On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 6:43 AM, Duncan<1i5t5.dun...@cox.net> wrote: > Martin Herrman <mar...@herrman.nl> posted > 40bb8d3b0906170618g152b5f8fxc79889f0d6213...@mail.gmail.com, excerpted > below, on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:18:24 +0200: > >> "The Xfce 4 Appfinder is part of the Xfce 4 Desktop Environment and >> features application search on the whole system. It searches for >> .desktop files based on the freedesktop spec and makes an index of the >> found apps." >> >> Source: xfce website: >> http://www.xfce.org/documentation/4.2/manuals/xfce4-appfinder >> >> Does Gentoo use these .desktop files? > > In general, yes, as it's a freedesktop.org standard now and both KDE and > GNOME use them too. However, whether individual (non-main-DE) apps > packages include them would depend on either upstream (if it ships, so > will Gentoo in most cases) or the the initiative of the individual Gentoo > package maintainer, if upstream doesn't ship one. > > On the title question, I've never used it, but based on what others have > said and the originally requested features (including an auto-managed > menu), I too would recommend XFCE. It seems to be /the/ middle ground > between a "full feature" DE and a bare-bones WM, and gets very high > reviews in general. If I ever decide KDE's not for me any more, or > perhaps for my netbook when I get around to putting Gentoo on it, if I > don't like KDE's performance, I've always thought I'd try XFCE first. > > But on my main machine, at least kde3 has been great. I can't say the > same for kde4 (yet?), for a couple reasons. First, one of the big kde4 > features is 3D eye candy... that my aging Radeon 9200 can't handle at the > 1920x2400 desktop size I run (it maxes at 2048 each, X and Y), and > without that, there really isn't enough better (and a lot changed enough > I'm not comfortable with it) to upgrade from kde3. Second, I've so > deeply customized kde3 to my own needs and style, and kde4 is so much > changed, that it's simply different enough that even with full 3D > features, it'd take me awhile to get kde4 setup similarly effectively/ > comfortably. > > So, I have both kde3/4 merged, and occasionally run 4 and mess around > some, but for actually doing anything productive, it's kde3 (or the text > console). Sometime later this year I plan to upgrade to, probably, one > of the later r500 based Radeons (which run thru the x1950 models), and > meanwhile, kde-4.3.0 and likely 4.3.1 will be out, and we'll see how kde4 > does then. > > -- > Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. > "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- > and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
I suspect that XFCE might be a good one to look at. Thanks. Any thoughts from folks about fvwm? thanks to Marc for the pointer to fbpanel. I'll certainly take a look at that. cheers, Mark
