Need help in installing XFCE in Linux Mint XFCE 13 (Don't be putoff by the title)
 

Hi Everyone,
After trying Arch Linux with XFCE for some 6 months, I decided to move to Mint 13 XFCE for my desktop machine and become sane again.

Surprisingly, Mint 13 XFCE doesnot have xfce4-goodies and xfce4 installed. But I saw a lot of gnome3 dependencies though.

I tried to install xfce4 from synaptic and it reported some xfce4-utils dependency and failed to install.

Is there any way to remove gnome3 and all gnome3-dependency applications and install xfce4 and xfce4-goodies with-out actually breaking the installed Linux Mint(I don't want a repeat of arch).

If not, Please advise any debian testing based distro with xfce because I need latest firefox,google-chrome and ruby for my office work. I am not sure if I can install the latest applications in debian stable(like ruby version 1.9 in debian stable). Please advice.

Thank you.

Not sure what you mean by :scratch:

:twocents:

I have a arch XFCE installed with no issues or additional overhead. If you want a pre set XFCE install with all the trimings I would recomend Manjaro Linux. It is a Arch based distro wich is set up for you with all the trimmings. Think of it as Mint meets Arch.

:twocents:

For example, Today VLC started freezing all over.It was working fine yesterday. I was not sure what the issue was at all. I love arch(really I do) but I just want the basic things to work. And always usually some error like this creeps out. One time, I had a fresh installation of arch with XFCE and after 2 days(I didnot do anything, I swear), all the applications started appearing on the top left of the screen without the title bar.Deleteing the basic profiles set up in my home-page didnot resolve the issue. I had to reinstall arch that day. The experience goes like this for me. Believe me, I love arch(I love the simplicity. I am also seriously considering moving to BSD because arch system configuration is based on BSD).

But at the end of the day, I am just a developer who wants the basic things to just work. Anyway, any ideas how to remove gnome3 dependencies from mint ?

Ummm...you cant have Mint Xfce if Xfce4 isnt installed. While I dont have the time to figure out how to search packages with mint, and I'm not sure about the current relationship between xubuntu and mint Xfce, I wouldnt be supried is Xfce4 is installable and selectable from the login screen (like you can have xubuntu-desktop and Xfce4 installed with *buntu versions).

Xfce-goodies should be installable with a nice simple 'apt-get install xfce-goodies' (from synaptic or software-centre should work as well). If you get an error or similar, post what you are getting here and somebody might be able to help you.

If yuo want a 'lighter' Xfce4 distro based on debian testing.....why not try installing debian testing Xfce? 'Wheezy' (current testing) is frozen, so its going to become the next stable anyway some time in the next 3-9 months. Debian generally comes with a lot less cruft and dependancies than ubuntu and mint versions based on ubuntu.

It is possible to install packages from testing or even sid/experimental into debain stable, but IMO its got downfalls.

Arch is exactly what you're looking for.

Ubunt/Mint have an opposite design philosophy of being full-featured and ready-to-use out of the box. Three of the consequences of this are:

1. Not rolling release; apps are "frozen" for stability, so you won't automatically get the latest versions.
2. The desktop environment is not "Vanilla" but has many Ubuntu/Mint specific tweaks.
3. A few GTK apps are preinstalled because they are popular and mature apps, and the average user doesn't care if their system is "contaminated" with Gnome libraries/dependencies. Can you be specific which ones you don't think should be there?

The closest way to get what you're looking for in the Ubuntu/Mint family is to do a minimal "netinstall" as detailed here: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal

Then you can install "vanilla" Xfce as opposed to Xubuntu or Mint Xfce desktops.

But Arch is exactly what you're looking for. :)

I would really suggest manjaro linux ( arch derivative ) if you don have time or willingnes to configure the system. It comes with the benefits of a rolling release as well as a preconfigured XFCE desktop with goodies. ;)

Just back up your data then install.


http://blog.manjaro.org/

However if you have time and willingness a true Arch install is the best way to keep it simple ( reduced noise of what you don't want ). However it will take some effort and time. :study: -----> :cool: