Tips and tricks for a pleasant Xfce desktop environment experience
==================================================================
- installation
In order to have a basic Xfce desktop, you should install the
following core packages (this will install the required libraries):
$ sudo pkg_add xfce-utils xfce4-panel xfce4-session xfdesktop xfwm4
You should also install some basic theme packages:
$ sudo pkg_add xfwm4-themes gtk-xfce-engine
And some cool xfce-companion apps for a nicer desktop:
$ sudo pkg_add terminal orage notification-daemon-xfce ristretto
mousepad xfce4-appfinder xfce4-mixer xfprint
Finally, have a look at available panel plugins here:
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/panel-plugins/start
And make your choice from plugins available in the ports-tree.
If you want the one-line comment for each port, just do:
$ cd /usr/ports/x11/xfce4 && make show=COMMENT
- startup
Xfce desktop environment is launched through the 'startxfce4' script,
provided by the xfce-utils package. Simply add
'${LOCALBASE}/bin/startxfce4'
to your .xinitrc/.xsession script if you use startx, xdm or slim.
If you use gdm or kdm, have a look at
http://wiki.xfce.org/faq#starting_xfce. An xfce4.desktop file is
provided for use by gdm.
- logging out and shutting down the computer
If your installation supports complete shutdown, clicking on the logout
button on panel will permit you to either logout, rebooting or halt
the computer, provided you have the needed sudo credentials.
If you don't want to have to enter your password, simply add this line
to the /etc/sudoers file using visudo:
$your_username ALL=NOPASSWD: ${TRUEPREFIX}/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper
- thunar file manager tips
thunar can display resizable svg icons if you install the librsvg
package (prefer using the no_gnome flavor). A nice svg icon theme is
provided by the tango-icon-theme package.
You can have a look at hotplugd(8) if you want some kind of auto-mount
feature in thunar, provided natively by HAL on Linux and FreeBSD.
Also, see http://thunar.xfce.org/pwiki/documentation/faq.
- terminal, special characters and localized applications
If you use a particular non-ascii encoding and have problems seeing
special characters in terminal (like accentued characters in french),
you should add this line to your .xinitrc/.xsession before startxfce4:
export LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.ISO8859-15
where LC_CTYPE is defined this way (thanks benny) :
http://foo-projects.org/pipermail/xfce4-dev/2006-July/020680.html
Similarly, if you want localized applications, add this line too:
export LC_MESSAGES=fr
where 'fr' is your language tag.
More generally, http://wiki.xfce.org/faq and http://wiki.xfce.org/tips
are the best resources for user-level documentation.
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