XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

[justwantin]

Works on desktop and acer netbook. No startup hang with thunar. Both usb sticks and external drives mounting properly.

Well done! to say the least.

[Ahau]

Thank you for testing, I'm so glad it's working for you!!

I've compiled the rest of the packages from source, and those will make an appearance in my next release. I may need to sort out how to compile the panel separately, so that I can configure it to accept transparency....the build script I have for it builds everything with the same compile flags, and I think the panel may need transparency set up with an --enable.

[Ahau]

New, improved module is ready to download, check the first post in this thread. I gave things a big facelift this time. Justwantin, if possible, please verify that automounting is still working for hard drives, I've messed with things a little more (again).

Thanks, and I hope it works well for everyone!

[justwantin]

Ok, I've downloaded and will test later. I seem to be having troubles booting into text mode and having xconf run first (poulsbo video). I'll have to fix that.

Posted after 1 day 1 hour 23 minutes 7 seconds:
Ahau,

Automounting and thunar are working fine. Haven't found any other problems, probably won't, well done!

Posted after 1 day 23 hours 43 minutes 4 seconds:
Ahau,

I have tested on my hdd install as per your request to see if the xfce cheatcode will work and /etc/rc.d/rc.4 is automatically be replaced by /etc/rc.d/rc.4.xfce, with a backup saved as rc.4.old.

Also I mentioned in that thread ( http://porteus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=895 ) that xfce's terminal will not work without the lxde module loaded because of a missing dependency, That dependency is vte. , however, it proably doesn't matter unless running porteus with xfce as the only de on board

[Ahau]

Thanks, justwantin!

Yes, sorry for my poor documentation/organization on the dependencies for this module --

For now, the xfce module does depend on packages from the lxde module, that includes vte as well as udisks, upower, libatasmart, and sg3_utils. I have those packages compiled and sitting on my flash drive right now, what I need to do is put them in a module and post a link so that folks who want to get rid of lxde completely can do so by adding that second module -- I'll call it xfce-shared-deps.xzm or something.

[justwantin]

folks who want to get rid of lxde completely can do so by adding that second module -- I'll call it xfce-shared-deps.xzm or something.

I woder if it is worth it, your extra effort, I mean. Lxde is small anyway.

I noted a failure to automount after booting with lxde in optional and then activating it. Also I would get a "you are not authorised to shutdown" notice when trying to shutdown fron xfce desktop. It works without a warning on the second attempt. This has happened twice but I don't have any more time to test atm.

[Ahau]

My offhanded guess is that gnome-keyring and/or gnome-disk-utility are failing to start and run properly without the deps from LXDE.

The module described above would only be for those who are intent on purging LXDE -- especially LXDE apps. Basically, I want to make sure the DE can stand on it's own, without anything from LXDE or KDE. It will make more sense after I've put together an XFCE-apps module to replace the apps in LXDE/KDE.

[justwantin]

I checked it again:
1) Boot with lxde module in base and can automount, log out OK
2) Boot with lxde in optional, no automount but logout OK
3) Boot with lxde in optional then activate lxde (as user) after boot, no automount and at logout a message appears saying "you are not authorised to shutdown", then goes to new login in with slim. Log into new session as the same user and can shut down OK but does not automount.

[brokenman]

In my opinion ... users should be told to boot with cheat in order to arrive at xfce desktop. DM were designed to be booted into and remain and if you go switching environments i think it will lead to all sorts of problems because you are fighting the nature of the beast. Possible for sure .... but worth it for an OS that boots in 20 second?

[Ahau]

Original post has been updated to point to a new module -- I'm calling this one a beta release (see the changelog in the first post for more info).

@brokenman -- switching between xfce and lxde isn't really the issue that's being discussed -- I agree with you that rebooting with the cheats are the way to go. justwantin and I have spread a discussion across two threads and the mchat, and he was reporting on how xfce behaves without having the lxde module from /porteus/base present (the xfce module borrows some dependencies from lxde). For those who wish to purge lxde from their system, I've added an optional module (see the link in the first post on this thread) that contains just those dependencies.

@justwantin -- thanks (yet again!!) for testing. Luckily, the behaviour you experienced is easy to resolve -- boot into xfce with all of the dependencies present, whether in the lxde base module or the optional module I've posted

With this moving into beta, I'll be relying more on bug reports, feature requests, and configuration tweaks from users, if they have any. I'll also start working on a supplemental module with extra goodies for the panel, and potentially an app module that will allow (something close to) full replacement of the kde and/or lxde modules -- if I'm feeling that ambitious Suggestions are, as always, welcome.

