Category: Linux
After the pleasant experience of running the Fedora 17 LXDE spin, I decided to give the Xfce Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle spin a try considering that the next iteration of Fedora was yet again delayed (which is not a big deal since 17 is an excellent release). Unlike Qt and the Englightenment desktop, Xfce gets plenty of coverage on the Internet. Linus Torvalds somewhat endorsed Xfce after the Gnome 3 debacle in 2011 and the awesome hosts of The Linux Action Show agreed that Xfce was a desktop environment worthy of Gnome 2 fans back in May 2012. Xfce is strongly supported by the majority of Linux distributions. I must admit my favoritism towards LXDE, the other lightweight desktop environment, stems from my poor experience trying out a Mandriva 2010 Xfce spin and Xubuntu a few years back. So it's time to give the popular desktop another chance with Fedora on the backend.
Reviewing a Desktop Environment
When reviewing a Linux spin, it's important to remember that the desktop environment is not the distribution itself. Xfce in Mageia is different from Xfce in Linux Mint. Just because the Xfce spin for a particular distribution is terrible doesn't mean the Linux distribution is terrible, too. For example, I preferred Lubuntu over a Linux Mint LXDE release though the mainstream Cinnamon and MATE Linux Mint spins are exceptional. Developers implement desktop environment with differing themes, window managers, and packaged applications.
It's very difficult to review just Xfce and remove it from Fedora. As I noted in my Fedora LXDE spin review, Fedora releases have been a hit-and-miss on my machines, but Fedora 17 struck a sweet spot. I ran Fedora 17 Xfce with the expectations the system would run smoothly.
Packs a punch for a "Lightweight"
I remember reading blogs a few years back about how Xfce had become as bloated as Gnome 2 and was no longer really a lightweight desktop environment. The discussion is somewhat irrelevant now considering the power of mainstream laptops. What I did find surprising about the Xfce spin was that it was fully-equipped with applications such as Remmina Remote Desktop Client, Catfish search, Geany (a lightweight IDE), and Red Hat's System Config Firewall (GUI). Lubuntu, in contrast, has neither a GUI firewall, an IDE, or even a file search utility in its default configuration (I installed GUFNW, Gnome-search, Remmina, and Bluefish separately on Lubuntu). I was extremely surprised that my first update on the Fedora Xfce spin through PackageKit even included the Gstreamer codecs (!). Other great but fairly unknown utilities included are Gigolo, Pragha, Sensors Viewer, and a complete set of Orage Calendar tools. More familiar utilities are Liferea News Reader, Transmission for Bit Torrents, Abiword, Gnumeric, and GParted. In fact, I can go as far as to say the Xfce spin is more complete than the mainstream Fedora 17 Gnome 3 desktop and more functional to boot. This is an advantage if you prefer your distribution fully-equipped out of the box without having to install any other applications.
The caveat to Fedora 17 Xfce's fully-armed approach, however, is an invisible bulk. The first time I ran the online update, I was shocked at more than 500 updates for software that came with the distribution. It took a good half hour before I was able to reboot and try out Xfce whereas the LXDE spin only had some basic security patches during my tests. There is no question that Fedora 17 Xfce spin's default configuration is more complete than Lubuntu's or the Fedora LXDE spin, but longtime Linux users might have a different set of applications in mind than the selections included with the spin. I would, for instance, use SMPlayer over Parole Media Player and install Thunderbird over Claws Mail. Fans of frugal Linux distributions who prefer to select their own software are better off with the Fedora 17 LXDE spin, which is severely more lean in its software selections.
PCMANFM vs. Thunar - Not Really a Clash of the Lightweight File Managers
File managers are integral to my workflow and I have a great love for Dolphin in KDE and Nautilus in Gnome. PCMANFM over in LXDE is a great file manager for everything from directory access to SSH tasks. Although I haven't used Xfce's default file manager Thunar extensively, it matches PCMANFM in almost every feature. It has similar deficiencies as well - like PCMANFM it doesn't have the split view and comic book thumbnails. Due to the lightweight design of both file managers, plugins have to be installed for both applications to add a bit of oomph. I never saw the need for any extensions on my file managers other than network access (which Thunar already has), but this is where Dolphin and Nautilus excel. Unlike PCMANFM and Thunar, the admittedly hefty Dolphin and Nautilus are fully-equipped and plenty of third-party plugins are easily available for install. The speed of Thunar, even when compared to Nautilus, Dolphin, and PCMANFM, is negligible in this day and age of quadcore processors and SSDs.
One feature of Thunar that might annoy users is bulk rename. Selecting files and pressing F2 in Thunar will trigger the Thunar Bulk Rename plugin. The utility is extremely powerful and allows users to customize file renaming from file suffix to number sequence. It's a bit overkill for most users and takes awhile to get used to especially if you're accustomed to a straightforward renaming experience in Windows or KDE. Although the approach is not as laborious as in MacOSX, the number of options can get confusing as well.
Sans the Bulk Rename, Thunar actually has more accessible settings than PCMANFM, but really doesn't have an edge in performance or functionality.
A Tale of Two Browsers
The ubiquitous Mozilla Firefox and the lesser-known Midori browser is included in the Fedora 17 Xfce spin and while I applaud the inclusion of a backup browser, Midori may not be the best selection. Midori is great for casual browsing but a message box pestered me several times on reboot about Midori crashing even if it hadn't during my last session. I actually would have preferred to have the developers include Chromium instead though I admit the whole point of including Midori was to provide a lightweight alternative to bulky Firefox.
PackageKit works!
I have no qualms with using yum on the Terminal but I was pleasantly surprised that PackageKit didn't have any issues in the Xfce Fedora spin whereas I had to uninstall Yumex in the LXDE spin due to a persistent error. Although the PackageKit GUI isn't as impressive as openSUSE's Yast2 or Ubuntu Software Center, I had no problems downloading updates and installing utilities such as Grsync. Devoted Terminal fans scoff at package managers but I actually like browsing through available packages and discovering new and useful software to try. Perhaps it was because of upstream updates or maybe the Fedora LXDE spin had native bugs, but PackageKit had no errors in this go around with Fedora 17.
Fedora 17 Xfce Spin Review - eXtremely eXcellent part 2: Panel, Application Finder, Window Manager, and Sex Appeal?
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