[request] xfce 4.2-beta1

ro0x · 2004-10-03 20:44:19

PKGBUILD???

here is the download http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourcef … rc.tar.bz2

potentials · 2004-10-03 20:49:53

Second that

dp · 2004-10-03 22:36:03

use ABS, try to simply rename the $pkgver and addapt the url if needed

report your success/failure

aCoder · 2004-10-04 03:40:34

use ABS, try to simply rename the $pkgver and addapt the url if needed
report your success/failure

While that's normally the way to go, xfce4 consists of many pkgs, many of which are in a different configuration than in previous version, making the whole upgrade thing quite a production. This would be a perfect time for whoever owns the related pkgs in Arch to take advantage of the testing repository.

Also, if anyone's interested, xfce4-mixer does not build with alsa (it's broken), and, for me anyway, startxfce4, or any other way of starting X and xfce4, fail for me after building. However, I didn't use pacman, but just removed current xfce4 pkgs and installed to /opt/xfce4. The graphical installer available fails with an a2ps error whether it's installed or not.

skoal · 2004-10-04 03:42:25

ro0x wrote:

PKGBUILD???

How ironic...

I was working on the ABS pkgbuild files for this beta release this morning. I went back to their website, and I saw an installer ".bin" file. I'm testing the ".bin" installation now and will finish the ABS/PKGBUILDS tonite if I can.

* I pretty much was doing exactly what DP said above. So far, there is at least 1 package "dbh-xx.xx" which does not have a PKGBUILD already made, since it is apparently new with the 4.2 release (although Arch repo's have an older dbh). I've been cross-referencing all the packages from the xfce.org website with the PKGBUILD's given to me when I did a sync with "abs". Even if someone else beats me to it, I'm gonna finish this anyway.

Acoder, you are right about the "alsa" failure. I built the whole thing this morning and am using it now. I just changed the mixer to use "oss" instead and have no problems.

If you are still having problems with a "src" build or from the installer, here's what I did (which should not interfere with pacman updates or installs):

1. Built or installed to '/opt/tmp/' (or something other than '/opt/xfce4').
2. removed (commented out) "/opt/xfce4/lib" in '/etc/ld.so.conf' and replaced with "/opt/tmp/lib", and reran ldconfig.
3. Made a backup of '/etc/profile.d/xfce4.sh' and edited those env paths to reflect "/opt/tmp/bin" and such.
4. Backup '~/.xfce4', then wipe it out with "rm -rf ~/.xfce4"
5. Copy over just your "menu.xml" file to "~/.config/xfce4/desktop/" (or "xfdesktop" will fail and your session crash).
6. It seems like everything goes in "~/.config" directory now, including menu.xml, Xft.xrdb, and such. You will need to rearrange your old files from "~/.xfce4" in the new config directory, since it's better organized now. I only have 1 file left in "~/.xfce4", and it's probably only there since I symlinked the old weather ".so" library file (and some other plugins) to the new 4.2 temp directory. I didn't rebuild any of the plugins yet.

Of course, this is a lot to keep track of so when Arch comes out with the package, you'll need to restore all the stuff above, or maybe not since you would have already put everything in place where it will belong.

If "startxfce4" fails for you, then just make a "~/.xinitrc" with:

...
xfce-mcs-manager
xfwm4 --daemon
xftaskbar4 &
xfdesktop &
exec xfce4-panel

somewhere at the bottom after your other stuff.

And, launch with just "startx".

* If you really want the "xfce-session" (session manager) to work (by using "startxfce4" instead), and are having problems, you need to copy '<install base>/etc/xdg/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc' to '~/.config/xfce4-session/'.

Oh yeah, if you are having problems running the installer, be sure to set the environment variable:

export _POSIX2_VERSION=199209

or it will fail on the "tail" command.

** That's the first time I've ever used a ".bin" file (the 15MB installer) which more or less was just building the source. It seemed like it took just as long with the "installer" as it did just building it from source. Strange concept...

I CAME BACK AND RE-READ MY LENGTHY POST. Someone made the comment about a PKGBUILD for this set as being a chore. After re-reading my post and what it took for me to get 4.2 going, I tend to agree. But, for you Archer's living on the bleeding edge like me...I hope this helps until the beta goes stable.

I almost forgot about the gratuitous screenshot:
[URL=http://img22.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img22&image=xfce-4.jpg] xfce-4.th.jpg [/URL]

You may notice in that picture the support for Menu icons and nice support for the X composite extensions. In addition, the 4.2 release adds a feature where you can adjust the brightness and contrast. I turned it up a notch so you could make out the watermarks I left on the "C".

aCoder · 2004-10-04 22:47:04

Thanks for the tips skoal. However, I changed things around a little to get an 'easy way' to get xfce-session to work which simply involved copying all of /path/to/etc/xdg/ to ~/.config. Also, dbh is in extra (I think) and doesn't need to be built seperately.

