100% replacement of KDE4 with XFCE

stinkytaco · 09-10-2009, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amiga32

I think almost everything I listed uses GTK toolkit. When I said GTK neutral, I meant GTK without too much slant toward more GNOME specific libraries/dependencies. Notice Abiword has plenty of them and OpenOffice does not.

So, where you draw the line and say "this app is too Gnome (or KDE) for me"? What Gnome libraries are unacceptable? It would be nice if the OP was more clear on that, or perhaps there is no "line" it's just something he'll have to figure out by trial and error.

For example, I have not had the problem you speak of with Abiword, it works seamlessly on XFCE for me. It's certainly much better on my low end hardware than OpenOffice, which feels like it takes a year to start up. Perhaps he can geek out and do emacs with LaTex for desktop publishing needs, then he'll be free of all dependencies except his dependency on properly kerning fonts.

As an aside, I would say Go-OO (http://www.go-oo.org/) is a better alternative to OpenOffice, but that's just my opinion. It has lots of features that OpenOffice does not include in their release for some reason. It's also faster, IMHO. No slackbuild for it

Also:

KMyMoney- JGnash or Moneydance

cwizardone · 09-10-2009, 09:47 AM

Is there a dialer, similar to KPPP, for Xfce?

stinkytaco · 09-10-2009, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwizardone

Is there a dialer, similar to KPPP, for Xfce?

wvdial

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.0/network/wvdial/

with x-wvdial (no slackbuild that I can find)

Mynetmonitor - haven't used it for sometime and looks old, but how much have modems changed?

gnome-ppp

amiga32 · 09-10-2009, 01:03 PM

Quote:

So, where you draw the line and say "this app is too Gnome (or KDE) for me"?

If the dependency has the word 'gnome' in it and isn't already shipped with Slackware is pretty much my rule of thumb.

Melkor · 09-10-2009, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vdemuth

Chaz_bro1972,

I feel you may be disillusioned due to some of the changes in KDE4, but they are easily corrected.

1) KDE4 actually uses LESS resources then kde3, (at least for me) just by switching of the fancy compositing
2) The old style KDE menu is available as a widget. Simply left click anywhere on the desktop, choose add widget and select the kde traditional app launcher menu
3) In appearance settings, choose dektop view, and KDE4 then looks like KDE3
4) Okular is a much better PDF reader anyway (imo at least) and is part of KDE4
5) Konqueror is still included in KDE4. While I do agree, it is not as good as previous versions, it still gets the job done, and will no doubt improve over time.

Change is a difficult thing to deal with, especially when it puts us outside our comfort zone and the things we have been used to. Give it a chance and you could be pleasantly surprised at just how good KDE4 is.

I love how when someone is looking for help/suggestions on how to replace some KDE applications it automatically turns into a discussion on how "change is a difficult thing to deal with" with regard to his not liking KDE 4.

Coming from the same direction as this user, suffice to say, he didn't give REASONS or ask for "workarounds" because he likely already has done all of that and is trying to move on to something else. When you say that kind of stuff it's very patronizing, and frankly rather insulting, like he's a baby who can't pick a window manager on his own or something.

As for chaz_bro1972's original question... it sounds like you've got most of this worked out pretty well. I also have replaced Konqueror as a file manager with XFE. It works pretty well, but I still miss Konqueror (mostly its tabs, and a few other little behaviors that XFE doesn't do quite right).

For terminals, I've been using aterm for some time now. I used to use Konsole, but I eventually found my way to aterm because it was a lot faster and quicker to configure.

What other KDE applications do you usually use that you're going to have to live without? I've been in the process of doing the same thing, myself, so I feel your pain.

lumak · 09-10-2009, 04:24 PM

use fluxbox. looks like black box but has the features you want.

adriv · 09-10-2009, 04:39 PM

Why go through all the hassle?
Install KDE and use IceWM (my favorite on older pc's), Fluxbox, Xfce or whatever you want.
It won't bother you and you can still use the KDE apps you like.
That is, if disk space is not an issue, of course.

samac · 09-22-2009, 08:10 AM

I have now almost completed my migration from KDE to XFCE4. KDE4 has been removed, though kde3-compatibility is still installed, I have installed slim and xfce4 and it is configured as I like it.

A few alternate programs
Ksoduko replaced by simsu
okular replaced by epdfview
kate replaced by medit

I would like to get rid of some vestigial KDE3 by removing k3b. This will be replaced by xfburn, however I use the ripping tool in k3b so I am looking for a decent lightweight graphical ripper/encoder tool.

Any suggestions?

samac

sahko · 09-22-2009, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samac

I would like to get rid of some vestigial KDE3 by removing k3b. This will be replaced by xfburn, however I use the ripping tool in k3b so I am looking for a decent lightweight graphical ripper/encoder tool.

Any suggestions?

samac

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13...io/rubyripper/

But if you want a GUI you have to edit the SlackBuild and replace --enable-cli with --enable-gtk2 and --enable-lang-all if you need translations.
In such a case, as the README says you need ruby-gtk2 and ruby-gettext which are not on SlackBuilds.org

samac · 09-22-2009, 09:36 AM

Ah yes I'd forgotten about rubyripper, I will probably try it once all the dependencies are on the slackbuilds site. In the meantime I have downloaded asunder, which I have used before, but again I forgot about. Ah the joys of middle age!

samac

Melkor · 09-22-2009, 03:23 PM

I'm a big fan of Grip. It gives pretty fine-tuned control over metadata, filenames, bitrate, et al.

tommcd · 09-23-2009, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melkor

I'm a big fan of Grip.

Doesn't grip require Gnome desktop? According to the grip site you linked to it does:
http://nostatic.org/grip/grip-download.shtml

Melkor · 09-23-2009, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tommcd

Doesn't grip require Gnome desktop? According to the grip site you linked to it does:
http://nostatic.org/grip/grip-download.shtml

Heh. It does. In order to get most GTK+ apps like Grip to work, I normally install Dropline GNOME; even though I never use the actual desktop environment itself on Slackware, I find that it makes it a heck of a lot easier to get a ton of other really good apps working if some version of GNOME is there, and Dropline is an easy way to get that set up on Slackware.

Granted, it also takes up a huge amount of hard drive space (particularly for an environment I don't even use), but if space isn't a problem for you, the benefits of having it are pretty easily seen by the ease of getting apps like Grip to work without having to go through tons of library dependency problems.

animeresistance · 09-23-2009, 07:43 PM

Honestly KDE 4.2 is too bugy, i copied some large files (more less 400MB) and the progress bar disappeared ... KDE 4 looks cool, but is too buggy ... miss the old KDE 3, KDE has always been my favorite desktop, hope they KDE team fix all the bugs.

manwithaplan · 09-23-2009, 09:44 PM

I have to agree with the OP. KDE 4 is horrible. Its way overbloated and complicated down to the taskbar. I was using gnome, and it also has become bloated. I completely switched to a Openbox environment & haven't looked back since.