xfce4 quick guide?...:)

[Jasper Huijsmans]

On 29 Jul 2002 15:51:51 +0200
Horn Gábor <Horn.Gabor at aktiv.co.hu> wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> As i saw on the list many people wanna give a try to xfce4 (because of
> the great shots?..:) I know it's not ready yet, but i think it would
> be a GREAT help for many of us if somebody could provide a short
> step-by-step guide about how to get the available parts of xfce4 (i
> mean xfwm4, etc) work. I myself could ran xfwm4, but only got a black
> screen with a mouse pointer :)
> Or is it a too lame question, and everybody else knows it?..:)
> 
> thanks, hirisov
> 
Hi hirisov,

That's it. You're running xfwm4 :-) The new window manager is just that,
a window manager. It doesn't do root menu's, icons for minimized apps or
anything else. You have to run other apps to work with it, for instance
xfce4 or even the gnome and/or kde panel.

There has been a step by step guide to building from CVS posted on this
list before. It was for xfce-stable, but the principle is the same.
There are also instructions for checking out from CVS on the
sourceforege page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xfce).

The layout of the xfce CVS repository is as follows:

xfce-stable
  contains everything needed to build xfce desktop environment
  version 3.

xfce-devel
  contains both old and new code. Not everything is useable at the
  moment. Working code can be found in the following modules:

xfce-devel/gtk-xfce-engine-2
  gtk2 theme engine

xfce-devel/xfwm4
  window manager. Very stable, but only manages windows. Needs other
  programs to provide functionality previously provide by xfwm. Mostly
  feature-complete (I think).

xfce-devel/xfce4
  gtk2-based panel. Less stable than xfwm4, but basic functionality is
  present. Works for me. Not all features implemented.

You can check out these modules independendly. XFce from CVS in four 
steps:

1) login
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous at cvs.xfce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xfce login

2) check out modules
a) stable
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous at cvs.xfce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xfce co
xfce-stable

b) devel
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous at cvs.xfce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xfce co
xfce-devel/xfce4 

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous at cvs.xfce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xfce co
xfce-devel/xfwm4 

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous at cvs.xfce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xfce co
xfce-devel/gtk-xfce-engine-2
 
3) build it 
look at configuration options with ./configure --help
go to subdirs and use ./configure [OPTIONS] && make && make install
if this gives errors, try ./autogen.sh instead of ./configure

4) run it
in ~/.xinitrc (or ~/.xsession if you login from x/g/kdm) put these
lines:

xfwm4&
exec xfce4

Or for xfce-stable run xfce_upgrade.

Be carefull with code from CVS. This is not yet considered fit for
release and therefore may break in all kinds of ways. Of course we do
appreciate feedback on your experience.

Hope this helps,
	Jasper