wirelessduck--- via Dng said on Tue, 21 Dec 2021 18:30:04 +1100

>> On 21 Dec 2021, at 07:37, Steve Litt <slitt@???>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Olaf Meeuwissen via Dng said on Mon, 20 Dec 2021 18:49:59 +0900
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> ACK. I really wish the xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin dependency were
>>> downgraded to a Recommends:. Note to self, submit a bugreport!
>>>
>>> # Don't mind if someone else beats me to it. If so, submit to
>>> Debian # BTS cuz this ain't no Devuan bug.
>>>
>>> While I agree that marking all dependencies of xfce4 is a PITA, the
>>> list is not all that long. Even if it were
>>>

>>> sudo apt-mark manual \
>>>  $(dpkg-query -W -f '${Depends}\n' xfce4
>>>       | sed 's/([^)]*)//g; s/,//g')

>>>
>>> should do the trick.
>>>
>>> Warning: Check the output of the command in $() before feeding it to
>>> apt-mark. If there's any `|` in there, DON'T feed it to apt-mark.
>>>
>>> After that you can, in theory,
>>>
>>> apt purge xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin
>>>
>>> without losing your xfce4 dependencies.
>>>
>>> URK! Dogfooding this, I am told that another 150+ are going to be
>>> purged, most likely because of task-desktop and task-xfce-desktop
>>> being automatically installed.
>>>
>>> Hmm, doesn't look as easy as I first thought.
>>
>> About the only positive thing I can say about xfce is it's better
>> than Gnome, KDE and the now defunct Unity. Except compared to those,
>> it's not particularly lightweight, and my experience is it's been
>> quirky on Linux (but not OpenBSD) for the past decade, at least.
>> There are so many great WMDEs (Window Manager/Desktop Environment)
>> that it's a shame to use xfce.
>>
>> I use Openbox and have no problems, ever. When I take it on the road
>> and want a complete setup with panel, I use LXDE, which is a panel
>> and various programs to run with Openbox. If LXDE isn't available,
>> LXQt is almost as good. I have info on how to set it up at:
>>
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/quickhacks.htm#startxlxqt
>>
>> Other outstanding WMDEs include fvwm, IceWM, Windowmaker, jwm, i9,
>> and a host of others. From my perspective, there's absolutely no
>> reason to use xfce.
>>
>> SteveT
>
>I followed your guide for openbox and it’s quite nice, combined with
>tilda for console and tint2 for panel. Adding the 6 pixel left margin
>is a nice hack to always have access to the openbox menu even with
>full screen applications!
>
>Do you have any suggestions on a replacement for xfce4-appfinder that
>can search through .desktop files as well as $PATH? The nice thing
>about xfce4-appfinder is the two separate interfaces for searching
>.desktop (alt+F3) and $PATH (alt+F2).

The easy suggestion is you can install xfce to get its apps, including
the pretty nice xfce4-terminal and the handy xfce4-appfinder, but not
use it as your WMDE.

A second suggestion is that I think I remember xfce4-appfinder, and if
it's what I remember it to be, a properly configured dmenu is much
quicker and handier. To see how to do this (and it's easy), see
http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/dmenu/bestpractices.htm , and pay
particular attention to the "Dmenu as a Program Runner" section.

As far as the .desktop files, there's no need to run them unless you
need to call your program with special arguments, etc. If so, you can
make shellscripts to do it. I'm really not familiar with .desktop files
except for in win98.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Spring 2021 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques