I guess I assume "BS" means "UX flourishes that most end users are used to," and I'm not sure minimizing it immediately is the best approach to bring people into the ecosystem.
After ~10 years of using XFCE, I recently for the first time encountered flickering, after an NVidia driver update. I disabled compositing and it went away. Still happy, but clearly something broke there. Pretty sure someone's trying to fix it, somewhere.
Who is actually getting this impression? What thing that they "need" is in doubt?
> I guess I assume "BS" means "UX flourishes that most end users are used to,"
You assume incorrectly. Every OS and DE finds some way to be obnoxious, even when you've learned the tricks and keyboard shortcuts. XFCE just seems to have the least of them. It's predictable. I think a new user will be able to navigate it immediately. I don't know about KDE, but I sure couldn't say the same about Gnome 3.
What on earth?
No, the config has dialogues and intuitive controls. There is a settings-editor you can go into if you need to, with a bit more of a regedit kinda feel, but I haven't looked in there in years.
> Gnome or Cosmic are safer starting points.
In Gnome, can I move the UI elements to locations I want them in? Or are we still in a situation where it's opinionated and you have to seek plugins to get an experience that you actually want?
No.
> Or are we still in a situation where it's opinionated and you have to seek plugins to get an experience that you actually want?
Yes, 100%.
COSMIC feels like GNOME but done right to me. It's not as pretty but while it looks and works pretty much the same by default, you can choose what goes where.
Saying that, I still much prefer Xfce.
It's still a very nice desktop and you can combine it with Compiz if you want to have some fun.
XFCE seems to just work.
Kids those days. twm or fvwm shall be ok.
Absolutely categorically false: I daily-drove such a config on openSUSE for 4 years, 9-5 Mon-Fri.
One portrait, one landscape: fine. 2 portrait flanking one landscape: fine. Laptop + 2 external displays, 1 big in portrait, 1 small in landscape: fine. 2 screens, vertically stacked: fine. 2 side-by-side, one big one small: fine.
Everything works exactly as expected. Panels stay put. Some apps can't remember their positions but they can't on any WM or desktop.
Very dissimilar resolutions gets tricky but that's down to Xinerama not Xfce. It's true on all X11 desktops.
Xfce can do fractional scaling on a per-display basis to get on-screen features the same size, but it results in some displays getting slightly blurry. Tolerable for short-term use but not all day every day, for me.
But Xfce is 100% usable in heterogenous multihead and indeed handles this as well or better than almost any other mainstream X11-based desktop.
I very recently upgraded from a dual fullhd to a dual 4k setup and I was genuinely surprised how little problems I had setting everything up to the high DPI displays. I am genuinely interested in hearing what pitfalls might still await me.
It doesn't affect all monitors, but some DPIs really don't play well with X. The fractional scaling you get on Wayland leads to some element of blur instead, but that's a far lesser evil, the jank is a bigger issue IMO.
Once you've set it up it works pretty well though.
Now if only I could remember what I did to get it working nicely...(luckily I've had the same installation of XFCE on my machine for the past 5 years so haven't had to fiddle with that in a while)
But now I have so much screen real estate, I'm almost considering using a tiling window manager.
Also I enjoyed how easily I could modify it:
- xfwm4: zoom only to multiples of integer, nearest neighbor only
- xfwm4: stop moving zoomed area after the cursor when Scroll Lock is on
- xfce4-screenshooter: supply custom actions with parameters %x %y %w %h of a selected rectangle, allowing me, for example, to select a rectangle and then launch a screen recording script.
Never found the use for multiple desktops, though.
The only part that irritates me is having to interact with the GTK file chooser (file open dialog). Someday I might be annoyed enough to replace it.
That's probably my only annoyance as well. Is there an easy way to replace it? Not being able to see the path as a string is very "un-linux".
They have a visual language that's not changed for decades and just works.
I prefer tiling window managers with no decorations, but whenever I have an app that doesn't play nice with xmonad I open an xfce x server and do my work there.
There are many other options though.
I also like the fact that it allows use of any window manager and even supports Wayland now (so Wayfire is an option).
I have some old chromebooks (flashed with chromebox firmware) that uses xfce too, which works great!
So kde & xfce is the only two desktops I use these days & have patience for.
go for NORD theme
https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic
and I love this icon set (white)
https://www.xfce-look.org/p/1277095
for more NORD integration have a look here:
https://www.nordtheme.com/ports
have fun
As for the icon theme, Elementary XFCE works perfectly well with Zukitre. If not, ePapirus or Papirus itself. Simple and flat but contrasted, the opposite to a good chunk of flat themes today, where you can't guess where the buttons start and end.
Once you get used to that theme the Night Mode it's useless as I you can just spawn
sct 5500 #or xsct
sct 3500
xsct/xsct will work with any window manager, too. And the Zukitre themes blend really well with minimal window managers as CWM, i3, DWM and the like, as it has neither curves nor gradients.
I added i3 so everything is on the keyboard.
XFCE is great because it lets you put it in the background. The GUIs are there when you need them, but it is just as happy if you don't.
TBH I typically run things fullscreen, so the only part of xfce I normally "see" is a thin task bar at the bottom with open windows and clock and such. Well, except for when I use Thunar, which is a nice enough file manager.
You're probably not the target audience then. It's not a DE that prioritizes prettiness.
If you want something that looks like the 90's desktop metaphor, it's exactly that and it's really good at that.
For dark mode, try: - in 'Appearance': set Adwaita (dark), - in 'Window Manager': set 'Default', - in 'Panel': set dark mode.
This works in Debian 12 (running XFCE 4.18) and looks beautiful. Easy on the eyes, readable, comfortable.
For other themes look at xfce-look.org. You install these by decompressing tarballs into ~/.themes/$(theme_name) folder and then selecting these in settings manager.
I just looked at the homepage to see if it was anything different than I see on my machine, and if anything it looks nicer there. It's certainly nothing fancy, but I feel like there's hardly enough there to really count as "ugly". It all fades into the background quickly when you're doing actual work on it. But YMMV I guess.
(edit - there are a ton of themes out there: https://www.xfce-look.org
Though personally I would avoid using their app)
Qogir-dark icon theme.
Whisker menu, application icon+ labels and the system tray thing in the bottom panel.
Basically, it looks like windows 7.
I first used it on an eeepc because something light was the order of the day. But then Gnome 3 happened and I made the switch on my full-strength machines too.
It works and it works well. It's theme-able. It's not opinionated about how I should use it so I can put bars wherever I want, launchers, menus, systrays wherever I like, and I can do it all with a few clicks and dragging and dropping stuff.
Generally a great DE and one that won't screw you over on update, which is something I've come to value.
Admittedly, I use Gnome. I have few requirements for a DE and most existing DEs meet my need[1]. Many in the Linux community hate Gnome (not sure what the short comings are). I use it mainly because it is the default in most cases.
But KDE is extremely ugly out of the box: the panel at the bottom. The window frames, the mouse pointer, the menues. It takes some work to make it reasonable.
What are the features that people actually use on KDE that are missing on Gnome (or require some work to get on Gnome)? I mostly see only the argument that KDE is "extremely customizable" compared to Gnome. I agree, but what is the actual customization that one does that make the difference, which are more work to achieve (or impossible) on Gnome? I am genuinely asking: I can live with ugly DE if I am missing something I don't know.
[1] my needs: ability to switch windows, ability to press super key to search for an app, ability to display time.
Same. To each their own, but I also prefer the aesthetics of the GNOME and GTK ecosystem. Though I use Sway as a WM the past few years, I always opt for GNOME and GTK apps when there are options. I've been using Linux since about 2000.