Xfce 4.14 Desktop Officially Released

[birdie]

Currently the best DE in Linux. KDE 3.5.x was even better but it was buried by wannabe-UI-specialists.

[kpedersen]

What is the meaning of "usable" for you? I am interested in what you think about Linux DE.

For me usability is actually many things. However before we focus on any of them the core requirement is that the entire desktop environment uses less than 100megs.
Use Windows 95 as an example; no matter how terrible the operating system itself was, the "desktop environment" was much more powerful than what we have now and yet ran in something like 20megs of ram.

What do I mean by "more powerful"? Really it ranges from simple things like a custom menu builder, all the way to more advanced things like changing kernel tunables. Neither of which can be consistently seen in Linux DEs without 3rd party tools. This can boil down to customization. The user always know what they want more than the developer. The user has specific workflows and hardware that the developer couldn't even dream of.

Looking at CDE (runs in around 50megs), it even comes with an automation builder where you can drag and drop user interface components around (similar to Microsoft VB6). Again, this shows that functionality far beyond Gnome 3 can be obtained using much more correct resource management.

My second usability requirement is "consistency". Linux DEs change too much. They will never be consistent for ~5 years allowing for proper training of employees / workers. For this reason Linux DEs will always remain hobbiest / power user.

For everything else on why Linux DEs fail in the usability department, just ask around why people no longer use Gnome. You will get an idea.

Also note that I am not particularly bitter; I think bringing more people back to the command prompt to get around UI fallacies is actually good for the UNIX community.

TL;DR For a better answer check out the usability studies that Sun Microsystems undertook to make Gnome 2 what it was. This was costly and difficult but it is what made Gnome 2 "usable" and disregarding it is what made Gnome 3 "unusable". An example is: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=985991

[Veerappan]

Why would you want that? I use the touchpad on my Macbook all the time for scrolling and zooming, even though I have a mouse and keyboard connected to it.

It's really annoying to go to a conference room with my laptop and a mouse and have my palm/fingers accidentally activate the touchpad while I'm typing during a meeting. If I've got a mouse plugged in, I'd rather be able to let that take input priority and disable the trackpad. If I want to use the trackpad in this situation, I wouldn't plug the mouse in in the first place.

[Vistaus]

Just name one distro that drops gtk2 dependency of xfce 4.14.

Clear Linux. I can't find GTK2 in the Clear Linux bundles at all (nor on my Clear Linux install, for that matter), yet Xfce installs just fine from the repository.

[Vistaus]

So xfce 4.16 will have Wayland support through Mir by 2022, right? Or is that a pipe dream?

It will have Wayland support by the time Wayland will be on the verge of being replaced by its successor.

[heliosh]

accidentally activate the touchpad while I'm typing

Have you tried "Disable touchpad while typing"?
I use that also when no external mouse is attached.

[Vistaus]

You're also the only person with that opinion.

No no, don't forget about debianxfce

[Vistaus]

Currently the best DE in Linux. KDE 3.5.x was even better but it was buried by wannabe-UI-specialists.

That's why we have TDE

[Guest]

For me usability is actually many things. However before we focus on any of them the core requirement is that the entire desktop environment uses less than 100megs.
Use Windows 95 as an example; no matter how terrible the operating system itself was, the "desktop environment" was much more powerful than what we have now and yet ran in something like 20megs of ram.

What do I mean by "more powerful"? Really it ranges from simple things like a custom menu builder, all the way to more advanced things like changing kernel tunables. Neither of which can be consistently seen in Linux DEs without 3rd party tools. This can boil down to customization. The user always know what they want more than the developer. The user has specific workflows and hardware that the developer couldn't even dream of.

Looking at CDE (runs in around 50megs), it even comes with an automation builder where you can drag and drop user interface components around (similar to Microsoft VB6). Again, this shows that functionality far beyond Gnome 3 can be obtained using much more correct resource management.

My second usability requirement is "consistency". Linux DEs change too much. They will never be consistent for ~5 years allowing for proper training of employees / workers. For this reason Linux DEs will always remain hobbiest / power user.

For everything else on why Linux DEs fail in the usability department, just ask around why people no longer use Gnome. You will get an idea.

Also note that I am not particularly bitter; I think bringing more people back to the command prompt to get around UI fallacies is actually good for the UNIX community.

TL;DR For a better answer check out the usability studies that Sun Microsystems undertook to make Gnome 2 what it was. This was costly and difficult but it is what made Gnome 2 "usable" and disregarding it is what made Gnome 3 "unusable". An example is: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=985991

In my opinion, the simplest the more usable, the faster the more usable. Every time I give a look at Gnome (3) and Kde ((3),4,5) I wonder: those Gnome/Kde developers should enjoy themselves too much. They do not consider what the Linux users want, but they make only what they want to do to distinguish from the masses. I find all them a little egocentric. In this meaning their DEs are close to a commercial product.
It is curious that you talk of CDE. Infact, the first time I saw Xfce it resambled CDE. I think the libraries used for the GUI has became too big and fashon oriented. This means high cpu usage and slow responsiveness. Theming was a nice "linux game" some time ago, but now it is integrated in the libs whitout being an easter egg. The first step should be to develop a gui library small, simple, fast, nice and easy to personalize. The second step is to make a DE simple and user oriented. I don't think linux users are really interested in plenty of effects. In fact, the three major OS in the market, Windows, Android and OSX do not have a lot of spatial effects (well, one or two are not 'a lot of' ). In my opinion Gnome 2 and Kde 3 were the last linux DE usable and user oriented. Well, I always hated one thing about Kde 3, the thousands of configurable things. Giving a look at the alternatives:
- Enlightenment seems to me an inexplicable DE, giving to me the impression that the programmers are a little confused about the goal; Enlightenment is a missed opportunity for me;
- Trinity, the Kde 3 fork, is another matter; the programmers broken the compatibility with the original qt3 libraries and now the TDE has bugs that the original Kde 3 didn't have; TDE is a missed opportunity for me;
- CDE, I think it is very old;
- custom DE with spare components: I think it is not easy to make a custom DE using individual applications; e.g. I could use Thunar as file manager but it needs some libraries shared with the rest of it desktop; maybe there isn't a panel written using the Gtk3 libs; some other individual programs require dconf to work: for me dconf should not be used in individual programs as well as any Gnome components; spacefm seems good at first look but it doesn't have some important features (such as accepting thing from archive managers and native trash support) and has visible bugs;
- using the only window manager is simple ridiculous for most users;
- Cinnamon... I don't know, never tried; I know it uses Gnome components;
- Mate, the Gnome Flashback alternative;
- Lxqt is promising...;
- some new DEs have recently born, without any hope for me.

Among Gnome 3, Kde 5, Cinnamon, Mate and others, Xfce is the only valid Linux DE for the users, followed by Lxqt .For me.
(my English is so-so, I hope the comment is understandable.)

[Mr.Elendig]

Broken how? I'm using a multi-screen XFCE setup as I write this. Works fine. Not flawlessly, but any minor glitches are easily fixed after a reboot. So far, I only get 1 glitch with my 2nd display's task bar, which can be fixed by checking on and off one of the settings for it.

Bar/panels on unfocused monitors rendering over everything else, even if they are set to autohide and/or you have a fullscreen program running.