Perfect Xfce desktop install

[Wolven]

Perfect Xfce desktop install - version 0.1.4

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.


This guide will show you how to install the Xfce desktop environment on Debian (Etch) without getting GNOME in the process. It will also show you how to tweak the Xfce install to become a "perfect" desktop environment.
The guide will also suggest a list of applications to install in addition to Xfce, to make it a fully functional desktop install.

Disclaimer: It's been a while since I've used Debian as a desktop system and this guide is written from memory as I just performed and tweaked a fresh install. I might have forgotten a thing or two and there might be better/other ways to do this. Help making this guide better with comments and suggestions.

As requested I've made two screen shots, so you can get an idea how it will look like with the Tango icons and tweaked menu. (See step 10 and 11) Screen shot one. Screen shot two.

1. Download and burn the 'netinst' ISO.

2. Proceed with the install as instructed, but when you're asked if you want to Use a network mirror, select <No>. We'll add the mirrors later.

3. When asked what software to install, just select: [*] Standard system. And nothing else.

4. Finish up the install, reboot; and log in as root.

5. Now we'll add the mirrors to the sources.list. I prefer nano as my CLI editor, but use what editor you wish.

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nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Comment out the CD-ROM line and add the mirrors closest to your location. Mine is the Norwegian 'no' mirror, so my sources.list looks like this:

#
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20$
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 200$
deb http://ftp.no.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.no.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib

6. Update APT:

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apt-get update

7. Now we'll install the X-server. A login manager. ALSA to get sound working. HAL (for auto mounting CDs) and Xfce. I've also included the 'goodies' and 'mixer' package for Xfce and the archive plugin for Thunar.

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apt-get install xserver-xorg-core xorg alsa-base alsa-utils hal udev gdm xfce4 xfce4-goodies xfce4-mixer xfce4-mixer-alsa thunar-archive-plugin

This will give us a minimal, but functional Xfce desktop, but we won't stop here since we're looking for the "prefect" Xfce install.

8. Once all the packages are downloaded and installed; I suggest you configure the X-server and ALSA. If you have an NVIDIA graphics card and you want to install the 3D drivers, follow the instructions here first.

To configure the X-server do:

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dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Then configure ALSA:

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alsaconf

9. If all went well you should now get the login manager if you reboot or type:

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gdm

10. Once you log in to Xfce you might notice that the default icon theme that's used (Rodent) is rather ugly. IMHO the desktop will look ten times better with the Tango icon theme. The problem is that when you install the Tango icons the Rodent icons will still be used in many of the applications we'll install later. We want the desktop to look nice and unified. Here's how:

Install the Tango, Hicolor and GNOME icon themes:

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apt-get install tango-icon-theme hicolor-icon-theme gnome-icon-theme

Now swap to the Tango theme by going to the 'User interface' option in the 'Settings Manager'.

As stated above, the Rodent icons will still be used in applications even after we switch to Tango. To prevent this we will "remove" the Rodent icons from the system. I say "remove" because you can't uninstall the package (xfce4-icon-theme) without also removing Xfce, due to dependencies. (It might be possible to do this, but I haven't figured out how.) So we'll simply rename the directory containing the Rodent icons so the system can't find them. This will result in the Tango and GNOME icons being used instead, which will look nicer and more unified.

Open the terminal and 'su' to root, then rename the Rodent icon directory:

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cd /usr/share/icons/
mv Rodent Rodent.rem


11. I also dislike the default look of the Desktop Menu with the applications tucked away under the Xfce menu entry, so I've changed it back to 'normal'.

If you want to do the same then start the 'Menu Editor', move the --include-- system above the line that says Xfce. Then hide the Xfce line and hide the --separator-- entry just below it. You might also want to hide the --include-- menudefs.hook if you plan on installing the 'Debian Menu' for other window managers. When you're done editing the menu, click the 'Save modifications' icon.