That said, I'm lovin' the beta! No bugs beyond the few build/install issues thus far...

skoal · 2004-10-05 01:16:17

aCoder wrote:

That said, I'm lovin' the beta! No bugs beyond the few build/install issues thus far...

I hear ya. It is sweet.

I'm pretty much through with the PKGBUILD's for the 4.1.90 beta. I shouldn't have used the "dbh" package as an example earlier. Although it is more recent and listed in the 4.1.90 repo's, I have not included a PKGBUILD for it yet. In fact, there are 5 packages that have changed since 4.0.6, by my last count. 3 of which are new and needed to build the 4.1.90 beta, of which, 1 ('xfce4-session') is necessary (if you want to use 'startxfce4' successfully).

Things done (and/or things I'm still working on):

1. Cross referrenced all new packages with old 4.0.x series.
2. Done making/updating PKGBUILD's for old 4.0.x series which have same package names as 4.1.90 beta.
3. Adding PKGBUILD for new "plugin" type executable binary called "xfce4-bglist-editor". It basically helps you generate a list of screen backgrounds you can rotate sequentially every time you restart your XFCE sessions.
4. Working on script to copy over "<parent>/etc/xdg/[...]" stuff to "~/.config" and use in PKGBUILD.
5. Testing beta package installation over existing 4.0.x install (already in use). I do not know what all pacman does when you make an upgrade, but it looks as though there are some old 4.0.x stuff in "/opt/xfce" which is not part of the beta install. It's possible I may have garbled up my directory, so I am currently...
6. Testing a fresh install of my beta package after removing 4.0.x entirely first. Then, I'm making note of what more is needed in scripts/PKGBUILD's if at all.
7. Making note of things missing with beta, like "xfcalendar" in taskbar. I don't why they took it out from default ".xml" file, but I'm sure I can put it back down there with an ".xml" file edit. Plus, they re-wrote the "startxfce4" script, and unless you manually edit the "Xft.xrdb" file, you will lose the "Xft.dpi" settings. In my case, I get funky font sizes (in a few apps) if I don't.
8. A bunch of other anal steps to reassure myself I'm not missing anything.

* Since this is still beta, and because of circumstances like the one we came across with the "~/.config" stuff missing (either from their .bin installer or built from source), I'm checking things twice and trying to not clutter my PKGBUILDS with stuff that won't be necessary with their final release.

Glad you got it working now. I think my favorite feature on their so far is the improvements made to "xffm" (the file manager)...and, that's a pretty good compliment coming from someone like me who does everything in the console.

skoal · 2004-10-05 06:31:00

ivanski wrote:

Skoal can you tell me how do you make programs entry in Desktop menu in your screenshot, by hand or with some program, I had tryed menumaker but had to add icons by hand :?
Thanks in Advance

I'm not in 4.2 right now since I'm still testing my package builds, but I believe there is an executable called "xfce4-menueditor".

I originally was just manually editting my "menu.xml" file in the "~/.config/..." folder, but found this program to do it far quicker and easier. I'm pretty sure that program has been around since even the 4.0.x series, although it didn't handle the icons at the time.

If you do not have that program for whatever reason, just manually edit the "menu.xml" file and append a 'icon="<path and filename to .png>" ' to each menu entry. That will work for sure.

* By the way, I like to use a gradient as my background. However, it looks kinda choppy to me at present. I don't know if it's because I'm running in 16-bit depth only. I'd be curious to hear if someone gets it to make a smooth transition from one color to the next in their 4.2 beta.

dp · 2004-10-05 15:22:32

aCoder wrote:

use ABS, try to simply rename the $pkgver and addapt the url if needed
report your success/failure
While that's normally the way to go, xfce4 consists of many pkgs, many of which are in a different configuration than in previous version, making the whole upgrade thing quite a production. This would be a perfect time for whoever owns the related pkgs in Arch to take advantage of the testing repository.

sorry, i didn't know that this is that complex (had 2 or 3 pkgs in mind, and not >10) --- yes, the maintainer of it can upload it in testing, if he finds some time to do so

potentials · 2004-10-05 16:13:56

If you are that impatient to have the beta (just like I was), grab GarXfce4. Works like a charm

orelien · 2004-10-05 18:06:32

Well, I have to say I won't release any Xfce 4.2 pre-release. You'll have to wait for 4.2 to see new Xfce packages in Arch repository.

