XFCE desktop for puppy !!!

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bombayrockers · #1 Post by **bombayrockers** » Sat 08 Oct 2005, 20:13

i have just got xfce 3.8 (taken from yum repository for mandrake 9.2) running on my puppy. take a look at the screenshot. though it is far from finished as much needed help is required to customize it for puppy and make a dotpup. I think this will be a valuable addition to puppy because it gives much needed eye candy without bloating it (like KDE / gnome)

bombayrockers · #2 Post by **bombayrockers** » Sun 09 Oct 2005, 14:52

yes xfce 4.2.2

the above screen shot can now be considered obsolete. i have xfce 4.2.2 running in puppy. it is a stripped down version.

it is just the desktop + tarskbar + window manager . nothing else (small size ~2Mb) because everthing else is there in puppy already.

i have however borrowed the gtk engine from xfce3 to give good looks to the gtk1 applications

gtk2 engine is from xfce4

some one with prior experience can help me configure it for puppy (menu and stuff) or shall i release an tar.gz

rarsa · #3 Post by **rarsa** » Sun 09 Oct 2005, 16:33

I can help you.

Send me the tar.gz and we can work together.

bombayrockers · #4 Post by **bombayrockers** » Mon 10 Oct 2005, 06:02

the tar.gz of the my working installation can be downloaded from

http://www.yourfilehost.com/media.php?c ... fce.tar.gz

extarct it to my-documents/tmp

read the readme file for installation instruction

IMPORTANT -> after copying all the files start xfce by 'xwin xfce4'

latest news is that after having made this tar.gz i tried installing other thing

xffm - the file manager is working ( massive size - now my total installation is 19 Mb)

xfsession (sesision mgr) is working

xf-mixer (sound mgr) - not working req libasound.so.1

battery monitor & network monitor is working

systray is not working

no xfprint

however i plan to release all of them as seperate dotpup so that the installation can be indivualized.

1. bare xfce for slower computer (xffm is slow on my box - pIII 128 Mb)
2. xffm for faster comps - more mem
3. other goodies as dotpup fot those who require (may be i might include the session mgr in 1 - it is quite useful)
4. dotpup for gps - graphical proces lister (taskmanager for linux)

rarsa · #5 Post by **rarsa** » Mon 10 Oct 2005, 18:30

Thank you,

I've installed it, it's working.

some one with prior experience can help me configure it for puppy (menu and stuff)

I'll create a script to build the menu from a JWM configuration file.

What other 'stuff' do you want help with?

bombayrockers · #6 Post by **bombayrockers** » Mon 10 Oct 2005, 19:40

i have earlier posted that a few things were not working but now i figured them out. take a look at the screen shot below i have the essential desktop ready and have made a dotpup for it. only thing not working is the menu

rarsa if you can make a dotpup for the menu than we can release these packages for general puppy use.

thanks for helping out

the dotpup can be downloaded from
http://www.yourfilehost.com/media.php?c ... e=xfce.pup

rarsa · #7 Post by **rarsa** » Mon 10 Oct 2005, 19:58

I'm working on that right now.

bombayrockers · #8 Post by **bombayrockers** » Mon 10 Oct 2005, 20:49

i would like to know what are the minimum system requirements for
xfce 3.8 and xfce 4.2.2

i believe xfce 4.2.2 would run slowly on older boxes and there xfce 3.8 can be used. the compete installation of xfce 3.8 takes about 5.0 mb , if stripped down will be much smaller and usable on older boxes.

i would like to know your opinions and experiences.

#9 Post by MU » Mon 10 Oct 2005, 21:08

Fine

2 things:

1. Some of my past Dotpups use imlib2.
XFCE4-Dotpup overwrites libimlib2 with an incompatible version.
To get it working again, simply re-install imlib2: http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/download.php?id=840
XFCE4 still works with that version.

2. XFCE uses "xfdesktop", which simply is a borderless backgroundwindow. It allows to open the XFCE-menue/Windowlist with Mousebuttons 2 and 3.

But it avoids ROX to be visible and the Puppy-Backgroundsetter from working.

So I modified .xinitrc and .xinitrc-xfce that way, that xfdesktop is not used (you can use the panel to open the menue, and the windowlist is not really needed because of the taskbar).
I also deactivated the cursor-entries, so that XFCE works with the Highcolor-cursors: http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=2714

With these modifications XFCE works very fine for me, except one thing:
When you start a program in the panel, the cursor becomes a clock (waiting) for some seconds, even if the application already started. Strange, but not a real problem.

Dotpup attached: modified .xinitrc and .xinitrc-xfce

Mark

data · #10 Post by **data** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 00:58

I downloaded and installed pup file but how do I start xfce?

rarsa · #11 Post by **rarsa** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 01:36

Here is the puppyfied xfce menu.

I'm working on the translator from JWM to Xfce4, right now it's hard coded.

Just extract it with

Code: Select all

tar -xvzPf xfce-menu.tar.gz

It will put the file menu.xml into /root/.config/xfce4/desktop

I think that instead of a separate dotpup you should include it along with MU's modifications with your Xfce dotpup.

