I think it is great that XFCE and other free desktops are becoming
more available on Solaris. That said, there is a fair amount of work
involved to make XFCE a real first class desktop. For example, the
XFCE panel lacks accessibility support or accessibility configuration
features (e.g. being able to autolaunch needed a11y tools on session
startup), though this is not a Solaris porting issue, obviously.
This is too bad since XFCE is mostly accessible since it makes use
of GTK+. I imagine that over time such issues will be addressed.
Brian
On 04/ 8/11 07:23 AM, Guido Berhoerster wrote:
* Ken Mays<maybird1...@yahoo.com> [2011-04-07 23:32]:
Hello all,
Ref:
XFCE Goodies: http://goodies.xfce.org
XFCE 4.8.0 Announcement: http://www.xfce.org/about/news/?post=1295136000
XFCE 4.8 Tour: http://xfce.org/about/tour
XFCE-4.8.0 was successfully ported by Guido Berhoerster (gber) - a lead
developer and packager for XFCE working for the OpenSolaris-based OpenIndiana
distribution project. I'm supporting Guido in reviewing many bugfixes,
stability improvements, and enhanced performance on Solaris-based platforms.
Most of the credit for making Xfce work goes to the Xfce
developers who have invested some effort into ensuring
portability to the Solaris platform. It was also Milan Jurik who
imported and updated the spec files from the opensolaris.org Xfce
project into SFE.
The XFCE 4.8.0 binaries currently work on OpenIndiana Build 148 and Solaris 11
Express!!
Currently only the latest git version builds cleanly, a few
patches need to be backported in order to build the latest
released Xfce components.
I am currently reviewing the latest plugins and work from the XFCE Goodies
project (ie. Eatmonkey, Parole, Gigolo, Ristetto, Xfburn, Dictionary, DateTime,
Midori, etc) as well as Rodent - a fast, small and powerful file manager.
I decided to use both Shotwell and Parole for digital photo organization and
management.
Overall, XFCE 4.8.0 is very lightweight on system resources and works quite
well on Sunray deployments. XFCE 4.8.0 works very well on x86 OpenSolaris-based
platforms using Intel/Nvidia-based GPUs and Compiz enabled.
Problems know in this release:
- Thunar-volman needed pending Solaris-specific integration work.
XFCE 4.8.0 binary packages are part of a future IPS update and custom
distribution through the OI project.
The specfiles in SFE still require some polish but I'd be happy
to assist Ken or any other volunteer who wants to maintain an IPS
repo providing the latest Xfce desktop.
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