mate or, baring the performance of running components from gnome3, cinnamon/nemo/mdm & friends.

For a distro which doesn't want to alienate its user base (unlike the remaining gnome devs), this was the logical choice.


This is one beauty of the free/open source ecosystem. When a core dev makes an absurd choice, the project forks and/or people switch to alternatives. Remember Xfree86? Or even libreoffice vs openoffice?. Distros are collection of packages for the convenience of users, that is why they switch default packages from time to time.

Quoted in full for the HIGHLY relevant and true words it holds. Most average users and people in a company environment are NOT looking for bleeding edge and relearning from scratch how to integrate with their desktop, but to get on with REGULAR WORK. XFCE is a very sane default that wont completely wreck havoc at IT supportlines the weeks after a company updates to a new version of the distro. The technical experiment Gnome3 should be the consious choise for those wanting to play with new technology, not something forced down the throat of everyone.

[Stedevil]

I'm using a vertical panel in XFCE just fine, this is buggy in gnome2, and they never cared to fix it. Thunar could use some polish but nothing stops you from using nautilus or anything else. Also i don't see anything wrong with the panels; have yet to try 4.10.

Haha, I see we have very common reasons fo using XFCE. In fact the hugely buggy and desktop unfriendly re-implementation of vertical panels like 2-3(?) years ago, and the insane developer motivations for not fixing it (back to how it worked before, even as an optional user controlled setting) is exactly what promted me to litterally switch from Gnome2 to XFCE. Already back then it was clear to me that the gnome movement was clearly directed towards the wrong goal ("portrait" tablets screens which you can turn, not "landscape" desktop screens standing statical on the desktop). And as you rightly point out, those that still think Thunar is a bit lacking can easily use Nautilus as a dropin replacement. I still use Nautilus from time to time, but Thunar has become a lot better the last few years and certainly is at a good everyday usage level nowdays.

[grok]

a tiny thing bugs me in XFCE : if you hit ctrl-esc nothing happens, whereas on LXDE it will bring the start menu - just like it does under windows, though they could suppor the win key as well.

ah, I've worked out there's alt-f1 but it's a bad shortcut. also I've checked the panel management (in a VM), it doesn't seem better than LXDE. same concept of a control window when you manage panel items in a list.
the file manager is something to replace, too. in all there's quite some work if I want to feel at home.
that said it's very decent and xfce on debian just works, but to me, it's Pepsi. what you drink when they don't have Coke.

I don't intend to troll and please have a sense of humour : xfce has the footprint of mate and the features of lxde
I use lxde if I want a lightweight desktop (i.e. don't have to wait for several seconds when launching a file manager, more free memory), I use mate if I way something more powerful (drag'n'drop of panels and shortcuts, applets)

stay away from nautilus : mixing gnome 3 components and accessories with an lxde/xfce desktop will be less pleasant. with linux mint 12 I ended up with a mix of lxde and gnome 3. that makes the system slower and heavy (you can decide to ignore all of this if you have a fast hard drive or especially an SSD)

if you want to replace thunar there's pcmanfm, or you can use mate tools (caja file manager, mate-terminal, atril etc.)
I'm using lxde with mate-terminal for now.