I’ve ported to openSuse 11.0 from Ubuntu. Ubuntu was a great installation but it was a bit buggy (especially when it came to video playback and screen savers).
Now, Xubuntu-desktop was a very good package. It installed everything required for a great Xfce desktop experience.
My experience with openSuse’s Xfce-desktop hasn’t been that smooth (can’t move, resize, maximize windows etc).
Could anyone suggest what packages should I install for a good experience? Or, should I revert to Ubuntu and install their Xfce environment?
I’ve noticed a bit of a discrepancy between the level of polish and attention that Xfce receives compared to Gnome and KDE. For this reason, I’m working on an Xfce project in Suse Studio, but still have a ways to go before I’m brave enough to release it into the wild.
I’d be happy to help you set up the task bar and environment. The updater was particularly pesky for me in 11.1. Once you add Xfce’s repository, though, things should be a bit smoother for you. Try updating from there and see how that turns out first.
There’s a fair amount of configuration with the panels, etc, but it’s fairly easy and straight-forward. Please feel free to ask if and when you have any questions or run into any difficulties. Xfce is a nice lightweight alternative, and it would be a shame to turn off a new user due to a less than ideal experience.
Do you have xfwm4 installed, and do you know how to add repositories in openSUSE? I’m also curious to know what media you used to install openSUSE. Was it a DVD or a net install?
If you wish to try the xfce 4.6 rc1 you can add to your yast2 repositories both the 4.4.3 and 4.6 rc1 repositories. The features of xfce e.g plugins are all in the stable repo (4.4.3) but is working with 4.6 rc1.
Some of the plugins require some gnome packages to be installed so you may add the gnome repositories in yast2 which maybe you already have it assuming that your main de is gnome because you are coming from ubuntu.
The xfce settings in 4.4.3 and 4.6 is a bit different for example the display brightness adjustment is missing in the 4.6 version but in my installation I can still see the old display function from 4.4.3 in /usr/bin and working. you can make a launcher for this in the panel or in your desktop or add in your menu so you can adjust the brightness to your applications.
I can’t make a comparison between xubuntu and xfce in opensuse because I have not tried xubuntu, but maybe I can till that xfce in opensuse is fair enough for my everyday use.
SuSE is not the “U” it has been around before the “U” was even a space mans dream .
I don’t like the “U” , if you really want a easy to use and similar to SuSE use PCLinuxOS .
I use XFCE for a back up in case KDE crashes or needs fixing and can’t be started .
XFCE has a forum on their site that is informative , but it seems that several have offered to help you here as well , so enjoy and hope you stay with SuSE , I for one think SuSE is one of the best distros out there along with PCLinuxOS and Linus Torvald said he would choose Red Hat or SuSE for his distro of choice .
Xubuntu-desktop installs the entire package of Xfce including Thunar, Xfwm4 (window manager), xfce4-panel(Panel), xfdesktop, xfce4-sessions, xfprint, xfce-mcs-manager, xfce-goodies and more.
I just did an Xfce installation (in Fedora) and couldn’t find a single Xfce package so I went with the shotgun approach and installed everything I saw under the Xfce collection (pattern).
Not very scientific but if I were patient I would add bits and pieces at a time before until I get to the desired results.
Sounds if you are on the right track , if a distro has what you want then copy it’s settings as you described the “U” to have and you liked .
Yeah Red Hat is Gnome based for the most part , there are some distros other than the “U” that have XFCE as default desktop , go the distrowatch and do some looking .
Good luck and happy Linux computing . :good:
