part I
I've spent a little over a week using XFCE. A lot of you probably don't know my zealotry for Blackbox. If I used Windows at home, there is a good chance I would use bb4win. I love it. I know the configuration files. I know how to add what I want in no time at all. It's simple, basic, fast, and- er this is about XFCE isn't it?
Ok, like I said, I've used XFCE for a little over a week now. To quote CTho9305, it's pretty. I stuck with pretty much the default themes, but if I remember to I'll install a 3rd party theme to see how "tough" it is. I think I just have to untar the theme in /usr/local/share/xfce/styles or some such directory. So it shouldn't be tough at all. I'll update when I get around to it (if I get around to it).
The settings utility is pretty nice. Simple, and organized well. It took me seconds to add a few desktops (running with less than 5 is tough). I can't remember if sloppy focus is on by default (it's in part I), but there is an option for it. There is also a sloppy focus related option I adore! The window that is in focus will pop to the front if it is focused on for a period of time, and the period of time is user configurable. This is something I realize I want in every window manager, so I'll be looking for this in any potential upcoming threads.
There are 3 main "taskbars" in XFCE. There is one on the top, and two on the bottom. The bar on the top kept track of open windows on that desktop, much like the Windows taskbar. The bottom right bar did the same, but keeps track of all windows open on all desktops. It uses small icons to keep things from getting out of control. The last bar is on the bottom left. It has a button for an xterm, the settings program, a clock, and dozens of other little things. More on this later. Adding user configured programs to the bottom left bar is simple. You click on an arrow, and select an option to add an entry. Simply type the command into the box that pops up, name it, and you're done. Adding Mozilla, firefox, thunderbird, and dopewars was easy and took maybe a minute.
The bar on the left also has quite a few options. You can add little graphs for just about everything on the system. It feels like a built in gkrellm. I added a few to my bar: network throughput, disk throughput, cpu usage, memory usage, and swap usage. These are all available in gkrellm, but saves me the trouble of running yet another program.
The desktop does feel a bit cluttered. With three bars on the desktop, I felt like I lost a lot of screen space. The sizes of the taskbars are user configurable, so it can get better. XFCE is also fairly large. It was a bit sluggish at 256MB of ram, but ran quite well with 512MB. Maybe I'm picky, or greedy, or spoiled. So try it for yourself to see how it runs on your system.
Over all, I don't think it will be the :light: of my desktop experience, but I'm not going to be deleting it anytime soon. I would definitely recommend XFCE to someone with a decent computer, looking for something that is not barebones and a little flashy.
I've spent a little over a week using XFCE. A lot of you probably don't know my zealotry for Blackbox. If I used Windows at home, there is a good chance I would use bb4win. I love it. I know the configuration files. I know how to add what I want in no time at all. It's simple, basic, fast, and- er this is about XFCE isn't it?
Ok, like I said, I've used XFCE for a little over a week now. To quote CTho9305, it's pretty. I stuck with pretty much the default themes, but if I remember to I'll install a 3rd party theme to see how "tough" it is. I think I just have to untar the theme in /usr/local/share/xfce/styles or some such directory. So it shouldn't be tough at all. I'll update when I get around to it (if I get around to it).
The settings utility is pretty nice. Simple, and organized well. It took me seconds to add a few desktops (running with less than 5 is tough). I can't remember if sloppy focus is on by default (it's in part I), but there is an option for it. There is also a sloppy focus related option I adore! The window that is in focus will pop to the front if it is focused on for a period of time, and the period of time is user configurable. This is something I realize I want in every window manager, so I'll be looking for this in any potential upcoming threads.
There are 3 main "taskbars" in XFCE. There is one on the top, and two on the bottom. The bar on the top kept track of open windows on that desktop, much like the Windows taskbar. The bottom right bar did the same, but keeps track of all windows open on all desktops. It uses small icons to keep things from getting out of control. The last bar is on the bottom left. It has a button for an xterm, the settings program, a clock, and dozens of other little things. More on this later. Adding user configured programs to the bottom left bar is simple. You click on an arrow, and select an option to add an entry. Simply type the command into the box that pops up, name it, and you're done. Adding Mozilla, firefox, thunderbird, and dopewars was easy and took maybe a minute.
The bar on the left also has quite a few options. You can add little graphs for just about everything on the system. It feels like a built in gkrellm. I added a few to my bar: network throughput, disk throughput, cpu usage, memory usage, and swap usage. These are all available in gkrellm, but saves me the trouble of running yet another program.
The desktop does feel a bit cluttered. With three bars on the desktop, I felt like I lost a lot of screen space. The sizes of the taskbars are user configurable, so it can get better. XFCE is also fairly large. It was a bit sluggish at 256MB of ram, but ran quite well with 512MB. Maybe I'm picky, or greedy, or spoiled. So try it for yourself to see how it runs on your system.
Over all, I don't think it will be the :light: of my desktop experience, but I'm not going to be deleting it anytime soon. I would definitely recommend XFCE to someone with a decent computer, looking for something that is not barebones and a little flashy.
There are two options: minimalist, and pretty. The vast majority of open source stuff falls under "bloated and ugly".
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