basic advise

[Yankee]

Hello,

Pretty much finished putting programs on KDE.   Like Xfce and am starting to put
programs on it.   Somewhat new to LINUX's requirements.   I know Thunar and
Xscreensaver have trouble working on KDE but work great on Xfce.  How can you
tell if something will work or not ?

Xfce says it will start gnome and kde services on startup so maybe there is no
problem.  KDE appears to run gnome programs better than Xfce programs.  Can
I run ahead and install and test anything on Xfce or is there an old proverb or two
I should be aware of to not to waste too much time trying out things that aren't
designed to run on this or that ?


thanks,

patrick013

[longtom]

In general one would should applications suited to your desktop environment.

That would mean that you use as many native Xfce applications as possible in order to keep your use of dependencies from other desktop environments (de) as low as possible.  If you don't do that you will loose the speed advantage (or at least some of it) Xfce has over the bigger des.

Example:

If you try to install K3b you will see that synaptic will pull a fair amount of dependencies which will all run in order to get K3b running.  On the other side if you use Xfburn you will run a lot lighter (and therefore possibly faster, depending on your hardware).

However - sometimes we just need that one or this one ... this is where you need to weigh up performance against comfort or personal preferences.

[kalwisti]

Hi, patrick013,

I agree with longtom's advice that you should try to use as many native Xfce applications as possible. Like you, I am a relative newcomer to Xfce so as I began using it, I tried to do some research and compile a list of recommended Xfce apps. I will cut and paste it below and hope you will find it useful. If I have omitted something important, I hope that other forum members will mention / correct it.


Recommended Applications for the Xfce Desktop Environment

This includes some information from the Gentoo Linux Wiki. {footnote 1}

Note: Applications labelled with an asterisk* require heavy GNOME dependencies.

Login Manager

• SLiM (desktop-independent graphical login manager = 'Simple Login Manager')

Web Browsers

• Midori
• Epiphany*
• Opera

CD/DVD Burning

• Xfburn
• Brasero

Multimedia

• Xsane (scanning)
• Sonata (music client)
• Gnome MPlayer
• Grip (audio CD player/ripper)
• Asunder (audio CD ripper)
• EasyTAG (for editing media tags)
• Audacity (audio editor)

Audio/Video Players

• Xfmedia
• Parole
• Quod Libet

Image Viewers

• Ristretto
• Mirage

Graphics

• GIMP
• Dia (diagram/flowchart creation)
• Inkscape (vector-based drawing)
• mtPaint (image editing, pixel-based)

Text Editors

• Mousepad
• Leafpad (alternative to Mousepad)

Archiving

• Xarchiver
• Squeeze

Bibliography Manager

• Xfbib

File Management

• Catfish (file searching tool)

Miscellaneous Applications

• gtk-splitter (split/combine files)
• Alexandria (book collection manager)
• Hardinfo
• wicd (wired and wireless network manager)
• GParted

Development Tools

• Geany (fast, lightweight IDE)
• Bluefish (HTML editor)
• wxChecksums (calculate/verify md5sums)
• GtkHash (calculate md5sums, sha... sums)

Office Applications

• Scribus (desktop publishing/layout)
• Evince*
• Epdfview
• Xpdf
• PDFedit (for manipulating PDF documents)
• Osmo (as address book and date calculator, e.g., tracking  relatives' and friends' birthdays)
• gfa (small, fast address book)
• Qalculate (multipurpose calculator)

Network

• Gftp (FTP client, GNOME-based)
• Pidgin (instant messaging client)
• Claws Mail (formerly Sylpheed Claws)
• Sylpheed (smaller, lighter than Claws)

{Footnote 1}. http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Xfce and http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Productivity_Applications_for_Xfce

[Yankee]

That would mean that you use as many native Xfce applications as possible in order to keep your use of dependencies from other desktop environments (de) as low as possible.  If you don't do that you will loose the speed advantage (or at least some of it) Xfce has over the bigger des.

Hello,

Well speed hasn't been a factor yet,  I'm running off a flash drive so everything is running OK
when it runs.  Sound Juicer wouldn't run on KDE as well as some other programs that wouldn't
see the CD player, things like that.  Some dependencies seemed incompatible with other
dependencies when I tried a variety of programs out.  But when other programs ran they
worked well.

I can see your point.


thanks for your response,

patrick

[Yankee]

This includes some information from the Gentoo Linux Wiki. {footnote 1}

{Footnote 1}. http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Xfce and http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Productivity_Applications_for_Xfce

I appreciate the info and the wiki.   I'll put it to good use in the near future.


regards,

patrick

[MGBguy]

Hi, patrick013,

I agree with longtom's advice that you should try to use as many native Xfce applications as possible. Like you, I am a relative newcomer to Xfce so as I began using it, I tried to do some research and compile a list of recommended Xfce apps. I will cut and paste it below and hope you will find it useful. If I have omitted something important, I hope that other forum members will mention / correct it.


Recommended Applications for the Xfce Desktop Environment

This includes some information from the Gentoo Linux Wiki. {footnote 1}

Note: Applications labelled with an asterisk* require heavy GNOME dependencies.

Login Manager

• SLiM (desktop-independent graphical login manager = 'Simple Login Manager')

Web Browsers

• Midori
• Epiphany*
• Opera

CD/DVD Burning

• Xfburn
• Brasero

Multimedia

• Xsane (scanning)
• Sonata (music client)
• Gnome MPlayer
• Grip (audio CD player/ripper)
• Asunder (audio CD ripper)
• EasyTAG (for editing media tags)
• Audacity (audio editor)

Audio/Video Players

• Xfmedia
• Parole
• Quod Libet

Image Viewers

• Ristretto
• Mirage

Graphics

• GIMP
• Dia (diagram/flowchart creation)
• Inkscape (vector-based drawing)
• mtPaint (image editing, pixel-based)

Text Editors

• Mousepad
• Leafpad (alternative to Mousepad)

Archiving

• Xarchiver
• Squeeze

Bibliography Manager

• Xfbib

File Management

• Catfish (file searching tool)

Miscellaneous Applications

• gtk-splitter (split/combine files)
• Alexandria (book collection manager)
• Hardinfo
• wicd (wired and wireless network manager)
• GParted

Development Tools

• Geany (fast, lightweight IDE)
• Bluefish (HTML editor)
• wxChecksums (calculate/verify md5sums)
• GtkHash (calculate md5sums, sha... sums)

Office Applications

• Scribus (desktop publishing/layout)
• Evince*
• Epdfview
• Xpdf
• PDFedit (for manipulating PDF documents)
• Osmo (as address book and date calculator, e.g., tracking  relatives' and friends' birthdays)
• gfa (small, fast address book)
• Qalculate (multipurpose calculator)

Network

• Gftp (FTP client, GNOME-based)
• Pidgin (instant messaging client)
• Claws Mail (formerly Sylpheed Claws)
• Sylpheed (smaller, lighter than Claws)

{Footnote 1}. http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Xfce and http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Productivity_Applications_for_Xfce

I'm a 3+ years user of PCLinuxOS... KDE desktop. I wanted to try a different DE on a separate system just to see what this flavor of PCLinuxOS is all about. This is good stuff to get me started. Thanks for sharing. We shall see. 

[Yankee]

I agree with longtom's advice that you should try to use as many native Xfce applications as possible. Like you, I am a relative newcomer to Xfce so as I began using it, I tried to do some research and compile a list of recommended Xfce apps. I will cut and paste it below and hope you will find it useful. If I have omitted something important, I hope that other forum members will mention / correct it.

Happy to report that Okular is working well on Xfce.   


Patrick013