Xfce 4.12 Desktop Release Ends Up Behind Schedule

[Grogan]

Roadmaps and release schedules are good, but the best time to release software is of course "When it's ready" (Something the commercial software world needs

I don't particularly care about GTK+ 3 support (I don't have it, as I don't need it for anything) but if that's something they are striving for with the release, they are doing the right thing if they need to go back to the drawing boards on some parts of the project.

XFCE has mostly been good quality, in the 10+ years that I've been using it and I wouldn't want that to change. (Starting back when it was based on GTK+ 1.2.x and made "boingy" sounds when you clicked on stuff. It got old fast, but none the less I couldn't bring myself to disable it because it was so amusing at the start. I wasn't sorry when it went away, though.)

Any bugs that I encountered (e.g. configuration functions that didn't quite work as expected, like being prevented from dragging things where you want them on the panel) I was always able to work around somehow.

I don't always have to have the latest release of XFCE though... I tend to build one and stick with it for the life of the Linux install which could be years. Once I have it all configured my way (a specific way that I like... more like old versions) it doesn't get broken. It keeps working without a recompile even when you upgrade the libraries it's linked against. (within reason)

I had to check (couldn't remember, as this system is a few years old now) but I'm still using version 4.6.1 here.

I have a much newer version on my laptop, but I tend to use it the same way so I don't notice any difference. While I'm on that, I was actually impressed that the config mostly migrated from an older distro I had. (I tarred up my home directory and selectively copied back configs) It warned me that it had to convert the panel, but it didn't miss a beat. I just had to put the programs in place that my launchers were configured for and change a few icon paths etc. Why this is significant to me is, XFCE wasn't so good at that in the past and I always configured it from scratch with a newer version.

[Rexilion]

Roadmaps and release schedules are good, but the best time to release software is of course "When it's ready" (Something the commercial software world needs

I don't particularly care about GTK+ 3 support (I don't have it, as I don't need it for anything) but if that's something they are striving for with the release, they are doing the right thing if they need to go back to the drawing boards on some parts of the project.

For me, that is one of the main advantages of the XFCE environment. They don't want GTK+3 because it's new and shiny (I understand the tendency to do this). No, they will use GTK+3 if they require functionality that is only available in this version. And even then they consider, is it worth it?

Thunar has been developed over many years and it has not changed much. Most of it's bugs are related to behaviour changes in the library's it depends on. I'm looking at you gvfs...

[Hamish Wilson]

Yes, PcManFM would be more cross-platform but last time I tried it was not that stable.

When was the last time you tried it by chance? LXDE and it's components have improved by leaps and bounds in terms of stability and polish over the past year or so.

[JS987]

Too bad it wasn't ported to GTK3 already.

GTK3 is disaster
http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/opinion/a...spiracy-theory

[Rexilion]

When was the last time you tried it by chance? LXDE and it's components have improved by leaps and bounds in terms of stability and polish over the past year or so.

Two years ago . So I'm gonna try it with my new Gentoo installation. On Ubuntu, I'm sticking to Thunar for now.

It was just before the big migration to gio and gvfs if I'm not mistaken.

[gilboa]

GTK3 is disaster
http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/opinion/a...spiracy-theory

Be that is it may, Gtk-2 is more-or-less unmaintained - so unless the XFCE developers plan to switch to Qt, Gtk-3 is more-or-less the only option.
BTW, the Mate maintainers/developers face a similar option, and as far as I remember, they plan to migrate to Gtk-3.

- Gilboa

[Rexilion]

Time to fork GTK+2 then .

[gilboa]

Time to fork GTK+2 then .

I assume that you're volunteering?

[Rexilion]

I assume that you're volunteering?

Standard response. No, it was a suggestion not an order for anyone to do anything lol. Besides, it's probably easier to just stick with a gtk2+ distro then.

[bwat47]

Time to fork GTK+2 then .

Just what the linux desktop needs right now is more toolkit fragmentation. gtk3 may have its problems, but forking gtk2 would be even worse.