I mean, how usefull is xfce without being able to access the applications.

Lobster · #12 Post by **Lobster** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 02:02

data wrote:I downloaded and installed pup file but how do I start xfce?

Follow rarsas info above - might as well have the Puppy menu
Start / Exit to prompt
type xwin xfce4

Drop dead gorgeous Puppy (wolf whistles)
I have a feeling that this requires a bit more oomph from graphics and processor? So far (10 minutes) I likes it!

dfv3 · #13 Post by **dfv3** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 05:42

I've just installed the xfce4 dotpup and the menu-builder script; but my installation is missing the icons from the sub-menus.

I've tried adding additional sub-menus (opera, etc.) with their icons --- using Xfce Settings Manager; but, is there a better way? Does anyone have a dot-pup script to transfer existing IceWM menu to Xfce4?

Aside from the above, my xfce desktop looks minimalist-cool!

Thanks,
dfv3

rarsa · #14 Post by **rarsa** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 06:03

Yes, I haven't finished the menu. I just posted it as quickly as possible so people could work with xfce.

I'm planning to create an JWM to Xfce4 menu converter to generate the Xfce4 dynamically at startup.

I'm wondering if it would be better altogether to do the JWM to XDG .desktop files.

Meanwhile not having icons ain't that bad, is it?

Lobster · #15 Post by **Lobster** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 07:11

rarsa wrote: Meanwhile not having icons ain't that bad, is it?

My Cecil*,

Until you mentioned it, I had not noticed there were
no icons . . . (AND I have always been a big fan of icons)

With all the libraries and mods and stuff I wonder how much a complete Xfce is? I also wonder about differences in speed? It is fine on my system - though the dragging of filled windows (not just boxes) seems to "screen melt" - a concern in other Linuxes . . . throwing more hardware graphic welly at it might help?

I think I might have to add a new fav wm to my poll (clue: Xfce is very, very pleasant). Somebody recently quireied about moving the menu on the right - you can do this with Xfce.

I am gonna see about adding icons to the tool bar (I tend to move my icons to Macs default position)

Have started (see bottom of page) modifying this Puppian page:
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/wm
- which uses html in between the "" ""
this adds a level of complexity to the wiki (though it looks nice)

*Lobsters Open Source Deity "Cecil"
http://peace.wikicities.com/wiki/Cecil

bombayrockers · #16 Post by **bombayrockers** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 19:55

i have just downloaded the menu and other files posted by MU. i will comr up with the dotpup in some time. thanks for being test rabbits (no pun intended ).

rarsa · #17 Post by **rarsa** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 20:04

I'm working on the menu generator. I decided to make it in C instead of an scripting language. The XML parsing is easier in C.

I'll try to have the first version today or tomorrow.

Here is my work plan:
Version | Included
0.1.0 Convert the jwm menu to a menu.xml
0.2.0 Show the correct icons
0.3.0 Generate the XDG structure and menu file
0.4.0 Generate the jwm menu from the XDG structure
0.5.0 Generate the <next wm> menus from the XDG structure

Of course I'm reserving the third level versioning for fixes to each of the stages.

As you can see, I hope this will be the stepping stone for having freedesktop standard menu structures.

ntrel · #18 Post by **ntrel** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 20:19

MU wrote:With these modifications XFCE works very fine for me, except one thing:
When you start a program in the panel, the cursor becomes a clock (waiting) for some seconds, even if the application already started.

That's startup notification - if you want to disable that, right click each panel item, click properties, untick "Use startup notification"

.

Thanks to all working on this, looks damn fine.

There's also xfce4-taskbar-plugin for embedding another taskbar in the panel; it also has 'Expand to fill screen' option which makes the panel look better IMO & may be more familiar for Windows refugees

. Also it would mean that the original taskbar could be removed (not sure if that'd save memory on balance though). The plugin can be got from the XFCE Goodies project:
http://xfce-goodies.berlios.de/
Also I personally really like the Terminal project - is multi-tabbed, has font anti-aliasing, but it is pretty fat (but not as fat as gnome-terminal) and we already have rxvt, which is pretty good.

Keep up the good work!

klhrevolutionist · #19 Post by **klhrevolutionist** » Tue 11 Oct 2005, 20:26

Here is my contribution to the xfce app

http://freshmeat.net/projects/xfce4-mou ... _id=208977

#20 Post by MU » Wed 12 Oct 2005, 03:59

ntrel wrote: That's startup notification - if you want to disable that, right click each panel item, click properties, untick "Use startup notification" .

Oh yes, that's it!

Thanks

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

XFCE desktop for puppy !!!

XFCE desktop for puppy !!!

XFCE 4.2.2

xfce.tar.gz

XFCE ready to published - almost

minimum system requirements

Xfce

thanks for the menu

startup notification / xfce4-taskbar-plugin / Terminal

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Re: startup notification / xfce4-taskbar-plugin / Terminal