xfce 4.6

[vambo]

Out soon :popcorn:
http://jeromeg.blog.free.fr/index.php?category/English
Hopefully make it into Jaunty Xubuntu :p

[andrewabc]

Really?
When I last checked the wiki, it was like 4 months behind schedule and not everything was near done (they were supposed to have a couple more betas).

Hmm, I looked at xfce webpage and I guess they had a beta in mid january, then a RC after that, so I guess they got back on schedule somewhat.

EDIT:
http://wiki.xfce.org/releng/4.6/milestones
28th of September 2008
Yep a long delay in release.

[cardinals_fan]

I took a look at the beta back in December. It should be pretty good...

[BuffaloX]

Wow I just had a look at some screenshots of 4.6

http://www.xfce.org/about/screenshots

It looks really cool, it seems to have compositor for real transparency now.

I tried Xfce about 1½ year ago, and was very impressed with it, it does so many things just right. Unfortunately it lacked a couple of features so I went back to Gnome, but Xfce seems to have improved enough, to deserve another test run.

[myusername]

sweeeeet! they have implemented alacarte with xfce! its only a matter of time before i use this permanently

[smartboyathome]

Out soon :popcorn:
http://jeromeg.blog.free.fr/index.php?category/English
Hopefully make it into Jaunty Xubuntu :p

I guarentee it won't make it into Jaunty, as it would be too late in the development cycle. And no, an exception would definately not be good stability wise.

[RiceMonster]

I'm looking forward to it, especially the power manager. That'll be great for people using laptops.

[crimesaucer]

Wow I just had a look at some screenshots of 4.6

http://www.xfce.org/about/screenshots

It looks really cool, it seems to have compositor for real transparency now.

I tried Xfce about 1½ year ago, and was very impressed with it, it does so many things just right. Unfortunately it lacked a couple of features so I went back to Gnome, but Xfce seems to have improved enough, to deserve another test run.

All those pictures are really old..... that's for 4.4 and before it..... xfce4 has had a compositor for a while.... since way back before Beryl 1.0..... I still prefer using compiz-fusion with xfce4 because emerald is such a better window manager..... I also think compiz-fusion feels smoother on my computer with xfce4 than xfce4-compositing.

[vambo]

I guarentee it won't make it into Jaunty, as it would be too late in the development cycle. And no, an exception would definately not be good stability wise.
You're probably right .. pity. Most likely try it in any case.
Something to look fowward to in 9.10

[etnlIcarus]

sweeeeet! they have implemented alacarte with xfce! its only a matter of time before i use this permanentlyAlacarte is for 4.8 and that's not a good thing, anyway. Alacarte creates a garbled mess, which causes the gnome menu to take about a minute to load.


I guarentee it won't make it into Jaunty, as it would be too late in the development cycle. And no, an exception would definately not be good stability wise.I seem to recall my RSS feeds saying something about the RC making it in there about a week before the feature freeze. Don't quote me on that, though.

Edit: okay, now you can quote me on that: (http://cody.zapto.org/?p=55)
Xfce 4.6 Release Candidate 1 is now in the Jaunty archive!

I still prefer using compiz-fusion with xfce4 because emerald is such a better window managerEmerald just provides the window decoration. Management is still handled by compiz (badly).

I also think compiz-fusion feels smoother on my computer with xfce4 than xfce4-compositing.If Xfwm's compositing isn't smooth, you need to look into enabling RenderAccel in xorg.conf for your video card.

[binbash]

Waiting for this for a long time

[crimesaucer]

Might as well edit this one too.

[myusername]

annnnd crimesaucer gets the award for longest non-stickied post ever!

[Pogeymanz]

- The font and buttons of the xfwm4 windows do not stay readable when you use the compositing for xfce4 (for the lowest setting)..... just like the xfce4-panel with the icons and buttons/fonts. (which is why I use the cairo patch now). Emerald doesn't do this. I can have clear window decoration and fully readable buttons and title font.



I must agree with this point. This is honestly the only thing that bugs me about xfwm4's compositing.

I have to say that I've never had any tearing problems or any other oddities you mention with xfwm4's compositing.