One more thing --- I customized the xfce4-mixer app a little bit to show the master and speaker channels. This fixes the icon in the panel so that it shows the volume level and when the sound is muted, but I'm a little concerned that doing this has locked in the configuration to my sound card (HDA Intel) -- please let me know if the mixer is still working on other systems with different hardware.

[brokenman]

Sounds great, i will be sure to give it a test shortly and report back.

[Ahau]

I've added a 64-bit version of XFCE, built in the same manner and with the same defaults as the 32-bit version, for my own convenience.

I've also added "add-on" modules for each edition, which includes some extra utilities and panel plugins.

For both modules, go to the first post in this thread and follow the links.

Here's a list of the packages in the add-on module:
-thunar-archive-plugin: access Xarchiver from the thunar right-click menu (note: seems to be broken for compressing, but works for extracting)
-xfce4-taskmanager: view running tasks, CPU/RAM usage, etc
-xfce4-screenshooter: take screenshots of your beautiful new xfce desktop -access from the command line or add it as a panel plugin
-xfce4-calculator-plugin: adds a calculator field to your panel
-xfce4-clipman-plugin: a clipboard utility to manage multiple clipped items (add to the panel)
-xfce4-cpufreq-plugin: monitor your current cpu frequency -- this one doesn't work for me, if it doesn't work for any of you, then I'll drop it as it's probably a kernel config that's not been compiled in
-xfce4-notes-plugin: add post-it notes to your panel
-xfce4-systemload-plugin: view system load information in your panel
-xfce4-verve-plugin: add a field to your panel that will accept CLI commands (without opening a new Terminal)
-xfce4-wavelan-plugin: view wlan stats in your panel - I think this is duplicated in the notification area, so this will likely be dropped, but it was easy to add
xfce4-weather-plugin: adds weather information to your panel

For all of the panel plugins, you will need to add them to your panel (after activating the module) by right clicking in the panel, hover over 'Panel >' and selecting 'add new items'. You'll then need to configure some of them by right clicking on them.

If you really like some of these (or, if you hate them and think they are useless bloat), please let me know and I can add them to the main module and default config, drop them completely, etc.

Posted after 9 hours 15 minutes 39 seconds:
Update: at brokenman's suggestion, I've created a googlecode page to host my files, track issues, etc. It's very much a work in progress, but you can view it here:
http://code.google.com/p/porteus-xfce/

[fanthom]

just downloaded 64bit version - looking good!
http://oi41.tinypic.com/2ai372b.jpg

after few minutes of playing with it i have discovered following issues:
- image viewer is missing (i can provide gpicview slackbuild/xzm module if necessary)
- PPM doesn't start when launched from taskbar
- i would lower opacity in terminal to 85-90% as it's hard to work with current settings
- thunar does not display internal volumes (not sure if it has this feature)

more to come...

[Ahau]

thanks, fanthom!

-I'm in the process of putting together some applications. I've compiled ristretto, the xfce picture viewer, but it will take some testing to see if it's better than gpicview (if you have a build script that is customized beyond what's on slackbuilds.org, I'd take it). I've also put together mousepad (which I think may be depricated -- may use leafpad or medit instead), squeeze (might prefer Xarchiver), xfburn, and midori. I've tried compiling postler, their e-mail program, and it fails to compile for me... so yes, an image viewer is on the way

- regarding ppm, which porteus base modules do you have active? ppm is loading fine for me from the panel link in 64-bit mode. I do have lxde and kde in place, but that shouldn't matter. Maybe a trial version is poking around in your /porteus/modules or rootcopy?

-I agree with your assessment of the transparency in Terminal, I've tweaked it to ~90% in my snapshot.

-As I understand it, Thunar only shows external volumes in the shortcut pane. There may be some way around this with udev rules or something, but I've not figured it out. The good news is that it's easy to add shortcuts. Click on the File System shortcut, then double click on mount, and drag and drop your desired folder into the left pane, and you'll have a shortcut there to your device's mount point.

Thanks for testing!

[justwantin]

I've been using this for about a week, just general usage, ebook reader, music/mp3, some stuff in libre office and such. I installed some additional things but have not found anything out of the ordinary to report. Let me know if there is anything specific you'd like me to look at.

Mousepad has not been active for awhile and I believe leafpad will become xfce text editor.

Have you considered claws for email client?

Thanks again for the effort you have put into this.