Hi,

OKay, I have fallen "victim" to Gnome3. Though agruable an improvement, it has drawbacks that make me look for an other DE, XFCE was suggested, so...here goes.

Is the following feasable? What pitfalls do I have to expect?

- make a full backup of the home folder, it is in a separate partition, by the way
- set up the system to start init 3 - so I dont have the DE in the way
- remove Gnome and everything that goes with it
- install XFCE
- configure the xinitrc to use XFCE

I use Arch Linux and of course, I do not expect the menu to magically reappear, I may have to reinstall/update every piece of software (Blender, Libre Office, you name it) just to get the menu starters back. Unless /usr/share/applications does work/get used in XFCE...

What problems can I expect?

Just looking into the plan, no executing it...yet.

Thanks for wanting to think alon with me!

Thor

Your plan looks fine but why not just install xfce, prior to removing Gnome? You should then be able to choose XFCE4 session as you login at the GDM screen. Your installed apps will be picked up by the XFCE menus.

Also note that XFCE4.8.x no longer requires HAL but relies on dbus, upower, udisk.

Have fun!

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi,

Tnx! Would'nt I have to finetune the xinitrc? In the end I will have to dump the Gnome and Company, so, re-setting that would be a must.

That is good news, saves me the hassle of re-installs...

I'll set this up on the print server (runs Arch as well) to see where it stands, screenshots I saw so far have gotten me exited!

Thor

If you are not using GDM and /etc/inittab (as recommended) to start X and login then yes, modify xinitrc to start xfce4. I am presently on Arch with KDE as my primary DE and xfce as a backup. I choose my Desktop Environment prior to login in KDM......

1 members found this post helpful.

I salute you "learned one" - thanks. I somehow knew that somewhere Arch was briliant, but this is beyond anything I expected. First, backup though!

Thanks

Thor