Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

jotapesse · 2019-05-02 09:45

I hereby request that Q4OS offers an integrated Xfce (GTK) desktop version. I'm a long time Debian/Xfce user and find it an excellent compromise for performance, low resource usage (similar to TDE), stability and strong customization. I much prefer it to KDE/Plasma or Gnome/MATE/whatever...

I also volunteer to help build it and maintain it, although my experience is somewhat limited on that front but I'm willing to help and learn, if Q4OS team welcomes it.

q4osteam · 2019-05-02 10:20

The most easy way to use XFCE on Q4OS is to start with a default Q4OS system and use Desktop profiler to install XFCE. If you want to create a customized Q4OS live media with XFCE desktop by default, you are most welcome. We would recommend you to start remastering Q4OS live media, please see https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1214 . We are ready to support you in that effort, just ask for help on this forum.

jotapesse · 2019-05-02 10:37

Thanks. That's how I did it. I'll look into the remaster process and give it a go. I'll get back to you.

Rademes · 2019-08-10 19:08

I will vote for Q4OS with XFCE desktop as default desktop. The reason is - TDE still has bugs, but that is not the main reason. Any desktop environment has bugs. The main reason is - TDE team fixes bugs very slowly. Sorry q4osteam, but I can not be quiet, when I see it. TDE users have to wait for bug fix 5-12 months. It is very long period. For example this bug was reported 2016-05-20, fixed 2017-02-05 - after 9 months. Bad! This bug was reported 2016-05-20, fixed 2016-10-01 - 4,5 months. Not good but okay...acceptable...
Now behold! this bug was reported in 2015-12-16, and after almost three years (2018-08-04) they asked me "Is the problem still happening?" Yeah, I allredy changed three Linux distros! When I saw this, I slowly slipped under the table...
2019-07-28 I have returned to Q4OS, with hope, that I will not have any problems with TDE. But no, there are still problems with TDE in Centaurus. This Bug has been reported a year ago (2018-08-01) and still has not been fixed.
OK, for now I have to use Trinity, because I have notebooks with old hardware. But, if the situation will not change, I will switch to another desktop environment completely. In my opinion, TDE support is bad. Sorry q4osteam, but I can not be quiet, when I see it.

Last edited by Rademes (2019-08-10 19:45)

cjoliprsf · 2019-08-10 19:58

Or... Why not Mate???
I have been using Mate with Mint for about 4 years now, with no issues really. I really enjoy this desktop and trials I have made with others never convinced me to change.
Mate would be lighter than XFCE for memory usage from tests I have made, and almost as frugal as Trinity while being better looking and having more in it.

crosscourt · 2019-08-18 03:12

I also like Mint Mate but given that KDE5 uses far less memory than it use to, in my case with a default install, 450-525mb depending on the distro, they already offer a KSE version. Im running the Q4OS KDE version and its using 457mb at GUI after boot. If you want to tweak and stop startup apps you dont need you can get it even lower.

Dai_trying · 2019-08-18 11:21

My vote is for trinity, it's the main reason I chose this distro in the first place, and continues to be it's appeal to me.

crosscourt · 2019-08-18 17:21

Trinity should remain as the default and not be dropped but having alternatives to draw other users who wont use Trinity isnt a bad idea. That said the devs have enough to do now that adding more DE's is going to be time consuming. Having KDE with Trinity may not sit well with some but at least youre supporting two DE's that are related in some way.

Last edited by crosscourt (2019-08-18 18:03)

cjoliprsf · 2019-08-18 17:23

I would tend to agree with Dai, in that Trinity is one great asset of Q4OS. Its other great asset in my opinion is the installation procedure which makes it easy to build a very slim OS by using the "pure" profile and then installing only what is really needed.

The combination of these 2 assets make Q4OS really shine when a small footprint OS is needed, like for running Linux in a virtual machine, for computers that have limited resourses, and other similar applications. Yes it is possible to build a very slim OS by other means, maybe even slimmer than Q4OS, but it is going to be a lot more work for not much gain. Q4OS make it very easy for us to achieve this.

