XFCE - An Introduction

[shrike]

XFCE Desktop Environment ...and everything goes faster!

What is XFCE?

"Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for various *NIX systems. Designed for productivity, it loads and executes applications fast, while conserving system resources." - Olivier Fourdan, creator of Xfce

XFCE is somewhat of a newcomer to the desktop environment (DE) race. With XFCE 4 being released in the September of 2003, it has come quite a way in such a short amount of time. It offers many features that users have come to know in other DE's without becomming "bloated". That is, having a myriad of useful features, but sacrificing some speed or usability. It does this by giving you many features, but no "programs". So that you can install the ones you prefer, and not have a lot of useless junk sitting around.

Here's a sort list of things that XFCE contains:

* A panel with detachable menus and many useful plugins

* A full-featured window manager

* A background manager

* A taskbar

* A centralized settings manager

* A frontend for printing

* A Gtk2 theme-engine

* A file manager with Samba browsing and mount/umount capabilities

* Drag and drop

* Fonts anti-aliasing support

* And KDE3/Gnome2 native interoperability

XFCE has also been translated into many languages.

Default XFCE Desktop:

[jack_canada]

I'm an XFCE user as well, but here are some things I don't like about it, hope to see improvements.

-No support for desktop icons out of the box (I think they're working on it though).

-XFFM is just weird, maybe it's just me, but treeview is annoying. Hope Thunar or ROX would replace XFFM eventually.

-The taskbar is not customizable, you can change the size, add pager and systray, but I can't find a way to move the pager to the left side of the screen. I like the way GNOME panels work.

-Dragging windows on dual monitors with different resolution is weird.

[markwolfe Veteran]

* added link to this thread from "definitive" thread *

jack_canada, the XFCE taskbar is not customizable? That's a suprise.

[Prosidius]

Thanks for the guide. :) I installed XFCE on Ubuntu and like it. May switch to it. :)

[shrike]

Please note guys... it's still a work in progress.

I plan to add much more.

[jack_canada]

* added link to this thread from "definitive" thread *

jack_canada, the XFCE taskbar is not customizable?  That's a suprise.

586088745[/snapback]

Well, you can add pager and systray, but you can't move them around, so they have to be on the right side. And unlike gnome's panels, you can't have applets on the taskbar, you can only have them on the panel. There's a CVS patch that allows you to move the systray and pager to the left side though.

[Rudy]

I remember having to use it when I was in university and I didn't like it that much, as jack_canada said, it's pretty rigid as in you can't customize it that much

[Angel Blue01]

I don't like the lack of a system tray, I had install a stand-alone tray app :(

[ViperAFK]

My god it's come back from the dead!

[Lechio]

I remember having to use it when I was in university and I didn't like it that much, as jack_canada said, it's pretty rigid as in you can't customize it that much

Last time I've used it, it had pretty much the same customization options as Gnome, it makes use of GTK themes just like Gnome does. How much time has been since you last used it?

I don't like the lack of a system tray, I had install a stand-alone tray app :(

Are you sure? The XFCE panel has that option, you can even add another panel to the desktop and add the system tray there. Maybe you don't have that package installed, and only have the window manager?

My god it's come back from the dead!

This thread is on a "Pinned" thread, it's immortal... :shiftyninja:

Although it could use an update... Maybe the OP will look into it.

Edited November 5, 2008 by LechioPT

[Rudy]

Last time I've used it, it had pretty much the same customization options as Gnome, it makes use of GTK themes just like Gnome does. How much time has been since you last used it?

well it was about 2 years ago, it might have been an older version too as it was installed by the university.... I would be interested in trying to it again if these issues have been fixed

[Lechio]

well it was about 2 years ago, it might have been an older version too as it was installed by the university.... I would be interested in trying to it again if these issues have been fixed

New releases are better looking, more stable and don't use that many of the system resources while doing that.

Have a look at this distro if you want to try a live session. It's XFCE tweaked to the limit :)

[White Cuban]

I remember having to use it when I was in university and I didn't like it that much, as jack_canada said, it's pretty rigid as in you can't customize it that much

Uber Bump,Yawners, i was totally mow on this guy for being a nub, trying to intredouce XFCE to neowin ^^, but then i see the megafail bump of you.

[markwolfe Veteran]

Uber Bump,Yawners, i was totally mow on this guy for being a nub, trying to intredouce XFCE to neowin ^^, but then i see the megafail bump of you.

Ummm... This is sort of the "definitive" type of thread for an intro to XFCE, referenced by a pinned thread at the top of the thread list.

Seems like any relevant viewpoints can be added in here, regardless of original post date.

[Rudy]

Uber Bump,Yawners, i was totally mow on this guy for being a nub, trying to intredouce XFCE to neowin ^^, but then i see the megafail bump of you.

it wasn't a megafail bump because this thread is linked by a sticky thread. While the original post is a bit outdated, the bump did bring some new information like the link from Lechio (which shows I really need to give XFCE a second chance :))