[desktop-discuss] Re: Xfce

[Doug Scott]

Stephen Hahn wrote:
> * Moinak Ghosh <Moinak.Ghosh at sun.com> [2007-02-01 21:12]:
>   
>> Doug Scott wrote:
>>     
>>> I agree with Garrett and Laca on this one. Xfce is a desktop environment, 
>>> so it's development should exist as a project under the OpenSolaris 
>>> desktop community. This of course does not stop it from being distributed 
>>> by Sun or any other distro as part of a companion CD if they wish. Some 
>>> distro's could include it as their primary desktop and possibly only 
>>> desktop, and not have a need for a companion CD.
>>>
>>> To me the companion CD is really a "Sun" distribution (and non-support) 
>>> issue, not to be confused with OpenSolaris development.
>>>
>>> One other point is that Gnome and Xfce share many common libraries,
>>> apps, config files etc. It is much easier to keep them in-step and
>>> compatible if they share a common build environment such as pkgbuild
>>> and share a common discussion list/community.
>>>       
>>   Indeed these are valid points. Xfce is a lightweight alternative and
>>   extremely functional at that. It does make sense to keep it as a
>>   first class citizen, esp. as a CDE replacement.
>>     
>
>   It would actually be very interesting to see Xfce shoot for an
>   installation in /usr somewhere, and not off in /opt.  Additionally, I
>   would be happy to help figure out, if the project team is interested,
>   how Xfce might end up a consolidation, rather than only a project.
>   That would match up with how CDE was handled, although it's not
>   necessary to match up so.
>
>   (See
>   http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/os_dev_process/#glossary
>   for one attempt at a distinction.  Or tell me to stop complicating
>   things--that's okay, too. :) )
>   
Stephen,
   I am using JDS's pkgbuild tools to build the packages for Xfce. By default it
is putting Xfce under /usr, which intergrates it nicely with JDS (apps for each
automatically appear in each other environments menu). The only thing which I have
seen might need tweaking is the need to change some menu entry names to ensure that
you are running the right apps. Such as the menu editor for each other environment
is shown is the preferences menu, which might confuse the punters.

   As for adding it to the consolidation, the SVR4 packages take up just of 30MB of
space (Things like glib/gtk+ are already in JDS).

   I have a tar of the spec files and patches if anybody wants to have a look at what
I have done so far.

Doug