12. Suggestions to additional fonts are: ttf-bitstream-vera, ttf-dejavu and msttcorefonts.

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apt-get install ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu msttcorefonts

13.
it seems that Conky is a rather popular system monitor to use with Xfce. If you want Conky then simply install it with:

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apt-get install conky

Once Conky is installed you need a configuration file for it. The package comes with a sample .conkyrc, so we'll use that. (Do this as your regualr user, not as root)

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zcat /usr/share/doc/conky/examples/conkyrc.sample.gz > .conkyrc

How to tweak Conky needs a thread of it's own, so I won't go in to details about that here, but there are two settings I want to point out:

a) You need to give Conky it's own window in Xfce, so in the .conkyrc make sure you have:

# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes

b) The above setting will draw Conky with a window border, most people don't want this, so you can hide it with:

# Use pseudo transparency with own_window?
own_window_transparent yes

Be ware that since Conky will have it's own window it will stay on top of any icons you might have on your desktop.

To have Conky start automacally when Xfce starts you can add it to the 'Autostarted Applications' feature in Xfce. Settings -> Autostarted Applications'

vlad59 has written a more detailed guide about Conky.

14. Since Xfce use the GTK+2 toolkit I choose to only install GTK+2 based applications to keep things looking unified. Which applications you install is of course up to you, but here are my suggestions. Your additions to this list are welcome.

Accessories:
Gedit -- Text Editor
Xarchiver -- Archive Manager
Xpad -- Sticky Note Application

Development:
Bluefish Editor -- Advanced Web Editor
Geany -- Integrated Development Environment

Graphics:
Comix -- Comic Book Viewer
Evince -- Document Reader (PDF, etc)
Inkscape -- SVG Vector Illustrator
GIMP -- Image Editor
GQview -- Image Browser

Multimedia:
Audacious -- Audio Player
EasyTAG -- Audio Tag Editor
GnomeBaker -- DVD/CD Writer
Grip -- CD Ripper and Encoder
gxine -- Multimedia Player (Video, audio, DVD)
streamtuner -- Stream Directory Browser (Internet radio)

Network:
Freeloader -- Bittorrent Client
Gaim -- Multi-protocol Instant Messenger
gFTP -- FTP Client
Icedove -- E-mail Client
Iceweasel -- Web Browser
Liferea -- Internet Feed Reader
Xchat -- IRC Client

Office:
AbiWord -- Word Processor
gLabels -- Label Designer (CDs, buisiness cards, etc)
Gnumeric -- A Spreadsheet
Orage -- Calendar for Xfce

System:
Synaptic -- Package Manager (Front end to APT)
xscreensaver -- Screensaver

-----

I'll start keeping track of the edits in this post now.

Updated 17.08.2008: Added screen shots and a step for setting up Conky

[infinitycircuit]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=709217

The above post is a nice guide about how to integrate a nice conky and desktop background terminal into your xfce4 setup. I currently use the two together in Sid and I love it. It's light but full-featured.

[Arthur Archnix]

I'm currently working on my perfect xfce desktop under lenny, but stumbling at the part where I can suspend it. Have you found anything that would help in that regard?

[wolly]

I'm currently working on my perfect xfce desktop under lenny, but stumbling at the part where I can suspend it. Have you found anything that would help in that regard?

you may have to add yourself to the powerdev group and/or the users group
or use a patched version of xfce-session from here

[Conrad]

Thanks for the howto.

I'd use Brasero for burning DVDs though, it has cdtext support. The Totem-Gstreamer Mozilla-plugin seems to work a lot better than Gxine and Ristretto is a very nice image browser. Roxterm and Rox-filer are cool too.

[ninjatux]

For starting Xfce, I have this block in my shell rc. I don't like graphical login managers, particularly GDM or KDM. The others feel too out of place.

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# start X11 after login on /dev/ttyv0 terminal
if [ $( tty ) = "/dev/ttyv0" ]; then
  nohup xinit -- -nolisten tcp -br -tst dpms nologo -dpi 75 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
fi


For programs, I use rtorrent, screen, zsh, ncmpc, mpd, mplayer (GUI disabled), Gimp, Inkscape, Openoffice, Gimmix, and some plugins for Xfce.

[iamclueless]

thanks for that Wolven.

ive more or less followed through your HOW-TO and got myself a system im quite pleased with.

question for those who might know... whats the easiest way for me to back up this install??? or do the exact same install on another machine?

i suppose i could just do another net install and do and apt-get package.list... but that takes too long and will eat uneccessary bandwidth.

not sure i understand remastering yet... plus ive apt-cleaned/autocleaned a few times, so the packages are long gone...

im guessing remastering a netinstall is gonna be it

[daengbo]

Use AptonCD to create a CD of all the packages.

