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Xfce and Slackware 12.0© Copyright Darrell Anderson. For some reason I cannot remember, I wanted to investigate the performance of Xfce under Slackware 12.0. I provided previous comments about Xfce when I tested Zenwalk 4.4. On my test box I have a user account created specifically for testing, an account that I do not worry about mistakes or problems. After running xwmconfig I realized Xfce was among the packages that I had removed from my Slackware configuration. Although Xfce contains future promise, the desktop environment does not meet my needs and standards. I removed that package along with other window managers. After reinstalling the package I noticed a few issues immediately. The first was that Xfce is packaged to run the Tricks and Tips applet on startup. Yet no text showed in the dialog box. I struggled with this for a few hours, along with troubleshooting other issues. Eventually I discovered the root cause of the problem: I needed to reinstall the BSD Fortune Cookies package. Although the Fortune Cookies package is cute for several weeks, I long ago grew weary of the login prompt messages. In previous versions of Slackware I merely disabled the /etc/profile.d script, but with this latest version I also removed the package after updating. For some reason, the Xfce developers have directly tied their Tricks and Tips tool to the Fortune Cookies run-time engine. After reinstalling the Fortune Cookies package but not enabling the profile.d script, the Tricks and Tips package worked as expected. Xfce is supposed to be a stand-alone desktop environment and directly creating a dependency on another package is a terrible idea. The next major issue was when I ran the Settings Manager, no icons displayed except the Screen Saver icon. Previously I had installed a fresh stock installation of Slackware 12.0 in a different set of partitions. I booted to that version and saw the icons correctly display. I diffed the /usr/share/icons directory between the two installations and found no anomalies. I checked the file permissions and all files were tagged 644. After some more web searching, I ran across the trick of rebuilding the icon cache files using gtk-update-icon-cache -f. I ran that command against the /usr/share/icons/hicolor directory and then the Settings Manager icons reappeared. To be prudent, I then rebuilt the cache in all the icon directories. I also noticed that many of the icon sets are incomplete. The Xfce default Rodent icon theme does not contain icons for several KDE apps, such as Kget and Ksysguard to mention two. Icons correctly appear in the system menu when selecting the CrystalSVG icon theme, however. Another irritant was the way the Orage Clock displayed the date and time. I prefer a format of 8:56 Mon Jul 30 2007. According to the strftime format, I tried the string combination of %I:%M %a %b %d %Y. The irritating problem was the %I element (uppercase I not numeral one) displayed a leading zero when using the 12-hour format, which looked awkward and bugged me. After some surfing I discovered an “undocumented” switch of %l (lower case “el” not numeral one) that eliminated the leading zero. The Orage Clock is much better than the standard Xfce clock, but the applet needs some kind of method to more easily format the display string rather than raw typing. As mentioned in a previous journal entry, I do not care for the default dual upper and lower task bar design of Xfce. Sorry, I prefer the way Windows and KDE displays only the bottom bar. There is nothing wrong with the two-bar approach, but I personally prefer one. I had to rebuild the lower task bar panel and then eliminate the upper bar. I found a few other people on the web complaining about another irritating the issue. In addition to the Xfce desktop icons, Xfce also displays the KDE desktop icons. I tried adding the OnlyShowIn=KDE option in the respective KDE desktop files but to no avail. I also tried the Hidden=True option with no success. That latter option succeeds within KDE, however. I believe this is a bug in Xfce. Although there is a config file for displaying individual desktop icons (~/.config/xfce4/desktop/xfdesktoprc), there is no option to toggle displaying desktop icons from other desktop environments. The only current solution is to disable all desktop icons from displaying, an option not upsetting to me anyway. Another irritant I have yet to resolve is how to disable the task bar and desktop icon tool tips. I find them distracting. Especially in the task bar where I can already read the program name. I have not found any method to disable those unnecessary tool tips. Although I have my xorg.conf configured not to use composite rendering, the Xfce session manager nonetheless tries to run composite rendering and fills my .xsession-errors log with related messages. There is an option in ~/.config/xfce4/mcs_settings/wmtweaks.xml related to composite rendering, but that option was already set to false. So why the useless error messages? Another annoying but repeatable .xsession-errors message appears when exiting Xfce: xfce-mcs-manager: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :1.0. I have no idea what causes this message or how to troubleshoot. Oh, by the way, the default Xfce xinitrc script does not use an .xession-errors file. End-users must add that option manually by editing the script. I have not figured out why the keyboard shortcuts list is ghosted in the Window Manager Keyboard options. As root those options are not ghosted. Either the problem is one of file permissions or in Xfce non-root users are not allowed to modify that list, and instead must augment to override those settings. Another irritant that seems to plague GNU/Linux in general is the default black mouse pointer. This is simply another personal preference issue, but white mouse pointers are discouraged in GNU/Linux. I finally found and installed a straightforward white mouse pointer with no drop shadows that possesses the same look-and-feel as the standard Windows mouse pointer. None of that awful and goofy GTK crap. I did take some time to try to understand the awful and awkward GTK file chooser dialog boxes. I discovered that to show hidden (dot) files I had to “right-click” on the file pane to expose a pop-up context menu. Who in any sane world would think of doing that? Through that effort I noticed a short config file for GTK file chooser dialog boxes called gtkfilechooser, located in ~/.config/gtk-2.0. I did not tinker with adding to the bookmarks pane, but all desktop environments and all file managers should support a common bookmarks location and file format. Regardless of which file chooser a user runs, the bookmarks should remain consistent throughout. Since GNU/Linux is and probably always will remain a hodge-podge of QT, GTK, and other widget library-based programs, a common file chooser bookmark file only makes sense. I again report that Xfce is not radically faster than KDE, contrary to the many fanboy reports bloating the web. Xfce does indeed start and exit much quicker than KDE, but within the desktop I observe no significant difference in response time or speed. Mind you, I am running on my old test box, which is a 350 MHz Pentium II Deschutes with “only” 256 MB of RAM. Xfce often is touted as a lightweight desktop that is great for older hardware. Sorry to break the party but my experience and observation indicates otherwise. Better for older hardware, but hardly great. Xfce 4.4 does show promise, has a nice, clean, and crisp look, but needs additional work. For example, I do not understand how any window manager designed today does not provide precise window placement and memory. Who runs a desktop with windows always popping up in the upper left corner of the desktop? There is no way to force windows to open centered with respect to the entire desktop and no method to force the Xfce window manager to remember window placement. This is a significant usability issue. Windows 3.11 resolved that kind of mess 15 years ago. Finis. Next: Xfce and GTK Revisited |
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