However, I've updated Xfce PKGBUILD files to 4.1.90.
They can be downloaded from here: http://aurelien.foret.free.fr/archlinux … 0-1.tar.gz

To build the packages (as root) :

# pacman -R xfce4 xfce4-goodies
# tar zxvf xfce-4.1.90.tar.gz
# export ABSROOT=$PWD
# makeworld -bic /path/to/dest xfce-4.1.90

If everything is ok, "pacman -Qg xfce4" should show you a set of 22 brand new packages.

Please don't hesitate to report issues with these PKGBUILD files if any, as these are the candidates that will be commited to Arch trees upon 4.2 release.

skoal · 2004-10-05 18:49:09

orelien wrote:

Please don't hesitate to report issues with these PKGBUILD files if any, as these are the candidates that will be commited to Arch trees upon 4.2 release.

What's the best (preferred) way to do this? Through replies back in this same thread? Or by another means?

orelien · 2004-10-05 18:57:07

skoal wrote:

Through replies back in this same thread? Or by another means?

If it can be of some interest for everyone, reply to the thread.
Otherwise, please send me an email (aurelien@archlinux.org).

aCoder · 2004-10-05 22:22:23

Well, I have to say I won't release any Xfce 4.2 pre-release. You'll have to wait for 4.2 to see new Xfce packages in Arch repository.
However, I've updated Xfce PKGBUILD files to 4.1.90.
They can be downloaded from here: http://aurelien.foret.free.fr/archlinux … .90.tar.gz

Thanks. I haven't tried them yet, but I'll let you know how it goes.

aCoder · 2004-10-05 22:50:54

Well, everything went fine. Also, everything's working better anyway now that the compositor is gone. Why couldn't those few annoyances have been enough to keep me from building it in? Thanks again!

skoal · 2004-10-06 04:05:22

aCoder wrote:

Well, everything went fine. Also, everything's working better anyway now that the compositor is gone. Why couldn't those few annoyances have been enough to keep me from building it in? Thanks again!

In my build, I explicitly told the package "xfmw4" to use "--enable-compositor" in the configure script. I can't think of any problems I've experienced while using it. If others experience similiar problems as you have, that would be unfortunate if they didn't fix it in the final release so everyone could use it.

aCoder · 2004-10-07 00:51:10

I had issues related to the composite extension and GTK. For me, many fields containing non-editable text would become distorted when scrolling quickly through it. Also, changing themes would not happen entirely unless X was restarted. None of these problems occur with xfwm's compositor or xcompmgr running, and all of them happen on occasion when either is.

skoal · 2004-10-07 02:25:39

aCoder wrote:

I had issues related to the composite extension and GTK. For me, many fields containing non-editable text would become distorted when scrolling quickly through it.

Hmm...very interesting indeed. I too had that same tearing effect in 4.0.x, but have yet to witness it in 4.1.90. It always occurred randomly (in 4.0.x) it seemed, so maybe I'm just lucky or have yet to see it rear it's head in 4.1.90.

skoal · 2004-10-07 07:28:38

By the way, I think someone mentioned in this thread that "xfce4-mixer" will fail if you enable alsa support. I got it working and it is really nice. I can finally run the mixer plugin and use the volume control for my Sound Blaster Live! card. Too sweet...

In "xfce4-mixer" make the following changes to that PKGBUILD file:

[...]
cp -f panel-plugin/stringlist.inc lib/
./configure --prefix=/opt/xfce4 --with-sound=alsa
[...]

And, when you fire up xfce4, run the mixer plugin and you can select which channel you want to be the "Wannabe Master". For my SB Live!, I use "EMU10K1 PCM,0", and of course, change the "device" section too.

By the way, I think I'm gonna disable the "composite" part in my build for "xfwm4". It looks nice with the shadowing and all, but it only draws them on app windows. I think it's better just to use the "xcompmgr -cf" settings instead of enabling this thing.

When X solely handles it, you get shadowin on everything. I really don't have a clue if this XFCE-4 is really even using the COMPOSITE extension, or just rendering a "drop shadow" effect. I guess it would be nice for people to use if they can't get "xcompmgr" running, and as far as I can tell, I can still run "xcompmgr -cf" in conjuction with it safely, getting everything instead of just what XFCE-4 provides, so it has no real use for me in my case.

skoal · 2004-10-07 09:06:05

By the way, if you do a fresh install of 4.1.90, after removing the xfce4-goodies (as shown by Orelein's method or similiar), you will need to make a symbolic link in order to use the "xfce4-goodies" (plugins) after you install the "xfce4-4.1.90" core.

For some reason, and I haven't dug deeper, apparently the old "xfce4-panel-4.0.x" looks for a symlink called "libxfcegui4.so.1" in "/opt/xfce4/lib" but, apparently, then newer libxfcegui4 renames that newer ".so" to "[...].3.0.0".

Just do the following (after you run "pacman -Sy xfce4-goodies") and you will get your plugins back:

ln -s /opt/xfce4/lib/libxfcegui4.so.3.0.0 /opt/xfce4/lib/libxfcegui4.so.1

I added that to my beta PKGBUILD. Now, my XFCE-4 is complete...

neri · 2004-10-07 10:17:35

OK.

In my packages I encountered a problem with the basic configurations. The
session stuff fails due to a 'can't load failsafe session' . After I copied the
confs from /opt/xfce4/etc/xdg/xfce4-session/* to ~/.config/xfce4-session/*
at least it started but left me with an empty panel. Again I copied thing by
hand and it worked. Did anyone else encounter similar problems?

-neri

sweiss · 2004-10-07 12:45:00

neri wrote:

OK.
In my packages I encountered a problem with the basic configurations. The
session stuff fails due to a 'can't load failsafe session' . After I copied the
confs from /opt/xfce4/etc/xdg/xfce4-session/* to ~/.config/xfce4-session/*
at least it started but left me with an empty panel. Again I copied thing by
hand and it worked. Did anyone else encounter similar problems?
-neri

I've encountered exactly the same problem. I asked some of the xfce4 devs about it, and according to them it should copy the defaults automatically if they are not there. Perhaps a bug report is needed?

neri · 2004-10-07 12:57:20

sweiss wrote:

I've encountered exactly the same problem. I asked some of the xfce4 devs about it, and according to them it should copy the defaults automatically if they are not there. Perhaps a bug report is needed?

Hi sweiss,

I'm so glad I'm not the only one ;-) So it's not my fault at all.
I was considering to write some automagic shellscript which is sourced by
the startxfce4 shellscript testing the existence of configs and copy stuff when
needed. But before we should consider a bug report at their bug tracker.

I will do it, b4 I will ask at their dev-mailing list.

-neri

sweiss · 2004-10-07 13:43:11

neri wrote:

sweiss wrote:
I've encountered exactly the same problem. I asked some of the xfce4 devs about it, and according to them it should copy the defaults automatically if they are not there. Perhaps a bug report is needed?
Hi sweiss,
I'm so glad I'm not the only one ;-) So it's not my fault at all.
I was considering to write some automagic shellscript which is sourced by
the startxfce4 shellscript testing the existence of configs and copy stuff when
needed. But before we should consider a bug report at their bug tracker.
I will do it, b4 I will ask at their dev-mailing list.
-neri

Thanks. I'm not that much of a bash expert, still learning my ways so... I recall the CVS version copying the defaults when not present, so I think it is a bug. I'm not using 4.2 right now, but perhaps it copies the defaults to the old .xfce4 directory instead of the new .config/xfce4 one, and maybe that's why we're having this issue (all are only assumptions).

Anyway, after much testing of trial and error, I've upgraded the xfce4 scripts to the 4.1.90 version. The only thing changed with these pkgbuilds are the depend arrays, so if orelien wishes to have a look at those, be my guest.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/sweiss/xfce-4.2b1-1.tar.gz

orelien · 2004-10-07 17:55:19

I've uploaded a 4.1.90-2 PKGBUILD set taking into account skoal and neri remarks :
http://aurelien.foret.free.fr/archlinux … 0-2.tar.gz
xfdesktop now conflicts with xfce4-menueditor, and it also replaces it (to handle pacman -Syu properly).

Thanks neri for having reported the .config thing to Xfce folks. I prefer to see them trying to improve this behavior, rather than us adding black magic to Arch packages.
Let's wait and see

Arch Linux

#1 2004-10-03 20:44:19

[request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#2 2004-10-03 20:49:53

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#3 2004-10-03 22:36:03

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#4 2004-10-04 03:40:34

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#5 2004-10-04 03:42:25

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#6 2004-10-04 22:47:04

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#7 2004-10-05 01:16:17

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#8 2004-10-05 06:31:00

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#9 2004-10-05 15:22:32

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#10 2004-10-05 16:13:56

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#11 2004-10-05 18:06:32

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#12 2004-10-05 18:49:09

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#13 2004-10-05 18:57:07

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#14 2004-10-05 22:22:23

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#15 2004-10-05 22:50:54

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#16 2004-10-06 04:05:22

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#17 2004-10-07 00:51:10

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#18 2004-10-07 02:25:39

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#19 2004-10-07 07:28:38

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#20 2004-10-07 09:06:05

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#21 2004-10-07 10:17:35

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#22 2004-10-07 12:45:00

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#23 2004-10-07 12:57:20

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#24 2004-10-07 13:43:11

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

#25 2004-10-07 17:55:19

Re: [request] xfce 4.2-beta1

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