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Trying out xfce 4.6.1 in current some questions

I am a kde user, and I am trying to go xfce, however I have some questions.

1. Is there a nicer graphical login, without installing kdm?
2. Is there a way to mount other partitions easily?
3. Can you get the desktop icons to activate with single click?
4. Can you allow users to shutdown/restart?
5. Can you attach a terminal to thunar rather than open a terminal here?

samac

I can answer a few of your questions:

1) XFCE does not have a log in manager, you need to use GDM or KDM
4) http://wiki.xfce.org/faq#session_manager

1)I knew it had, look at /etc/inittab, there's written:

Code:

# 4 = X11 with KDM/GDM/XDM (session managers)

In the /etc/rc.d/rc.4 uncomment(leave the " # " character) these lines of code:

Code:

# If all you have is XDM, I guess it will have to do:

#if [ -x /usr/bin/xdm ]; then

#  exec /usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon

#elif [ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm ]; then

#  exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon

#fi

Once done, restart your PC and you should probably see the XDM asking you your username and password to log-in...

2)My partitions are always mounted automatically by the kernel at the startup, just add some line to /etc/fstab, or mount em launching by terminal:

Code:

# mount -a

This may also work.

3)I don't know, never used xfce...
4)It doesn't depend by the desktop environment, it depends by the powers that an user has got, your user shouldn't probably got them, and you shouldn't add these powers to him, we're talking about a security issue, if you add these powers to your user might happen that running a normal bad script that is written for rebooting your machine...You know, it's not a good, it shouldn't happen, you're running linux where users gotta have their own powers, remember, your user ain't root and won't be root.
5)I don't know :)

Bye.

#4: For XFCE, you allow users (or a group) to execute /usr/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper as root.
(use visudo to edit /etc/sudoers)

Sorry, didn't notice that info was already linked from post #2 ;)

Quote:

1. Is there a nicer graphical login, without installing kdm?

There is SLIM. Not packaged with the stock Slackware but a few people here use that login manager. There are slackbuild scripts out there. You can modify rc.4 after installing.

question 4
add the users to the power group

Many thanks for the replies. It seems that while xfce 4.6.1 is now much better than it ever has been, it is still not quite where I want it to be.

1. I installed KDM, however as it is embedded in a base KDE package I just ended up installing KDE anyway. It seems that important parts of xfce4.6.1 are either missing or not bundled with Slackware.

2. See point one. It appears you can download an add-on, but I would have thought that this was a fundamental part of file management.

3. You can activate a single click for files, but not desktop items. Surely everything in unix/linux/bsd is a file.

4. After reading the documentation and making sure that power was the user specified by haldaemon, and adding the user to that group, it just didn't work. Guess this could be a problem in the Slackware implementation.

5. Cannot be done, so I guess you will just have to have loads of terminals created, or use dolphin.

I also found a few other irritations, to me, so I have reverted to KDE, and once you strip out all the fancy effects and additional programs, it looks a bit like xfce.

samac

Did you try the "sudo" method for #4?

Quote:

You have to allow the user(s) to execute $installdir/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper with sudo. Install sudo and run visudo (root) and add the following line (replace prefix with the correct path):

%users ALL = NOPASSWD:<prefix>/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper

Add the user to the users group (root):

gpasswd -a <username> users

When you logout and login again, the shutdown and restart buttons should be sensitive. For more information you can referrer to the xfce4-session and sudo documentation.

XFCE is not complete out of the box (the shutdown thing is slightly annoying), but it is worth the fact that it does not hog resources like the larger Desktop Managers.

diilbert

No I didn't, I prefer to use groups wherever possible, or su when necessary. However xfce power manangement has just been updated in current and that might fix the problem for me.

It is a shame that XFCE is not complete out of the box as it has potential, but whilst I am capable of making the required changes I am lazy, and I feel that basic stuff like the ability to turn off the computer or look at your hard drives should be included in the base package.

So I'm back to KDE, at least I have plenty of resources that it can hog.

samac

Quote:

However xfce power manangement has just been updated in current and that might fix the problem for me.

Yep! One problem fixed.

samac