Not a newbie to computers, I've been at this gig since the very early 80s, before a lot of you were born! But I am a newbie to this forum. And of course, I have a problem.

Several years ago I managed to install xfe on my laptop running openSUSE-something-or-another. So, I know it can be done.

But since then I've moved to a bigger, better laptop, and a newer more wonderful, latest and greatest openSUSE (sounds like a 1950s soap commercial!) and have either lost the knack, forgotten the tricks, or just plain gotten older, and cannot for the life of me install xfe. And virtually every webpage that propounds to show me how to do so is either written in gibberish or is multiple pages too long and contorted. I'm gonna die any year now. I don't have time for gibberish and abstruse, arcane, IT training manuals. Besides, I'm a biologist, another, completely different, complex science. Not an IT geek.

Can anyone point me to a webpage with concise installation instructions for xfe on a Linux machine, hopefully in English that I can understand? (And no, I have absolutely no interest at all in xfce or whatever!)

Or is this just another shot in the dark?

Many thanks.

Stan

Welcome to posting, after 18yr here!

IDK but maybe this: https://build.opensuse.org/search?search_text=Xfe

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, I'd seen that webpage, and it turned out to be a complete waste. All it said was that so far it wasn't available. It turns out that openSUSE would have been farther ahead using the time and effort that they spent on that webpage to solve the problem instead.

But, see my next post.

Thanks again for you attempt to help.

Stan

I'm labeling this one as [SOLVED].

INSTALLING xfe ONTO openSUSE 15.3 EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO OFFICIAL PACKAGE AVAILABLE (YET).

A friendly reminder: Before trying this technique on your system, be sure to do a global backup of all your system's files plus all your data files. If nothing else, when your machine crashes, and you post a nasty rejoinder to me, all I'm gonna do is shrug and say, "I told you so!" Just because it worked for me is no guarantee it'll work for you.

# (1a) Visit this webpage:

https://software.opensuse.org/downlo...OX&package=xfe

# (1b) Click the "openSUSE" chameleon (unless, of course, you really are running SLE).

# (1c) Click the "Add repository and install manually" link.

# (1d) The source for the directions below are under the heading "For openSUSE Leap 15.2 run the following as root:"

# (2a) [Note that I had to do the following steps because if I copied and pasted the command line directly into the terminal, it was automagically executed before I could edit it. However, your system's reaction may differ.]

# (2b) Copy the "Leap 15.2" command line into your favorite text editor.

# (2c) Change the "Leap 15.2" line to read as "Leap 15.3" as follows:

zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/reposi...3/X11:FOX.repo

# (2d) Copy and paste this edited command line into your terminal window. If your system requires that you run the command with root privileges, prepend that command line with "sudo" or whatever your system requires.

# (3a) Run this command next. (Prepend "sudo" if necessary.)

zypper refresh

# (3b) Run this command next. (Prepend "sudo" if necessary.)

zypper install xfe

# (3c) At one point during the installation the install program asked this question:

"Do you want to reject the key, trust temporarily, or trust always? [r/t/a/?]:"

I chose "t" and it seemed to work just fine. Follow your own conscience. If you have serious problems with the installation on your system, this might be a good place to start looking.

# (4) Additional notes:

# (4a) In the first 45 minutes of using xfe I haven't been able to find the location of the executable program. But when I typed "xfe" into the terminal, the program (xfe) loaded and ran nicely as a GUI.

# (4b) When I loaded xfe from the terminal with the sudo command prefix it also loaded with root privileges as expected.

# (4c) To make it easier to load when I needed it, while it was running on a desktop, I right-clicked its tab in the taskbar (not the part running on the desktop) and clicked "Pin to taskmanager."

# (4d) I'm getting a persistent error message that "Icon path doesn't exist, icon theme was set back to default. Please check your icon path." On the one hand, it's a little comforting to know that I'm not the only one having trouble finding all the program's parts; the program itself is also having trouble. On the other hand, that fact is also somewhat unsettling! (My installation is too recent. I haven't had an opportunity to debug this error yet.)

# (5a) In a general sort of way I've found that without too much fiddling quite a few programs can be installed in versions of operating systems other than what they're intended for with a little, similar fiddling.

# (5b) Best of luck with this.


Stan

Some of us make a career out of lurking. Fewer flame wars that way. Besides, usually all the basic questions were answered 20 years ago! And then the problem merely becomes one of sorting through 7 million meaningless responses to get at the one or two that actually have any meat on them.

Thanks for your efforts, but no joy. That webpage falls into the gibberish bucket because there's no hint of what it's all about or what we're supposed to do with all that non-information.

Thanks again for trying...

Stan

I've used it on some distros, but it's old, & not 'fashionable' these days - but here is the home page of XFE.

http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/index.php?page=download

http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/index.php?page=docs

spiderman,

You are obviously keen to retain openSUSE as your regular distro.

Should you change your mind you could install EndeavourOS which is a rolling release based on Arch Linux and has Xfce as its default DE:
https://endeavouros.com/