You can also create a custom install CD with all these packages in /pool, use a pre-seed to install the extra packages, and script the additional changes. If you want, you can completely automate the install.

[iamclueless]

looks promising

have you used it before?

correct me if im wrong, so basically i would have a customised repo on a cd. i could do a base install on another computer... and restore my packages from cd and apt taking care of the dependencies (using official repos) if needed

not sure what you mean by pre seed

oh by the way i no longer have the packages and my /var/cache/apt/archives is pretty empty. i can dpkg -l and see the 800 or so packages i have. im guessing ill have to download all the packages, get Apton CD, create an image... and then i can install on multiple machines without taking up bandwidth

thanks for that man, just clarifying my understanding of AptonCD.

[Burnside]

For starting Xfce, I have this block in my shell rc. I don't like graphical login managers, particularly GDM or KDM. The others feel too out of place.

Have you tried slim?

Not that there's anything wrong with starting from the shell.

[carolinason]

Copying this recipe for a lenny install worked pretty nice, however...

Audacious might have worked before I installed ssh or geany (got gcc?), both and other packages, caused aptitude to prompt me to remove packages to resolve dependancies --- see log below. Perhaps this bug will get resolve and my perfect setup won't have unresolved dependancies floating around. At this time xmms2 is working best, however the clients are a bit rough.

I did omit gdm, as a fellow Carolinian pointed out. CLI logins just feel more comfortable to me.


// snipit from /vat/log/apt/term.log
----
Setting up audacious-plugins (1.5.0-2) ...
Setting up audacious (1.5.1-1) ...
Log ended: 2008-07-21 12:57:46

Log started: 2008-07-21 12:59:45
(Reading database ... 45334 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing esound-clients ...
Removing libesd0 ...
Removing esound-common ...
Removing libfluidsynth1 ...
Removing ladcca2 ...
Removing libartsc0 ...
Removing libpulse0 ...
Removing libasyncns0 ...
Removing libaudiofile0 ...
Removing libjack0 ...
Removing libfreebob0 ...
Removing libavc1394-0 ...
Removing libbinio1ldbl ...
Removing libimlib2 ...
Removing libgif4 ...
Removing libid3tag0 ...
Removing libiec61883-0 ...
Removing liblircclient0 ...
Removing libmpcdec3 ...
Removing libmtp7 ...
Removing libraw1394-8 ...
Removing libresid-builder0c2a ...
Removing libsdl1.2debian ...
Removing libsdl1.2debian-alsa ...
Removing libsidplay2 ...
Removing svgalibg1 ...
Removing libsvga1 ...
Removing libwavpack1 ...

[Azdo]

Any screenshot available?

[vlad59]

For starting Xfce, I have this block in my shell rc. I don't like graphical login managers, particularly GDM or KDM. The others feel too out of place.

Have you tried slim?

Not that there's anything wrong with starting from the shell.

I use SLiM and I'm very happy about it. It has almost no dependencies (especially no gnome dependencies not like gdm). The only problem is that /etc/init.d/slim stop/restart doesn't work.

About XFCE, here is a list of applications I use : http://slucas.wikidot.com/en:debian-xfce-applications

[nopposan]

I've followed your tutorial and I've got a pretty nice looking Xfce4 desktop on an old iMac G3.

I need to get the shutdown working. I remember something I worked on before that had to do with "shutdown-helper." Also, I'd ultimately like to be able to hibernate the computer -- is this possible with the powerpc?

Also, I was wondering if you can help me to get that nifty no-frills system monitor that is always showing on the DSL (Damn Small Linux) desktop. I really like it, but I don't know what it's called.

Thanks.

[julian67]

To get shutdown working:

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# groupadd shutdown
# install -d /libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper

as root use your text editor to edit /etc/group and add your user name to the line "shutdown:x:407:user1,user2,..."

Next:

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# visudo

& add this line

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%shutdown ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/xfsm-shutdown-helper

You can now shutdown (might need to log out and log in before changes take effect).

Sorry don't know anything about powerpcs.

edit: info extracted from Mepis - antiX: How to install Xfce I used this howto in the past when I ran antiX. It's very good.