how's XFCE in XUbuntu 11.10

[Liviu Andronic]

(keeping it well off-topic)


On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 7:04 AM, Andrzej <ndrwrdck at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 11/25/2011 11:15 PM, Liviu Andronic wrote:
>>
>>> Also (although that's off-topic here), if you were ever using Gnome and
>>> you
>>> liked it, I advise you against upgrading to 11.10.
>>>
>> Curious: why so?
>
> Liviu, I'm assuming you haven't heard of it. The reason is very simple -
> Gnome, as we know it, is gone. The replacements, both Gnome Shell and Unity,
> are still very fresh, under-featured and are attempting to provide a
> tablet-like experience. I wouldn't recommend switching to them to anyone
> using his/her desktop for work (I guess that's what Mihamina meant when
> saying "critical laptop"). At least for now.
>
This makes sense. Your original remark was slightly ambiguous, and I
thought I understood you saying that Xfce couldn't perform as an
almost drop-in replacement to Gnome 2; hence my inquiry.

Personally I cannot quite understand when people (say, Linus Torvalds)
complain that Xfce is a step backward compared to Gnome 2. Xfce can be
configured to have the same desktop appearance like the rigid Gnome 2,
but provides so much more flexibility (and compatibility with the
Gnome applets). So where is Xfce inferior to Gnome 2?


> I'm a long time XFCE user so the whole thing didn't really affected me that
> much. In fact, I see it as a big chance for XFCE to be noticed by mainstream
> users and distributions, who want a reliable, fully-featured and supported
> desktop for production environments. That's why I've decided to step in and
>
I'm also a long-time Xfce user, and also hoping that---in
hindsight---this whole Unity backlash would represent the external
shock that Xfce needed to get mainstream recognition and more
widespread adoption.


> do some work on remaining rough edges (in my case that was a panel in
> vertical mode). That's a pure calculation - with a relatively small effort
> you can make quite a big impact. If you feel capable enough, I recommend you
> doing the same.
>
My other hope is that this will attract new developers and
contributions. In my experience, the Xfce devel team has always been
understaffed, and very selective in accepting new contributions, so
I'm curious to see how---as Jannis put it---"these diverse times"
would work out. For my part, I'm no programmer, but I'm doing my best
to contribute on this list, with bug reports and feature requests.

Regards
Liviu