Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Is there a way to get XFCE on a modern Puppy? LxPups are great, but I really prefer XFCE... Most of the stuff I found is either for older or 64-bit versions of PL.

If anyone can give me instructions to reliable methods, that would be great!

xfce is in the Puppy Package Manager. Just install it. I tried this recently( I think with Bionicpup64) and it did work. It also installed a desktop switcher which allows switching back and forth between desktops. However, some quirky things did happen when I switched (icons disappearing,etc.).

There is also a really nice xfce based BeowulfPuppy in the Puppy Derivatives section of this forum.

similar question to your previous?:
viewtopic.php?p=6860#p6860

did you try the ydrv?

xfce4 is ready to use pre installed in Dpup buster 32 bit or 64 bit from josejp2424 (as well as pulseaudio, in both, for best sound processing!)

see pls and surf in this site (downloads, depository, discussions!).

I agree with

ryosader Posted 12/14/2019

The best Puppy Linux. El mejor Puppy Linux.

it is actually so...

(if you have low hardware ressources, look also for Dpup Buster non PAE! I use daily a lot of time and I am now usign it !)

peebee wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:57 pm did you try the ydrv?

Yes, but I had a few issues. Icons, session manager, blank setting manager. I'm trying again this weekend; my day job is calling...

....as well as pulseaudio, in both, for best sound processing!

No accounting for some folks "odd" tastes, I suppose.....


Mike.

I tried the PPM and XFCE is a hack. If alt-desktops are supposed to work, they really need to be in the Upup quickpets.

XFCE in the Tahrpup quickpet runs flawlessly.

Someone refined this Xenial puplet and it's impressive. I'm new but it looks like my goto 64 distro now:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/xenialpup64-with-xfce/

Maybe a Bionic or Fossa puplet equivalent you need a more current os?

I'm not aware of the politics around development and not wishing to offend (I like JWM, it's just not ordered with my thinking, too technical, and missing vital apps like finder for the other two reasons), but to the extent the mission of Puppy Linux is adaptation, a Desktop Environment like XFCE should be standard and JWM should be an easy switch.

XFCE is standard or a standard flavor of four of the top five linux distributions, and the fifth offers switching from GNOME to the major alternatives in its documentation.

Soon as that happened I would performance test them, because Puppy appears to be on top of the system resource challenge.

Puppy is distro #21.

JASpup wrote: Sun Oct 25, 2020 6:16 am I'm not aware of the politics around development and not wishing to offend (I like JWM, it's just not ordered with my thinking, too technical, and missing vital apps like finder for the other two reasons), but to the extent the mission of Puppy Linux is adaptation, a Desktop Environment like XFCE should be standard and JWM should be an easy switch.

XFCE is standard or a standard flavor of four of the top five linux distributions, and the fifth offers switching from GNOME to the major alternatives in its documentation.

Soon as that happened I would performance test them, because Puppy appears to be on top of the system resource challenge.

Puppy is distro #21.

To a large extent Puppy is on the top of the system resource challenge because it uses rox as its file-manager and jwm as its window manager.

A couple of years back I was an advocate of change, advocating for dual/multi-pane file-managers and, especially, a menu system like Whisker. I've stopped. Not because of resistance from Forum Members. Following their own interests Forum members have published Puppies offering everything I advocated and more. I've stopped because applications can be installed into the standard jwm-rox combo providing everything I wanted (except the Whisker-Menu) while retaining Puppy's resource-frugality.
[Jwm won't (easily?) support Whisker-Menu. But following fredx181's advice, I've been able to include it in any Puppy which supports lxpanel. However,]
xfce-appfinder --despite its name-- can be installed into almost any Puppy. I have it in Slacko 5.7. As I recall, there weren't more than one or two dependencies. xfce is not required. See attached. I don't recall if to rationalize its display to work with Puppy's unique menu categories I had to include xfce-applications.menu, available here with instructions: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 426#961426. Another way to achieve the utility of xfce is to install radky's FbBox, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 018#769018. Both its Start-Menu and its Taskbar provide a "Favorites" category into which the user can assign his/her favorites. But frankly, I'm happy using radky's JWMDesk, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=869688 which is built into most recent Puppies, and some of his PupMates, http://www.smokey01.com/radky/PupMates.html if they're not. As radky's work consists of bash-scripts rather than binaries and libraries, they enhance Puppies without making demands for additional resources. The JWMDesk which was built into Bionicpup64 supported the 2nd (hidable) panel shown in the screenshot. Between the two panels I have 22 launchers (I could have more) and no reason for "Favorites".
As for rox, it’s one of the first applications I install into the “Big Boy Distros” I maintain on my computers on the theory “well, I’ve got a couple terabytes of space, it doesn’t take much, and maybe someday I’ll find a reason to boot into it”. Rox has a couple of unique ways of managing things; but not a really steep learning curve. It’s simply the most efficient file-manager for the most common file-management operations.
I’ve published Remastered Puppies which include xfe –note the absence of a ‘c’-- file-manager with newbies in mind. xfe is a light-weight themeable file-manager offering (user's choice) up to 2 panes and tree view. AFAIK, it’s an easy install via PPM on any Puppy published in the last 10 years. I’ve included it. I don’t recall every having used it. See previous paragraph.

In the main, Barry K’s choice of default windows and file-manager have stood the test of time. I don’t believe Puppy’s ranking on Distrowatch (for whatever that’s worth) relates to those choices. Rather, I think it results from the many (undated) posts about it by bloggers whose familiarity with Puppy was, at best, that of a newbie. The Slant Community does a better, albeit not perfect, job. https://www.slant.co/options/4998/~puppy-linux-review, https://www.slant.co/search?query=puppy%20linux%20vs

One almost valid criticism noted by Slant was “Con: Smallest software library ever
You can barely find any precompiled packages for Puppy.” As I wrote above, there’s a lot of undated posts by newbies. That criticism reflects lack of knowledge:
(a) for the last decade Puppies have been woofed with the binaries of Major distros in order to be able to use their respective distros repostiories: there shouldn’t be a need for packages specifically compiled for Puppies.
(b) Over the last 5 years Puppy’s Package Manager’s ability to include the dependencies of a package has vastly improved. If the compatible distro itself notes a dependency, PPM will download it.
(c) The publication about two years ago of Sc0ttman’s PKG-cli, affording Puppies the functionality of apt, thereby even identifying dependencies when the source distro did not.
The question of course –as in the Political Sphere-- is how to overcome general ignorance and a deluge of misinformation.

simply to have!

I use one of the josejp2424 buster versions with xfce4 preinstalled (without some jwm or rox)

on my i7 8GB 3/4 TB usb2 AND usb3 high resolution's screen best sound, the 32 bit version of both works best (the 64 bit also but I would have to add permanently the 32 bit compatibility sfs available at the depository of josejp2424 at sourceforge

initially it was not possible to add abiword 32 bit in buster but that problem is solved.

abiword, gnumeric, gimp, magicpoint and nted (for music sheets) are my office as gimp is preinstalled in the ISO from josejp2424

my laptop has best sound (for laptop's ) and as also pulseaudio is preinstalled (and works pretty), it is fun!

my (remastered) ISO is now 517 MB, about like EasyPup from BK (really the best Puppy from BK itself! Thank you very much Barry! My limit: I am not able to add some working XFCE4 on it), and works pretty.

If I need XFCE4? Of course! It manage my numerous keyboard layout as old Puppy's from the serie 2.xx did do using xorg.config, and so, I am not an Idiotic English or French or German only guy any more

mikeslr wrote: Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:53 pm To a large extent Puppy is on the top of the system resource challenge because it uses rox as its file-manager and jwm as its window manager.

I believe that makes a difference, but I would like to understand how Ubuntu, for example, will come out at 1.6Gb while Puppy with a hungrier, refined, and more user-friendly manager than JWM is still less than half the size. That can't be all apps.

The issue appears first RAM, then CPU power, because even after a piggy os loads, it's fast if you have the resources.

I was on XFCE on Mint on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom w/2Gb RAM and trying to run Xenial there (Mint 18) brought me to Puppy. I tried first 12-era Ubuntu (Mint 14) and it was too old.

Tharpup is equivalent to Mint 17 and it runs better than Mint 14 on that machine, even with XFCE loaded. I crashed Tahrpup yesterday slamming the CPU at 100% but didn't fault the os.

My values are more a taoist balance between fascist authority and disorganized chaos, and by that I'm impressed by what gets done open-source, but that said, I haven't tried them all, but if everyone had to compete on XFCE, I think Puppy would make a strong showing, apples to apples.

If you're doing something for yourself, who cares? But when you might have the best horse in the race, why not?

A couple of years back I was an advocate of change, advocating for dual/multi-pane file-managers and, especially, a menu system like Whisker. I've stopped. Not because of resistance from Forum Members. Following their own interests Forum members have published Puppies offering everything I advocated and more. I've stopped because applications can be installed into the standard jwm-rox combo providing everything I wanted (except the Whisker-Menu) while retaining Puppy's resource-frugality.

I like Whisker too.

Tahrpup XFCE defaults to the two menu systems adjacent one another, and what feels like overkill at first is really an eloquent adjustment. By memory (I'm on my modern 64 machine at the moment), I think the regular menu system is like JWM with the XFCE names, and the Whisker menu full XFCE with its splendid app finder. Both you'll feel more certain you'll find what you're looking for, going for the intuitive.

The issue with customization really is the learning curve. Should one have to master JWM to switch to a beginner interface? Maybe XFCE default is going too far, but how about putting it in quicksetup or at least making it a quickpet standard?

The quickpet is such a relief because installation reliability is higher than any other method, and fast!

My first Puppy boot was Precise a few years ago. I just came back this month. Then I wanted to see if it would boot. I left happy it worked but knew it would be a curve to adjust and get use out of it. I didn't even try to get online.

I guess the difference now is my motivation is higher.

updating my thinking

Instead of:

a) making XFCE the default WM
b) putting a new WM switch in quicksetup
c) making XFCE a quickpet standard

multiple official Puppy Linux versions should be released, like where I came from (Mint).

XFCE
LXQt
JWM an edition featuring...


https://postimg.cc/PCTBMjzm

Many Puppy Fans are also XFCE window manager fans, myself among them although --as I've posted-- I'm perfectly happy using jwm now that radky has created JWMDesk Manager. So I agree with you that an easy way to obtain XFCE would be great. But I don't think we should, or even need to, assign that project to those who publish Puppies. Under Bionicpup64, the applications available via quickpet are those 666philb has, himself, built and uploaded to Bionicpup64's repo. The devs of other Puppies may have done something similar. But in particular I note that peebee has published lxde and lxqt window-managers as ydrv.sfses. viewtopic.php?p=295#p295.
Publishing window-managers as a ydrv is particularly appropriate. If a user wants that window manager (s)he need only place it adjacent to the Puppy_version.sfs since a ydrv.sfs in that location will always be copied into RAM on boot-up: change one's mind and just remove/rename it.
Anyone can publish and a search reveals that jejyl69, vicmz, radky and others have published window managers. But it's been a couple of years since any one has published an 'after-market' xfce. I think battleshooter's was the last, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 759#966759

Anyone can publish. Puppies are intentionally binary compatible with major distros. Posts such as this, https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/xfce4 provide a good starting point for knowing what files are needed for a functional xfce. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xfce and examination of a functional xfce-Puppy, such as those by Josejp2424, further can stimulate ideas.

Scottman's pkg-cli, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 1e4#985531 may take you most of the way --perhaps all of the way-- in obtaining necessary components. The combination of UExtract, dir2sfs and PaDS, viewtopic.php?f=106&t=933 should be able to finish such project. There may be a lot of trial & error. But trial and error is a great way to learn. I know of nothing better than that feeling of accomplishment you get when you've completed a project of which you had doubts about your ability to do. [You can keep failures to yourself; and still feel good about how much you've learned].

@mikeslr I'm a single mom with a computer that's significantly slower than when I bought it, or a 12 year old girl whose favorite subject in school is English and I'm deep in the Harry Potter series.

If XFCE is part of the PPM or a puplet, I'm likely to never see it, and just as likely to be turned off by the default Puppy interface in the face of more friendly alternatives. Why is Mac the biggest brand in the world?

We're writing about us. JWMDesk Manager is excellent. If radky is development-integral, what is his macro goal? Even if open source is non-profit, you get more development resources with popularity.

Quickpets work and are easy, but single mom again:

"I'm going to run Puppy Linux with the alternative user-friendly desktop environment from the quickpet."

She's not going to say that. Put it out there at boot, The Wow-Factor, boom!

mikeslr wrote: Fri Oct 30, 2020 4:12 pm
Anyone can publish. Puppies are intentionally binary compatible with major distros.

Even after you switch alt-desktop, more customization is demanded than if it's there at boot.

It's great to see all that's out there. I don't know how to use a .sfs yet, and I took three beginner programming classes in college.

I have to first understand how loaded packages deplete system resources, so what do I want to compromise?

My personal goal is to have session-used packages on demand, with the basics like my desktop, settings and wifi set on boot, but I'm not there yet, so life is manual until I learn what's out there and how to achieve my goals.

My main 64 distro is a Xenial puplet with XFCE default, because the official Xenial doesn't install XFCE easily from the PPM and it's not in the Xenial quickpet. Here one version, gone the next.

I can comprehend what you're writing, but I'm dwelling on the bridge. In Puppy I see strength and technical obscurity.

@JASpup :-

I think - correct me if I've got the wrong end of the stick - you're essentially saying that Puppy should be looking to market itself in the same way that mainstream distros do?

I'm not sure as that would work, y'know. Many of those do at least have some income - of sorts - whereas Puppy is entirely community-driven, totally assembled by volunteers. And mainstream distros tend to at least have teams (small though they may be) working on each of the major areas that go to make up a distribution. Most Pups are one-man jobs; are you advocating each Puppy-builder should work 3 or 4 times as hard???


Mike.

xfce should install from the PPM in bionicpup64 & fossapup64. they have a few fixes to get menus organised into some sense and a desktop switcher once installed. it's not perfect but pretty much works i think. .. if it doesn't post in the bionic64 or fossa64 thread and i'll try and fix the problem

@mikewalsh no. If anyone's testing packages to see if they work at all, in this case alt-desktops, it's cake to add a couple modified masters to the release relative the rest of it.

This isn't really work in comparison. I'm too green, but after the desktops are running, anyone who can make a custom master can do it.

If it were that difficult, it would be too difficult to complete a release itself at all.

Likewise, puplet makers, aren't they known? Whomever made the XFCE Xenial I use, couldn't they be recruited?

Do what you do, do it like this, I'll put it out with the regular DE, and we'll forge ahead. ???

Again the issue is goals. I don't really think about the financial end except when someone poses that as their motivation. If you organize, cooperate, and work to complete a Puppy release, do you care how many people hear your song, especially when it's better than so many others?

Forgive my presumption new in the land, but it just feels like no brainer.

Success is a combination of your advantageous unique offering and what has been proven to work, and the proof is XFCE is everywhere offered as a default that works - Mint, Xubuntu, MX, Manjaro, etc.

Conceivable I could understand why creators don't want Puppy to be bigger, it just doesn't seem like the best idea.

