The future of Xfce

[Mauser]

In my experience I don't find them to be a trustworthy source. From what I understand if I understand correctly is the Whisker menu is built with the Gtk tool kit while LXQt & KDE are both built with the Qt tool kit which that difference doesn't look good for the Whisker menu being added to either LXQt or KDE.

From what followed in your post, I assume you mean KDE isn't trustworthy(?). The link to Manjaro says the LXQt people were jonesing for Xfce's whisker. LXQt's community might be more welcoming of someone wanting to implement it with the Qt framework?

IMO, LXQt is kind of odd. It started out intending to be an exact recreation of LXDE. But, it seems like they're adding some newness to it. Some people were unhappy with the direction LXDE took with this, the higher resource usage (Lubuntu deprioritized being lightweight). My impression was that LXQt/Lubuntu were letting things flow where they will. That might have been a good strategy because now Xfce is getting larger. LXQt might be the lightweight desktop again (relative to others).

Another thing that seems odd to me: I've read someone remark how LXQt is essentially competing against KDE. Neon KDE isn't that large (I just installed 20 distros. I did it a year ago too. I was surprise then and now how KDE is relativlely lightweight. It has a lot of config items to disable eye candy and animations. When you do that, it's in MX's territory.). That makes me wonder why the LXQt peple didn't just create a KDE-light desktop instead of something new from scratch.

Anyway, it has seemed like LXQt is creating a new "brand" (so to speak), finding a new niche. Especially as other distros evolve. It seems to me they'd be the most welcoming of an effort to bring Whisker to Qt. (And then, I think that would be useable in KDE too.).

I personally have always liked KDE. It reminds me of OS/2 for some reason. I wasn't very fond of LXQt a year ago. But, that could just be my own aversion to change. I just booted a Lubuntu 20.04 alpha the other day, and I thought LXQt looked nicer than I remember 19.4 being.

It's interesting how these things are evolving. A year or two ago, people were upset about LXDE being replaced with Qt. Xfce was the baseline of comparison. Now the spot light's on Xfce doing something new. Maybe this is LXQt's opportunity to be the baseline. (KDE used to be synonymous with large. Now it's in the mid-range compared to Mint Cinnamon, Zorin Core
or Elementary OS.).

I don't mean that. You got it all wrong.

[Mauser]

Mauser looks like you and I think alike. Maybe if needed in the future the xfce-panel could be made to run under LXQT, and then we get the whisker menu in LXQT that way? Kind of like a PeppermintOS mashup with MX?

Yes, if it could be done. But Peppermint uses LXDE not LXQt. So it may be possible with LXDE because it's built with the Gtk tool kit. LXQt is built with the Qt tool kit which would be possible less likely to do that.

[freemedia2018]

sometimes devs do things to keep themselves interested, else they get bored and wander off, which isn't good for anyone.

i know this, i do it too. but i also teach and encourage people how to make their own versions of the stuff i make-- to customise it to their hearts delight. its interesting (one of my primary interests, something ive spent more than a year on) to find the limitations of how much that attitude really scales-- and why. there are projects that used to encourage such things, only to eventually ridicule and discourage it. that shift is imo one of the most relevant problems in free software in this century.

i dont take things that people are counting on and then sabotage them. i wish i could single out one project, rather than create a growing list of examples. its so common a problem i connect it to encroaching influences-- with historical promises of doing such a thing strategically. there is a libreplanet talk and/or essay coming out on this subject (not from me) and while xfce (gtk) is not the example, there are a few examples that are more prominent, one NOT discussed a lot on this forum, which is the example used in the talk or essay. a lot of people are OK with this, and some people are going to be ok with it no matter what. funny thing, when you make changes, some people like them. and by itself, short of obviously relevant context-- thats certainly no problem at all. if youre happy, its probably great.

[az2020]

Yes, if it could be done. But Peppermint uses LXDE not LXQt. So it may be possible with LXDE because it's built with the Gtk tool kit. LXQt is built with the Qt tool kit which would be possible less likely to do that.

Peppermint uses Xfce, and with some things LXDE (lxsession, lxappearance). The Peppermint wikipedia page says it uses LXDE. But, last April I asked about that. I was planning to leave Lubuntu, and worried Peppermint faced the same problem Lubuntu did (with LXDE having no future). They said it's a hybrid Xfce environment.

The way so many Xfce distros look so different... it seems like whatever Xfce does going forward could be overridden. (Hopefully). I never liked Xfce, such as Xubuntu. But, some of the distros just don't look like X (the way I thought it normally looked.).

