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Long-time and happy XFCE userLong-time and happy XFCE userPosted Nov 10, 2011 17:44 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)Parent article: Why GNOME refugees love Xfce (Register)
I've been using XFCE since the 3.x days and love it. I've been using computers for a long time (since 1982) and really do not want to learn a whole new workflow every time a bunch of developers scratch their itch. So for me, the XFCE philosophy of providing a high-quality unobtrusive environment that keeps the same workflow from release to release is ideal.
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Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 11, 2011 19:50 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] And a followup: I just upgraded XFCE from 4.6 to 4.8... and... ... it looks and works just exactly the same. Imagine! I don't have to go through a learning curve! What will they think of next?
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 12, 2011 1:31 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
To be fair, Gnome only kicks users in the teeth on major revs: 1.0 -> 2.0, and 2.0 -> 3.0. :) I'm genuinely curious, how was XFCE 3.0 -> 4.0?
(admittedly there was that minor spatial disaster partway through the Gnome 2.0 series but most distros turned it off so it didn't affect many users)
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 12, 2011 2:00 UTC (Sat) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] I'm genuinely curious, how was XFCE 3.0 -> 4.0? I made that transition. It was considerably more disruptive than 4.6 to 4.8, but still not nearly as disruptive as KDE 3 to 4 or GNOME 2 to 3. The look changed quite a bit, but there was still a definite XFCE "feel" to both versions.
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 14, 2011 13:30 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>how was XFCE 3.0 -> 4.0?
Functionally it was fine, but that was the transition from Gtk1 to Gtk2, which ballooned the memory requirements to such an extent that I ended up switching back to KDE as lower resource requirements had been a major selling point for XFCE.
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 12, 2011 12:52 UTC (Sat) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]
Woohooo, no progress! What an AMAZING idea! Why didn't GNOME and KDE think of that?
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 12, 2011 14:32 UTC (Sat) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Woohooo, no progress There was progress. Bugs were fixed. The system was made more polished and snappier. Minor new convenience features were added. Overall, the system continues to become more enjoyable to use.
To quote you: What an AMAZING idea! Why didn't GNOME and KDE think of that?
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 15, 2011 2:43 UTC (Tue) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link]
Hmm, Gnome 2 developers have nearly perfected their system, and there's nothing more to do. Lets redesign everything from scratch, remove all the most useful features and make new ways to do the same thing. This will give us work for another 10 years!
Yeah, progress!
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 15, 2011 7:09 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]
Perfected? You must be joking. GNOME2 was constrained by an ancient UI. About time they ditched the greybeard attitude (oh, no! things aren't like the good old days!) and got something proper going.
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 15, 2011 12:57 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] GNOME2 was constrained by an ancient UI XFCE, apparently, is not. So it makes incremental progress rather than redesigning the universe with every major release. I know which philosophy I prefer for my desktop environment. About time they ditched the greybeard attitude Funny, that's what MSFT said to try to get UNIX users off UNIX and onto Windows. "UNIX is old; time to move on!"
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 15, 2011 13:54 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]
XFCE makes GNOME2 look good...
I don't really care what MSFT says, but they would have been right if no one had made sure that Unix kept progressing. Sort of like how it will be if you get your will about DEs.
Now stop whining about a desktop you don't like, and enjoy your XFCE.
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 16, 2011 12:14 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] XFCE makes GNOME2 look good I love reasoned argument. I've talked about how XFCE developers work hard to ensure that their users enjoy a stable workflow and don't suffer from radical changes on each major upgrade, and you take cheap shots at the looks of XFCE. Nice going.
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 16, 2011 12:31 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]
What you wrote was that XFCE was not constrained by the ancient UI that GNOME2 uses.
I simply stated that compared to XFCE, GNOME2 looks good (in that department).
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 16, 2011 16:12 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] I simply stated that compared to XFCE, GNOME2 looks good (in that department). That's totally subjective. What is objective is that GNOME (and to some extent KDE) are attempting to make major changes to the desktop and to people's workflow, which many people do not like. Also, GNOME 3 objectively has regressions (for example, focus-follows-mouse is somewhat broken compared to GNOME 2.) I have to say that KDE 4 looks a lot nicer than XFCE. But looks aren't everything; IMO KDE 4's workflow is a lot harder to deal with than XFCE's, and the same applies to GNOME 3. There's something to be said for experimentation, but as I wrote earlier, if the GNOME developers consider GNOME to be a testbed for experimental GUI work, they should state that up front so would-be GNOME users know what they're getting into. See http://lwn.net/Articles/466909/ If you want a stable desktop environment that uses a tried-and-true interface and focuses on stability and incremental improvement, then neither GNOME nor KDE is appropriate. If you want a desktop environment prone to wild experimentation by developers, then sure: GNOME and KDE fit the bill.
Long-time and happy XFCE user Posted Nov 15, 2011 21:47 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> got something proper going.
It used to take one click to switch workspaces. Now it takes several, after you search for the correct one. It used to take one click to bring back a task you hid from your view (minimised). It takes several now, after you search for the correct one. Shortcuts on the desktop (which I never use, but others do) do not exist any more, so opening a favourite file is now more difficult (i.e. requires more GUI actions). And so on and so forth.
These are regressions in the _graphical_ UI. The proper thing may apply to libraries and other under the bonnet improvements, but it certainly doesn't to GUI.
Gnome design documents talk at length about users being distracted by the taskbar, workspace switcher and other things that would tempt them to switch (but not activities button?). These users could always use autohide of the panel. Creating overview, which complicates things, requires unnecessary GUI actions, attacks user with animations and so on, is the root of these problems. Nobody needs an overview on a desktop/laptop computer with decent resolution (I know some will claim they do - see autohide). These are the things that tablets/phones may need, because there is physically no space to put interface elements that enable switching.
These are design problems. Or more specifically, design regressions.
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