I do however have problems with Compiz-Fusion in that it often doesn't detect my mouse clicks on the root window, which is very frustrating when trying to scroll through workspaces or access my menu. This is why I am choosing to stay with xfwm4. I'm hoping that they do make an option to keep certain things opaque, such as text and icons. Maybe in 4.8?

[RiceMonster]

xfwm compositing doesn't give me any problems at all. It's the only one that works flawlessly for me. Compiz fusion gives me minor problems, and xcompmgr gives me tons of problems.

[crimesaucer]

xfwm compositing doesn't give me any problems at all. It's the only one that works flawlessly for me. Compiz fusion gives me minor problems, and xcompmgr gives me tons of problems.

No problems for me in Compiz.

[psyBSD]

I guarentee it won't make it into Jaunty, as it would be too late in the development cycle. And no, an exception would definately not be good stability wise.


I quarantee it will make it into Jaunty, because the xubuntu maintainers are working extensively with the xfce developers to test and update it. RC1 is already in the Jaunty repositories.

[sisco311]

Xfce 4.6 Final Released (http://www.xfce.org/about/news?id=21) :popcorn:

[Antman]

Xfce 4.6 Final Released (http://www.xfce.org/about/news?id=21) :popcorn:

AWESOME!!!! This will now be my default DE on all my laptops. :guitar:

[will1911a1]

Xfce 4.6 Final Released (http://www.xfce.org/about/news?id=21) :popcorn:

Definitely looking forward to giving it a try.

[Stan_1936]

Anyone try it.....what's the real significant improvement(s)?

[bapoumba]

Off topic conversation removed (9 posts). Please keep it elsewhere, thanks.

[RiceMonster]

Anyone try it.....what's the real significant improvement(s)?

You can see the improvements they've made here:
http://www.xfce.org/about/tour?PHPSESSID=6fd9ebefa580f30d86ec1d7293b5028d

[panthar]

Just an update - XFCE 4.6 has been released today.

[Stan_1936]

You can see the improvements they've made here:
http://www.xfce.org/about/tour?PHPSESSID=6fd9ebefa580f30d86ec1d7293b5028d

I know, I was just curious about what users thought after using it themselves.

[Kareeser]

Still no samba capable file manager out-of-the-box, eh?

Shucks.

[Naiki Muliaina]

I love the tweaks to Thunar. It is a little lacking at times ^^ The simple addition of 'back'forward' with the side mouse buttons is great ^^

[sisco311]

holy moly, it's in the arch repos!
upgrading...

[sertse]

No proper menu editor???

Gosh, one of the main reasons I've stayed away right now... even the *Boxes seem easier to edit atm, even if it's the case of manually changing config files...they are clear about what to do. It's just esoteric with xfce....

[etnlIcarus]

It's not actually that difficult. All you need to do is copy any .desktop files you want to alter from /usr/share/applications/ to $HOME/.local/share/applications/ and edit a little bit of XML in $HOME/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu

Considering the first half of those instructions is identical to what you had to do in 4.4 if you wanted to move apps between categories/make apps hidden/etc, it's only made marginally more difficult with 4.6.

[linux phreak]

Being unable to Select multiple items by clicking and dragging mouse on the desktop was a feature which was seriously hampering the usability factor in previous versions of xfce.The list of improvements are truly impressive and i am looking forward to using it in the next xubuntu release.

[cb951303]

can thunar access samba shares in this release?

[RiceMonster]

So I just upgraded via pacman, and overall, I think it's a good improvement. The biggest improvement, for me, is there's now real power management. When You click log out, it gives you hibernate and suspend options, and there's now a power manager application, similar to GNOME's (arch users can do pacman -S xfce4-power-manager). That's probably the biggest thing I thought was missing in Xfce. People who like icons will like the improvements to xfdesktop, it's a lot better now (such as you can select drag select multiple icons). I like how you can set your wallpaper from Thunar now too.

My one complaint is the new menu. I know they rewrote it to be standards compliant, but it's really annoying that you can't edit it, and I can't seem to find an xml file or something anywhere. Apparently there's going to be an editor in 4.8, but that's a long way off.

[Naiki Muliaina]

I dont think its particularly necessary (theres an install guide on XFCE's website) but my blogs been hit a lot of times looking for a guide to installing 4.6 on Xubuntu. I figure its going to get more views here and be more help full, so a copy pasta follows.

