Xfce 4.10 Desktop Feature Release

[nschermer]

If it's actually Xfce?s attitude towards communication that users/packagers need to hunt for bugfixed components themselves, it is no surprise that Xfce only has three developers. The sense of progress also attracts new contributors.

Haha, well sorry about that. But releases are announced in a number of places (the users and announcement mailing lists and identi.ca), but I agree, better announcements on the website is an area where we can improve. Will put it on my todo list.

[Hamish Wilson]

What's wrong with the xfce-mixer applet?

It is clunky and does not function like the two I mentioned above. I admit, completely personal taste here, but I just do not find how it operates to be acceptable. This is why I have the Gnome Fallback items in my task bar, so I can use it's volume control.

EDIT: I have just found out about pnmixer, which is kind of nice. Add that one to the list with Gigolo and Catfish

[DanL]

It needs a proper volume knob like the one in Gnome and LXDE.

What's wrong with the xfce-mixer applet?

[anonymous]

Now, anyone know where I actually should be posting this as to make a difference?

Try their bugzilla:

https://bugzilla.xfce.org/

[Hamish Wilson]

This sounds nice, but I hope there are fixes for these problems from 4.8, as they are highly annoying:

1. Icons not staying in position on the desktop when a game or something changes the screen resolution.
2. We have had issues mounting secondary hard drives and other devices (which is not a problem in Gnome).
3. The panels often hang on top of programs displaying things in fullscreen (such as VLC).
4. It needs a proper volume knob like the one in Gnome and LXDE.

There are some other things I could mention, such as there being no tabs in Thunar (though I read that this is a deliberate move), no file search or connect to server functionality in Thunar (I have to use Catfish and Gigolo, respectively), and not being able to turn off the icons being displayed on my secondary screen (though for the most part I am just happy it is working with Zaphod Mode).

I am not trying to be down on Xfce here, as it is some really nice things about it - it has the best compositor I have ever used and it is fairly flexible. I would just like at least some of these things to be addressed. Now, anyone know where I actually should be posting this as to make a difference?

[baryluk]

I really like this release. I see lots of BeOS/AmigaOS influences here.

[Awesomeness]

Of course. That news feed is for Xfce as a whole. If you want to see the bugfix for a component ( like Thunar) you have to read the news/changelog for that specific component

If it's actually Xfce?s attitude towards communication that users/packagers need to hunt for bugfixed components themselves, it is no surprise that Xfce only has three developers. The sense of progress also attracts new contributors.

[not.sure]

Just to inform: Xfce has a different release model then KDE and GNOME (and probably any other desktops). Because the development team is small (3 active developers), we decided that making stable release consumes too much time. So instead we make 1 stable release each year (time permitting, so 4.10 was ~4 months late), containing libxfce4uti-4.10.0, thunar-1.4.0 etcetc..
After that we only make stable releases of individual packages: so the latest Xfce 4.8 versions are xfce4-dev-tools-4.8.0 (same as in the 4.8 bulk release), xfce4-panel-4.8.6 (6 stable releases after 4.8.0 which was in the 4.8 release), xfce4-settings-4.8.3 (3 releases after 4.8) etcetc.

That's why we like it!
A no-nonsense, no version-number-bonanza, no break-shit-at-all-cost development model.

[anonymous]

Your ?different release model? seems to include the complete lack of any public news: http://www.xfce.org/feed?lang=en says absolutely nothing about bugfixed component releases.

Of course. That news feed is for Xfce as a whole. If you want to see the bugfix for a component ( like Thunar) you have to read the news/changelog for that specific component like:

http://archive.xfce.org/feeds/project/thunar

BTW anyone know of any live distro that has Xfce 4.10? I want to test it but not spend my time compiling nor actually have installed locally.

[Awesomeness]

Just to inform: Xfce has a different release model then KDE and GNOME (and probably any other desktops). Because the development team is small (3 active developers), we decided that making stable release consumes too much time. So instead we make 1 stable release each year (time permitting, so 4.10 was ~4 months late), containing libxfce4uti-4.10.0, thunar-1.4.0 etcetc..
After that we only make stable releases of individual packages: so the latest Xfce 4.8 versions are xfce4-dev-tools-4.8.0 (same as in the 4.8 bulk release), xfce4-panel-4.8.6 (6 stable releases after 4.8.0 which was in the 4.8 release), xfce4-settings-4.8.3 (3 releases after 4.8) etcetc.

Your ?different release model? seems to include the complete lack of any public news: http://www.xfce.org/feed?lang=en says absolutely nothing about bugfixed component releases.