A HOWTO document & Bug to report

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Op ma 18-08-2003, om 19:42 schreef Paleo:
> I wrote a HOWTO document for installing XFce4 on SuSE 8.2. Furthermore, I have 
> some bugs to report.
> 
> Can you direct me to the proper people?
> 

Preferably you should subscribe to the xfce4-dev mailing list at
http://moongroup.com/mailman/listinfo/xfce4-dev/ if you want to report
bugs.

Comments below.

[...]
> If you currently have Xfce3 installed on your system, remove it before 
> proceeding with the Xfce4 installation. Now we are ready to install our newly 
> acquired binariess. Use the following command to install your selected RPMs:
> 

Xfce4 is in no way conflicting with xfce3. Both versions can be
installed at the same time without any problem.

> libxfce4util-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> libxfce4util-devel-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm
> libxfcegui4-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> libxfcegui4-devel-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm
> libxfce4mcs-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> libxfce4mcs-devel-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm
> xfce-mcs-manager-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xfce-mcs-manager-devel-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xfce4-mixer-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm - Required by xfce4-panel. 

  This is certainly not the case. the mixer is a panel plugin and as
such depends on the panel, not the other way around.

> xfce4-panel-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm - Required before installing the panel 
> plugin RPMs.
> 
> 
> The remaining packages can be installed in any order.
> 
> dbh-1.0.14-3suse82.i386.rpm 

You list this as one of the dependencies, which is correct, so it makes
sense to install it before anything else. In any case it must be before
xffm.

> gtk-xfce-engine-2.1.3-1suse82.i386.rpm
> xfce-mcs-plugins-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xfce-utils-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm
> xfce4-iconbox-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm
> xfce4-systray-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xfce4-themes-3.99.2-1suse82.noarch.rpm 
> xfce4-toys-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xfdesktop-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xffm-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xffm-icons-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xfwm4-3.99.2-1suse82.i386.rpm 
> xfwm4-themes-3.99.2-1suse82.noarch.rpm
> 
> 
> The startxfce4 script
> 
> Once the XFce4 RPMs are installed, you will have a (binary) entry by the name 
> of startxfce4 located in the /usr/bin/ directory. This file should be copied 
> (not moved) to one of two places, depending on your needs:
> 
> 1- Copy startxfce4 from /usr/bin/ (it's original location) to the 
> /usr/lib/xfce4/ directory:
> 
> 	cp /usr/bin/startxfce4 /usr/lib/xfce4/
> 
> 2- This option is for those who wish to customize the behavior of the 
> startxfce4 script. If you plan to modify the startxfce4 script, copy it from 
> /usr/bin/ (it's original location) to ~/.xfce/ in your home directory.
> 
> 	cp /usr/bin/startxfce4 ~/.xfce
> 

Sorry, but I'm afraid this makes no sense to me at all: Why copy the
script if you later are going to link to it anyway? And why use
~/.xfce/, that is used by xfce3?

The way to customize startxfce4 is through the /etc/xfce4/xinitrc
(global) file, that you can copy to ~/.xfce4/xinitrc (and make
executable) to customize locally. 

> 
> Linking
> 
> When you login into your system and select a window manager, the Linux system 
> will call for the needed binaries in /usr/X11R6/bin/. After you have copied 
> the startxfce4 script in one of the two above-mentioned manners, you will 
> need to create a link from that script's new location to the the 
> /usr/X11R6/bin/ directory.
> 

I can't really believe this is required. Surely the path for the display
manager is not limited to /usr/X11R6/bin?

> Bugs, oddities and complaints
> 
> Well, as nice as it is, there are some areas of concern. Here they are listed 
> in what I consider the order of importance.
> 
> 1.It apppears create a second instance of Xfce4 if you are not running as the 
> root user. The really odd part is that when you log into a shell as root to 
> execute a script, your screen blanks out and a  xscrresaver session pops up. 
> You have to move the mouse to gain the window focus back. This makes me 
> wonder if it is indeed a dormant session of root running in the background. 
> If so, I would think that this is a serious security issue.
> 

well, xfce won't start a root session by itself ... so, if one is
running, it was started by the display manager.

> You can get the screen saver to quit popping up by editing the "test $UID" 
> line in the /etc/xfce4/xinitrc file. Simply look for the following line and 
> place a hash (#) in front of it:
> 	# Launch xscreensaver  (if available), but only as non-root user
> 	test $UID -gt 0 && xscreensaver -no-splash &

or copy it to ~/.xfce4/, make it executable and edit that.

> 2.Non-Gnome applications are much slower to load.

I'm sure you mean kde apps. You can try running kdeinit or something
from the xinitrc to preload the kde libs. This will require more memory
and increase the startup time of course.

> 3.The Xfce run pop-up (xfrun4) does not allow passing perameters to scripts, 
> etc. This appears to be a very thin "Run.." perameter. I am sure that it will 
> get some attention in coming releases of Xfce.
> 

It certainly does allow arguments. What exactly is your problem?

	Jasper