@666philb thanks for the headsup. Count me as a lag. I'll get there eventually but probably not soon.

I've only seen Bionic Ubuntu, unintentionally booted due to a flavor version number. Xenial Ubuntu ran better, and that's the Puppy64 I use.

I generally run the oldest solid version of an os that's current and hardware-compatible, if that makes sense. A lot of current also has to do with software compatibility.

Who makes the quickpet? XFCE on the Tahr quickpet is ace.

XFCE is a rock solid lightweight desktop environment. The really problem on XFCE are here are follows:
* Missing icons on application menu, panels, and whisker menu
* Blank settings manager
* Some missing items on settings manager
* Missing/brokern icons on settings manager

@mistfire what do you think about it as an official Puppy flavor vs. a PPM search that might or might not work?

My main fault is drive/partition desktop icons. They're missing rox-filer menu options and line up vertically on the left.

@JASpup

Sadly to say that woof-CE generated Puppy was optimized for ROX-Filer and JWM only not desktop agnostic. There some efforts to make puppy a desktop agnotic but with little progress.

@mistfire recognize your prespective but find it vague. Is any platform agnostic of its desktop? In other words, are all multi 'flavor' distributions optimized for each desktop on their official .iso's?

I'm using Xenial Pup with XFCE.

The best puppy linux mod I ever tried.

The pet I used to include xfce .- hosted in my drive.-

My screen.- https://photos.app.goo.gl/DfHbmjzV31cewWW79

And, best of all.- IT WORKS REALLY FAST.

_____________________corrected link____________________

https://photos.app.goo.gl/DfHbmjzV31cewWW79

@pp4mnklinux your preview might not be set to public (can't see it).

Xenial XFCE puplet is my favorite 64 Linux, posted in the Show Us Your Desktop thread.

Right now I'm cruising along in regular Xenial 32 on a much slower computer. It's still fast.

From a lifetime of Windows, I'm expecting later release to hog more resources, but Xenial kernel is still efficient.

There are benefits and hiccups to each release; I'm still unsettled so it's a new variation every day.

Hi, @JASpup

If you continue interested about a puppy with xfce.... and fusilli included, take a look at this new sub-forum for derivative.- viewforum.php?f=201 , there you are going to find the best graphical puppy I ever tried (and I promise I tried dozens of them)

You can see a preview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhyd9PdUU6o

When you have time to test it, give it a try, and then don't hesitate of sharing your experience with us, so we can solve any problem.

Thanks a lot everybody for your help.

Direct Download.- https://archive.org/download/f96ce3_xfc ... I-4.3.iso

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

@pp4mnklinux :-

Ya might be a wee bit late with this reply, mate. JASpup has, I believe, "left the building". After being highly active for some time, he hasn't been here since June last year.....

(*shrug*)

Mike.

mikewalsh wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:40 am

@pp4mnklinux :-

Ya might be a wee bit late with this reply, mate. JASpup has, I believe, "left the building". After being highly active for some time, he hasn't been here since June last year.....

(*shrug*)

Mike.

Mind you, I think it's good to see a new XFCE Pup released. Time for Jammy version I feel though (despite posting this from a FocalFossa-based Zorin-lite OS - trouble with Zorin is the time they take to upgrade to later Ubuntu versions). The Zorin lite is used in my house for business, so older distro is fine (and probably more stable). I'm using it right now because all my other distros are being constantly tinkered with as I try new ideas out - only the old/stable Zorin lite can be relied on to work whilst that is going on...

mikewalsh wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:40 am

Ya might be a wee bit late with this reply, mate. JASpup has, I believe, "left the building". After being highly active for some time, he hasn't been here since June last year.....
Mike.

I've been thinking about @JASpup recently, as he and I interacted a lot about theming and desktops. It's too bad he moved on because I think that the Kennel Linux variants would have addressed most of his complaints and desires. They are low resource, Xfce based distros that work OOTB.