How to install XFCE4 4.6 on Xubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

Right click this link and save it:

http://www.tx-us.xfce.org/archive/xfce-4.6.0/installers/xfce4-4.6-installer.run

Ok, next we need to install a few things. Open terminal and enter the following :


sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev libice-dev libsm-dev libxpm-dev

Now navigate to the XFCE file you downloaded in terminal. I saved mine to my desktop, if you did too, just copy paste the following command.


cd Desktop

Now we change it into an executable file and run it. Copy paste these into your terminal.


chmod +x xfce4-4.6-installer.run
./xfce4-4.6-installer.run

A nice little GUI guides you the rest of the way.

[NSDragon]

(...)

How to install XFCE4 4.6 on Xubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

(...)

I was thinking of trying this graphical installer, but I wonder how does this deal with APT? Would I need to remove the xfce packages, or can the two versions exist side-by-side?

[etnlIcarus]

My one complaint is the new menu. I know they rewrote it to be standards compliant, but it's really annoying that you can't edit it, and I can't seem to find an xml file or something anywhere. Apparently there's going to be an editor in 4.8, but that's a long way off.

It's not actually that difficult. All you need to do is copy any .desktop files you want to alter from /usr/share/applications/ to $HOME/.local/share/applications/ and edit a little bit of XML in $HOME/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu

Considering the first half of those instructions is identical to what you had to do in 4.4 if you wanted to move apps between categories/make apps hidden/etc, it's only made marginally more difficult with 4.6.
Seriously: not that difficult.

I was thinking of trying this graphical installer, but I wonder how does this deal with APT? Would I need to remove the xfce packages, or can the two versions exist side-by-side?

I tried the graphical installer for the RC but I didn't run it as root, choosing only to install it in my $HOME folder. Trying to have the two side-by-side doesn't work, you end up with a mish-mash of old and new components being loaded.

As for installing it as root, I'm reluctant to. I can either keep my current Xfce install and simply write over it but then if a security update comes along via apt, I'm likely to not be able to log into my desktop. If I remove Xfce via apt first, then install 4.6 as root, if I try to install an app via apt in the future, there's a good chance it will try to overwrite 4.6. Worse yet is if I accidentally remove a dependency needed by Xfce. As it will be manually installed, apt won't be able to do dependency checking before removing it, again leaving me with a broken desktop.

Hopefully the PPA gets updated in the next few days and I won't have to worry.

[Vinze]

Seriously, everybody, just wait until Xubuntu 9.04 is released in April which will include Xfce 4.6.0 and perhaps even 4.6.1. That's really not that bad stability wise, but if you're worried (or even if you're not), be sure to help test it out (http://xubuntu.org/contribute/qa_bugs_testing) :)

[slumbergod]

I used the Xubuntu PPA to upgrade to the last beta there. It didn't install correctly and I spent most of the night fixing issues. After that it was excellent - and much faster than the Xubuntu Intrepid default.

Then came the official final release by the xfce4 community. I downloaded the run installers for 4.6 and the goodies. I ended up installing maybe another 50-60mb of development libraries but after that the installation went perfectly. I chose an Xfce4.6 session on the next log in and no problem at all. Using the official installer I got all of the updates so nothing was broken.

People have asked what happens with the synaptic repo if you use the installers from Xfce webpage...well, the existing installation appears untouched. In synaptic the PPA beta for 4.6 is still there. It was not updated there.

The only side effect I have noticed is that when I use my new official 4.6 environment, and start the settings manager, I get two entries for everything. I have no idea how to fix that but it isn't really an issue. Essentially, I installed a new desktop environment on top of Xubuntu rather than updating it. Since Jaunty is not so far away this compromise is fine - I have the latest xfce and it is stable.

[etnlIcarus]

Some awesome dude now has a PPA up for 4.6 final:

http://jeromeg.blog.free.fr/index.php?post/2009/03/04/Installing-Xfce-4.6-on-Ubuntu-8.04-and-Ubuntu-8.10

[sertse]

Thanks for the link to the PPA. Finally got a way to get xfce power manager :D, freeing the last bit of qt on my comp. (Gnome power manager doesn't work).

xfburn and screenshot (finally a grpahical screenshoter that doesn't take a ton of space!) look pretty nice too.