Arch Linux

killsto

Member

Registered: 2008-12-09

Posts: 35

Xfce4 - what came with it?

I installed xfce4 on my laptop and noticed I now can do a lot more things...magically. I'm wondering what exactly I installed and how exactly are devices handled.

Before I installed xfce, I had no tool for monitoring battery life. Now that I have it installed I now have one. I understand that this game with the package, but where is it getting the reading?

Another example: I understand (mostly) how HAL talks to X and feeds it mouseinput and how it can control sensitivity. There is a program in Xfce to control mouse sensitivity that (I don't think) is the same thing as the hal setting. Also, when I installed xfce my trackpad started working with scrolling and all.

Basically I want to  know what is going on on the inside with devices and who is talking to whom. I'm not new to linux, but I haven't thought about it much before.

ps: why is it exactly that you can echo to a process as if it were a file?

rebugger

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-10-28

Posts: 229

Re: Xfce4 - what came with it?

battery-infos: have a look at the files in /proc/acpi/battery/...

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Xfce4 - what came with it?

pacman can tell you exactly what apps are included in the xfce4 and xfce4-goodies package groups. Your pacman log can tell you exactly what was installed on your system and when.

For details on how individual applets e.g. battery monitor work, try the xfce4 forum and/or general googling.

I don't understand your last question, but it should probably be in a separate thread anyway.

barzam

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2009-01-27

Posts: 277

Re: Xfce4 - what came with it?

Do a search on "Everything is a file", eg. this site: http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~arik/usail/con … -file.html

That ought to answer the last question!