Now I can understand that the Q4OS team would like to broaden their user base, and for this they have chosen to offer it with the KDE Plasma desktop, and also by making it easy to install other mainstream desktops like Mate or XFCE. The problem there, is they enter another field - the big guys' playground, and there is a lot of competition from well established distributions like the Ubuntu / Mint (for those who like conservative systems) or Manjaro (for those who like systems that are always up to date). These distros are backed by much larger teams of developers and offer a more finished look which is very appealing. This is really very strong competition for a small distro like Q4OS.

I have a small laptop computer that runs Linux Mint. I have been running Mint on this computer since Mint 17.1 (i.e. in 2015), which was recently upgraded to Mint 18.3. I also recently upgraded this computer with a SSD drive and added a RAM chip. And since that new SSD drive has more space than the old one, I decided to install Q4OS side by side and compare to see if there would be some performance gain with Q4OS compared to Linux Mint.

I have compared 3 configurations on this small laptop (VAIO with 11.6" screen dating back to 2011, CPU AMD E350 (2 cores, 1.6 GHz), RAM 6 Gigs, SSD WD 500 Gigs). The RAM usage was obtained with the "free -h" command in a terminal taken after boot and without loading any other program than the terminal emulator. I did wait a few minutes after boot to make sure the initial processes would be completed.

Linux Mint 18.3 with Mate desktop version 1.18
boot time 54 seconds
RAM at idle from 345 Megs after boot, and down to 300 - 310 after a few minutes.

Q4OS 3.8 with Trinity
boot time 58 seconds
RAM at idle from 328 Megs after boot, and down to 285 - 290 after a few minutes

Q4OS 3.8 with Mate version 1.20
boot time 47 seconds
RAM at idle in the 325 to 345 range.

The reason the boot time is slightly longer with Trinity is simply that there are more icons on this desktop. For me, the 3 systems are equivalent for boot time. Also loading programs takes the same time with either system.
For RAM usage, Trinity is winner, but by a very small margin over Mint/Mate. Difference is of the order of 20 megs, which is negligible on a machine that has 6 Gigs of RAM. Q4OS with Mate did use a bit more than Mint, I assume this is because Mate is loaded on top of Trinity maybe?

So, all in all, I don't see much advantage in using Q4OS in a computer that has more than the strict minimum of RAM and of disk space. And I also don't see much point in using Q4OS with another desktop than Trinity - might as well then go for a "big" distro. And although I am not a great fan of Trinity, it does get the job done, and its look and feel is much improved in Centaurus by the way.

My opinion then is Trinity should remain the default and main desktop in Q4OS. For my part, I will keep on using Q4OS/Trinity for applications where I think it shines: in my Linux virtual machines and on an old low resource computer that only runs one program. As of the laptop computer mentioned above, I'll keep on using Mint as the main working OS.

crosscourt · 2019-08-18 17:45

Q4OS team could make some design choices for individual DE's to make them a bit more unique if they choose to which would differentiate themselves from the big boys rather than doing a simple respin of Q4OS with KDE, but Trinity is what makes Q4OS unique. The problem is many people dropped using Trinity and in fact I was using the PCLinuxOS version for a time which is a community version but eventually stopped using it as well. The strength of the support community here I believe is a great draw for both Trinity and KDE

Trinity should remain the default but offering other choices to widen the base is not a bad idea.

I also like Mint Mate and the Mate desktop in general but my resource usage isnt as low as yours. It runs around 400-450mbs.

Last edited by crosscourt (2019-08-18 17:57)

cjoliprsf · 2019-08-18 21:51

crosscourt wrote:

I also like Mint Mate and the Mate desktop in general but my resource usage isnt as low as yours. It runs around 400-450mbs.

Yes, apparently, RAM usage varies greatly depending on the hardware.
As mentioned above, Q4OS 3.8 (64 bits) with Trinity runs at idle at about 285-290 Megs on my VAIO laptop computer. By comparison, Q4OS 2.7 (64 bits) also with Trinity runs at idle at about 135-150 M in a VirtualBox VM. And I can even bring it lower (around 120M) if I deactivate the sound mixer and Klipper. OK, this is not the same version of the OS, but I doubt very much the version alone would be the cause for such an important difference.

Hence the importance for any comparison to be made on identical hardware.

crosscourt · 2019-08-18 23:08

Im running a Dell Lattiude E6420 with a sandy bridge Intel 2.6ghz cpu with 8gb of ram, Intel gpu. Ive never had Mint Mate run at less than 425mb and thats with tweaks. KDE5 runs in that range so for me theres no difference. All my distros are installed no VM and only one distro per drive, running on the exact same system. All are default installs with the same printer included in the mix.

bin · 2019-08-19 06:22

crosscourt wrote:

Im running a Dell Lattiude E6420 with a sandy bridge Intel 2.6ghz cpu with 8gb of ram, Intel gpu. Ive never had Mint Mate run at less than 425mb and thats with tweaks. KDE5 runs in that range so for me theres no difference. All my distros are installed no VM and only one distro per drive, running on the exact same system. All are default installs with the same printer included in the mix.

Agreed - I tried stock Mint Mate with just Firefox running and it was at around 950mb. Even after removing and tweaking bits it didn't drop a lot because of what seemed to me to be some very daft dependencies.......

Sadly I fear that XFCE 14.4 with it's shiny new GTK3 coat may go the same way in memory usage.

At present I'm down at around 320mb tickover on Buster XFCE, with a lot of stuff like samba, cupbrowsed, modemmanager etc all chucked in the hedge. With just Firefox open for this I'm at 714mb which is still pretty rubbish.

Q4OS Jessie I could get down to around 175mb tickover!

Last edited by bin (2019-08-19 06:23)

jotapesse · 2019-08-19 09:15

Hi! I just would like to remind everyone that the original post was about proposing a Q4OS Xfce version, not about what should be primary, Trinity or otherwise. Or about proposing other Desktops Environments. So let us please try to keep to the subject.

Having said that, it all comes down to a personal preference. Q4OS is best known for it's TDE implementation but TDE is somewhat crippled, buggy and it seems to stall in time. Great for old computers and un-savvy people, however, but that's a small niche group. In the way I see it, for Q4OS to reach wider audience it has to evolve while keeping its core values. So it has also implemented KDE Plasma and makes itself available to that audience. Great, but...

My personal preference is Xfce, besides low resource usage (not only memory) it's very easy, fast, efficient and very, very, very customisable. We can make it however we like it. I also generally prefer GTK apps to QT. But of course @q4osteam may not have the resources available to dedicate to other DEs or even agree to that path and that's perfectly fine by me.

Last edited by jotapesse (2019-08-19 09:17)

Dai_trying · 2019-08-19 09:30

Lat time I checked Xfce could be installed from the Desktop profiler straight after installation, so it almost is a Q4OS Xfce version... but maybe I'm being picky.

jotapesse · 2019-08-19 09:52

Dai_trying wrote:

Lat time I checked Xfce could be installed from the Desktop profiler straight after installation, so it almost is a Q4OS Xfce version... but maybe I'm being picky.

You can also easily install xfce with apt. But that's not the point is it? You surely understand that "it almost is", as you put it, it's quite different to a proper Q4OS customized, themed and native apps integrated install.

Dai_trying · 2019-08-19 10:24

Yes you are right of course, but I guess I'm a fan of a distro that focuses on doing one thing well rather than watering down that focus to try and become everything to everyone, I know there are quite a few users already using Xfce as seen from some previous posts so it might be something that other users would find useful.

I'm not sure how much customization is done during the profiler installation, but I'm sure it would be relatively easy (if not already done) to add customization to the Q4OS Xfce Desktop Profiler installation.

bin · 2019-08-19 11:37

The default install run by the Desktop Profiler actually does a very good job of installing a good working XFCE desktop from the standard Debian repos. It just seems daft to install a Trinity based Debian then add on XFCE if you want just XFCE in the first place.

One of the issues I have come across is the GTK config locations. Q4OS now provided multiple locations to try to cater for different DE's.

This gets to be very confusing especially if, like me, you are used to transporting configs across multiple environments.

In the past I found myself working through and removing all the alternates just to leave a bare ~/.config where I knew it would all work.

By the time I'd done the question was whether it was all worth it to get to an XFCE desktop that I could arrive at in other ways.

All my apps are GTK2/3 or QT4/5. The underlying OS bloat from Debian 8/9 to 10 means there's not a lot of difference in memory consumption, and I'm sorry to say the number of annoying glitches in the Trinity UI mean that it is no longer such a pleasure to use - and boy do I hate Plasma

So, yes I'm in favour of a dedicated XFCE world - but that's already done in Solydx and MX-18 to name but a couple.

What would be the benefit to the Q4OS team to have to work with a whole new range of tools for the benefit of a small minority - especially with the ever changing mudflats of GTK3?

crosscourt · 2019-08-19 17:28

Sorry we got off topic jotapesse as most of those comments were directed at Rademes wanting XFCE as the default DE.

To bin, that memory number I quoted 425mbs was at the GUI after boot, and I also get similar numbers to you at the Firefox screen, around 850mb.

Rademes · 2019-08-21 21:24

crosscourt wrote:

Im running the Q4OS KDE version and its using 457mb at GUI after boot. If you want to tweak and stop startup apps you dont need you can get it even lower.

I will try KDE Plasma version, but later. I remember my experience with KDE4 (Kubuntu) in 2012. It was slow, sluggish and contained a lot of unnecessary (for me) stuff. Also it was too difficult for me. GNOME 2 was much faster and easier! The overall impression was so bad, that since then, I had never touched KDE.

danielson · 2019-08-22 14:31

KDE is very nice on Q4OS - but willing to look at XFCE if it is 4.14

deanr · 2019-09-07 15:48

danielson wrote:

KDE is very nice on Q4OS - but willing to look at XFCE if it is 4.14

KDE is the very reason I'm here! I was looking for a Plasma DE as close to Debian as possible.

I think most people looking for an Xfce as close to Debian as possible will float towards MX Linux. And judging by MX's popularity probably stay there.

satu · 2019-11-12 00:59

Tt's impossible to please everyone. SolydX and MX Linux come with XFCE ready out-of-box.

danielson · 2019-11-12 18:36

Recent exploit on some distros with XFCE:
https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-t … 4-0196078/

HAL_2000 · 2021-01-08 23:59

Well this is an old conversation, but it is one I arrived at after searching for a configurable, lightweight DE. LXDE is very light, but I wanted to keep my initial install light, not add one DE upon another. It's easy for me to say that I would prefer a Xfce OOTB distro of Q4OS, but I am no developer, so I'll have to wait until such a release is offered.

Reason? I have been searching for a lightweight OS for older, 32-bit hardware, that can be easily themed. Reading extensively from the How-To websites, they keep referring to Xfce, and specifically to Xfce4.

I'll be keeping an eye out for any Q4OS/Xfce / 32-bit releases.

Thanks in advance for the work you put into making it.

Last edited by HAL_2000 (2021-01-08 23:59)

Q4OS Forum

#1 2019-05-02 09:45

Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#2 2019-05-02 10:20

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#3 2019-05-02 10:37

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#4 2019-08-10 19:08

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#5 2019-08-10 19:58

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#6 2019-08-18 03:12

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#7 2019-08-18 11:21

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#8 2019-08-18 17:21

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#9 2019-08-18 17:23

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#10 2019-08-18 17:45

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#11 2019-08-18 21:51

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#12 2019-08-18 23:08

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#13 2019-08-19 06:22

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#14 2019-08-19 09:15

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#15 2019-08-19 09:30

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#16 2019-08-19 09:52

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#17 2019-08-19 10:24

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#18 2019-08-19 11:37

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#19 2019-08-19 17:28

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#20 2019-08-21 21:24

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#21 2019-08-22 14:31

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#22 2019-09-07 15:48

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#23 2019-11-12 00:59

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#24 2019-11-12 18:36

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

#25 2021-01-08 23:59

Re: Q4OS Xfce Desktop version

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