Openbox vs XFCE? (Page 5 of 7)

+1 I was curious why this wasn't done in the first place.

And please bring back dwm; I miss it.... NOT!

Have I understood correctly if I claim that all you have to do is to install the XFCE4-base packages...

xorg xfce4 xfce4-terminal xfce4-power-manager xfce4-screenshooter xfce4-notes tint2 catfish notify-osd hotkey-setup gksu gdebi gdm

...and that you can strip the list to include only those packages you have not already installed when installing the Openbox version, so that the installation command stands as follows:

sudo aptitude install xfce4 xfce4-terminal xfce4-power-manager xfce4-screenshooter xfce4-notes

See Corenominal's base package list for CrunchBang Xfce4 system and his post in the CrunchBang 10 "Statler" Alpha 1 Released thread. Quoting Mr. /root himself:

EDIT: Reporting the installation process:

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  aumix{a} aumix-common{a} desktop-base{a} fortune-mod{a} fortunes-min{a} 
  gtk2-engines-xfce{a} libfont-afm-perl{a} libhtml-format-perl{a} 
  libhtml-parser-perl{a} libhtml-tagset-perl{a} libhtml-tree-perl{a} 
  libmailtools-perl{a} librecode0{a} libwww-perl{a} libxfce4menu-0.1-0{a} 
  libxklavier15{a} libxml-parser-perl{a} xfce4 xfce4-appfinder{a} 
  xfce4-notes xfce4-screenshooter xfce4-session{a} xfce4-settings{a} 
  xfce4-terminal xfce4-utils{a} xfdesktop4{a} xfdesktop4-data{a} xfwm4{a} 
  xfwm4-themes{a} xinput{a} 
0 packages upgraded, 30 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 17.1MB of archives. After unpacking 58.5MB will be used.

And here I am with my fresh experience of #! XFCE (hmm... what's "gs" by the way... a-ha, Ghostscript – so it's evoked by xfce4-screenshooter, I guess – maybe I'll use scrot the next time...):

Last edited by Piraja (2010-03-26 09:30:31)

I never use smilies, but there are exceptions that prove the rule
Now playing: Last.fm

There is no "better," only "different." Try both and decide for yourself.

CrunchBang will still be available in an OpenBox version if you prefer. It is not "switching" to XFCE, just another option...

Omygosh! There's no comparison between Statler and Xubuntu! Both are fast on most hardware newer than 5 years old, but Statler's Xfce is much lighter on resources and has a much lighter choice of applications. Once you try it, I think you'll see what we mean. For another thing the Debian base makes it alot more stable than Xubuntu. Both are really nice though!

-Robin

Piraja

The only discernable difference i have found so far between the #!-xfce and #!-openbox+

sudo aptitude install xfce4 xfce4-terminal xfce4-power-manager xfce4-screenshooter xfce4-notes

is that I had to installl terminator or edit the thunar setting for the right click open terminal to work in thunar.

All of the #! settings seem to have translated well.

Cheers

Brokenpike

It should be neither impossible nor very difficult.  Just open XFCE 4 Settings Manager (it's in the right-click menu under Applications >> Settings), click the Keyboard icon, and edit the settings in the Application Shortcuts tab.

^ I think that's ncmpc++?

Getting a bit off-topic, but are you sure ncmpcpp is in the Jaunty repos?  I've tried several different mirrors, and I'm only finding ncmpc.

Oops, sorry, my bad. It's not in Jaunty, but in Debian Testing. To #! 9.04 I installed it from Arnaud Guignard's PPA: https://launchpad.net/~aguignard/+archive/ppa.
Add these entries to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/aguignard/ppa/ubuntu Jaunty main 
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/aguignard/ppa/ubuntu Jaunty main

Add the signing key:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 9058FBF6

Then update your sources and install mpd and ncmpcpp:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mpd ncmpcpp

Last edited by Piraja (2010-03-28 17:37:17)

I never use smilies, but there are exceptions that prove the rule
Now playing: Last.fm

All you have to do is try #! Xfce and Xubuntu and your question will be answered. They are like chalk and cheese. One clunky and awkward, the other refined and sleek.

True, but if Philip manages to solve those issues I do think that the release would benefit all #! users with both desktops, so that's why I encourage it.

Just rightclick the desktop > View > Show Desktop Icons. Works also in XP (non pro) and Vista..