[jeffreyC]

A year or two ago, people were upset about LXDE being replaced with Qt. Xfce was the baseline of comparison. Now the spot light's on Xfce doing something new. Maybe this is LXQt's opportunity to be the baseline.

people who were happy with the way things were are probably going to be unhappy no matter what. despite what this could sound like, im on their side with this.

what i would like is something that is so profoundly and easily scriptable that once people are happy with it, they can keep it the way they want for 15-20 years.

that way when people make these changes, theyre only to a layout file-- not to a binary-- and people who liked it "the old way" can just use an older layout. honestly, machine learning is doing all kinds of amazing things (probably wont help directly, im not saying it does) and we cant even get icons and titlebars right. not a specific critique of xfce-- this is the entire ecosystem of free (better than non-free, sure-- but how much?) gui toolkits im taking issue with.

why cant they just make THEMES extend to LAYOUT so that big changes dont affect people who dont actually want to be affected? it really shouldnt be so hard to give choices here. its only hard due to the fact that they make it hard-- first for themselves. then for the rest of us. somebody-- no, i dont know who-- really ought to help these people. perhaps someday. this isnt rocket science. its only complicated if the toolkit developers want it to be. (they want it to be.)

GTK3 is a corporate (Red Hat) product built to work with another product of the same corporation (GNOME). They actively oppose any and all theming to protect the brand identity of their employers products. This is why every new release breaks themes built against the previous releases.

They do not care if it breaks anything but their specific version of GNOME. Xfce? What's that?

Old but still true:
https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11 ... in-threes/

These devs are not doing it to scratch an itch, they are collecting a paycheck so they are going to do what the employer says.

[Mauser]

Yes, if it could be done. But Peppermint uses LXDE not LXQt. So it may be possible with LXDE because it's built with the Gtk tool kit. LXQt is built with the Qt tool kit which would be possible less likely to do that.

Peppermint uses Xfce, and with some things LXDE (lxsession, lxappearance). The Peppermint wikipedia page says it uses LXDE. But, last April I asked about that. I was planning to leave Lubuntu, and worried Peppermint faced the same problem Lubuntu did (with LXDE having no future). They said it's a hybrid Xfce environment.

The way so many Xfce distros look so different... it seems like whatever Xfce does going forward could be overridden. (Hopefully). I never liked Xfce, such as Xubuntu. But, some of the distros just don't look like X (the way I thought it normally looked.).

I know that. I tried Peppermint before, but earlier you said it uses LXQt and not LXDE which use two different desktop environments with two completely different tool kits. The one must change I would do is get rid of Nemo and use Thunar instead because Nemo is horrible for copy & paste multiple files when some files are being already in where you paste them.

[figueroa]

I'm appreciating all the comments, but I hear a lot of incessant whining about changes to things they use but neither develop or pay for. Why not just be a lot more appreciative for the developers who keep XFCE stable, compatible, and robust in a changing world. I like the snails pace development of XFCE, and how they have successfully avoided feature creep and change for the sake of change.

Likewise, I quite like the slower development pace of LXDE, and I think the rumors of its demise are not panning out. LXQt, on the other hand seems to be perennially unusable as a primary desktop.

Now that I know more, I'm not worried about changes to XFCE.

[toni11]

Hi,
sorry dass ich Deutsch schreibe, kann nicht Englisch. - Möchte etwas zu XFCE sagen. Ich mag es sehr, weil es leicht konfigurierbar ist. Ich kann es schon fast blind einstellen, das gefällt mir. Verliere mit den Einstellungen wenig Zeit, alles geht schnell. - Es gibt daher viele Leute, die auch XFCE mögen. Man merkt es indirekt überall. => Manjaro, dann MX-Linux, die sind dadurch schnell in die erste Reihe gekommen. => Distrowatch ist zwar kein ganz objektiver Maßstab, aber diese Statistiken sagen doch etwas über die Vorlieben der User: wenn man beispielsweise alle Ubuntu-Distris bei Distrowatch anguckt, man sieht sofort, Xubuntu ist statistisch deutlich populärer als die anderen Buntu-Distributionen (dabei stabiler ist sie nicht!!!).

Liebe MX-Linux!!! Danke den Entwicklern!!! toni11

[freemedia2018]

I'm appreciating all the comments, but I hear a lot of incessant whining about changes to things they use but neither develop or pay for.

simple rule:

dont break stuff out of greed and break free software to make it more controlled, then insult people for not liking it when they know what youre doing and why-- when its worked fine for two decades. you have a weird concept of "appreciation" too, when youre not even the person who started the thread.

instead of complaining about "whining" why not just ignore the "whiners". i sincerely hope that will include me, as we obviously have nothing to talk about. no worries-- ignore is a feature for the greater good. it makes forums nicer for everybody. i dont intend to mention it again. also, how do you know what people have paid for?

jefferyc: preaching to the choir. which is alright, but right there with you.

[az2020]

It would be interesting to come back to this thread in a year or two, and see how people feel. Last April I did not like Lubuntu 19.4 & LXQt. But today it doesn't look bad. (The Linux Lite guy pronounced a few years ago that it would never -- ever! -- have UEFI support. I think he's about to disassociate from that with the upcoming LL 5.0.). '''

Why do we make so much out of seemingly trivial things (in retrospect, anyway) -- but, the Grub is accepted without complaint? That's one of the worst things to ever happen to humanity. I just edited a line to change splash quiet. It was like I was on a 300 baud connection (press a key, wait a second). WTF? We all go along with that like it's the new normal. But, title bars. Look out!