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[SOLVED] Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 11:35 am
by sagsaw
Is it possible to remove XFCE completely and use only LXDE or only Mate on MXLinux?
The aim is to get more and more lightweight using LXDE and with Mate the aim to have the Mate Desktop as personally I feel Mate/Gnome 2.0 are more Linux.
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:17 pm
by paulfsams
I use the Mate Desktop on MX Linux and it works well. If you are removing XFCE4 components, check to see what other packages will be removed. I don't remember which ones exactly, but a few packages are needed gor the MX utilities. This of course in not unusual of any OS. I made the mistake of removing a needed packge, again, I don't remember which one. I did leave the lxmenu components as I believe the MX menu editor relies on them. You will find MX Linux works very well with Mate. I think you will be very satisfied.
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:21 pm
by aledie
1) Pick the LXDE or one of Mate respins, other users made:
http://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php? ... 8c57093d72
2) if you want lightweight (whatever it means for you, few dozen Kb RAM saved? Which will be a drop in an ocean if you have even few years old PC), you can always use antiX-base. "Lightweighter" you probably won't get. If you don't like XFCE, at least for my taste there is no much practical difference to XFCE-less MX, which is based on antiX, I prefer to run antiX live from older USB2 while MX as full install.
3) you may also try "Minimal" MX version by user "manyroads", also listed in 1) above. It's XFCE but he brought it down from 1.2 GB to some 800 Mb ISO I recall. Tried it, he just removed what he considers nonessentials, I pretty have the same taste so see no difference or functional shortcomings vs. standard MX, just considerably smaller .
Btw, how is LXDE/ Mate "more Linux"? It is just a DE, Linux is always same.
Also, MX is pretty much tweaked for XFCE, not LXDE.
When I wanted minimal LXDE time back I used Russian Ubuntu respin Runtu, stripped down to few 100 Mb ISO and pretty functional good looking thing...
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:38 pm
by manyroads
The primary developers for LxQT use manjaro and siduction as their base for the LxQT DE. It is what they recommend.As for what you can do with any distro remember Linux's great strength is "you can do anything you want." Linux's great weakness is "you can do anything you want."
Edit: As for using LXDE (not LxQT) you really should consider using the DE the developers are working on and support. That is not LXDE.
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 1:04 pm
by sagsaw
aledie wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:21 pm
1) Pick the LXDE or one of Mate respins, other users made:
http://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php? ... 8c57093d72
2) if you want lightweight (whatever it means for you, few dozen Kb RAM saved? Which will be a drop in an ocean if you have even few years old PC), you can always use antiX-base. "Lightweighter" you probably won't get. If you don't like XFCE, at least for my taste there is no much practical difference to XFCE-less MX, which is based on antiX, I prefer to run antiX live from older USB2 while MX as full install.
3) you may also try "Minimal" MX version by user "manyroads", also listed in 1) above. It's XFCE but he brought it down from 1.2 GB to some 800 Mb ISO I recall. Tried it, he just removed what he considers nonessentials, I pretty have the same taste so see no difference or functional shortcomings vs. standard MX, just considerably smaller .
Btw, how is LXDE/ Mate "more Linux"? It is just a DE, Linux is always same.
Also, MX is pretty much tweaked for XFCE, not LXDE.
When I wanted minimal LXDE time back I used Russian Ubuntu respin Runtu, stripped down to few 100 Mb ISO and pretty functional good looking thing...
Mate is more Linux is what I wanted to say ... and thats becasue it based out of Gnome 2.0 ... just a personal nostalgic preference when I first installed Linux on my PC ... it was RedHat and then Debian and some others which came with Gnome by default ... 1999 ... So for a windows user till that time ... Linux was Gnome ... Hence the statement.
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 1:04 pm
by skidoo
I feel Mate/Gnome 2.0 are more Linux.
I agree, but past tense.
Mate development, feature-wise, has stagnated. If you visit the issue ticket pages and commit logs for each
of the mate apps, you'll find their attention across recent versions has been consumed by chasing break/fix
reimplementation, chasing Gnome3 compatibility.
https://github.com/mate-desktop/caja/issues 162 open issues
https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-screensaver 44 open issues
https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-power-manager 48 open issues
https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel 154 open issues
https://github.com/mate-desktop/engrampa/issues 34 open issues
"Recently used toolbar" does not work
break/fix break/fix break/fix break/fix break/fix break/fix...
Considering the length of the backlog queue, any newly reported bugs may be moot ~~
mate devs may well close all the GTK3-related tickets en masse when they
again change their silly hats and begin chasing GTK4
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 1:09 pm
by sagsaw
manyroads wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:38 pm
The primary developers for LxQT use manjaro and siduction as their base for the LxQT DE. It is what they recommend.As for what you can do with any distro remember Linux's great strength is "you can do anything you want." Linux's great weakness is "you can do anything you want."
Edit: As for using LXDE (not LxQT) you really should consider using the DE the developers are working on and support. That is not LXDE.
LXDE is still under development but slow.
https://blog.lxde.org/
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 2:44 pm
by kmathern
There's a command in the wiki to remove all xfce related packages:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/xfce/how-to-co ... move-xfce/
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 8:25 pm
by Stevo
There's also a newer LXQT in the test repo, as well as Enlightenment (lightweight desktop that doesn't get much attention here)
Re: Remove XFCE and use only LXDE or Mate
Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2019 3:02 am
by sagsaw
Stevo wrote: Wed Apr 03, 2019 8:25 pm
There's also a newer LXQT in the test repo, as well as Enlightenment (lightweight desktop that doesn't get much attention here)
I am not very sure of LXQT or fan of it ... LXDE is very simple light stable. And offlate its seen activity.
Yes Enlightenment is a very good lightweight desktop but I personally found it too confusing to use and configure. BodhiLinux is already a distro based on Enlightenment.