Features/Xfce48
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Xfce 4.8
Summary
Update Xfce to the upstream 4.8 release with many new improvements and features.
Owners
- Names: Kevin Fenzi, Christoph Wickert
- email: kevin@tummy.com, cwickert@fedoraproject.org
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 15
- Last updated: 2011-03-28
- Percentage of completion: 100%
Detailed Description
The Xfce project has been working on a new version, 4.8 for quite a while now.
Xfce 4.8 was released on 2011-01-16.
( The development schedule )
Benefit to Fedora
Xfce 4.8 has a number of improvements and new features. A few of the more notable ones:
- Xfce menu will support menu merging.
- Allow graphical menu editors like alacarte to work with Xfce.
- Thunar is ported from thunar-vfs to gvfs
- PolicyKit support in xfce4-session
- Multilib enhancements for xfce4-panel plugins.
- run dialog now runs with the users full session environment
- Task list windows can now be filtered by monitor.
- Improved multi-head support
Scope
Existing packages are updated to 4.8 in rawhide.
Most required packages are already reviewed and in rawhide, but will need to be updated to the new 4.8 versions.
One new package will need to be imported into Fedora 15:
- thunar-vfs (legacy package for apps that still use thunar-vfs instead of gvfs, e.g xfburn):
Review- done
One packages will need to be Obsoleted and blocked from Fedora 15:
- libxfce4menu (replaecd by garcon)
At least the following will need to be updated (in that order):
- libxfce4util
- gtk-xfce-engine
- xfconf
- libxfce4ui
- libxfcegui4 (legacy, will be phased out once everything is ported to libxfce4ui)
- garcon
- exo
- xfce4-settings
- xfce4-appfinder
- xfce4-panel
- xfce4-session
- xfwm4
- xfce-utils
- xfdesktop
The following packages will need to be rebuilt:
- xfce4-mixer
- all xfce4-panel plugins
- all thunar plugins
Some of these may actually need porting.
How To Test
New installs:
- install rawhide/Fedora 15 on any machine.
- yum install @xfce-desktop
- confirm gdm offers Xfce4 as a session type
- confirm you can select this session and login
- confirm settings changes can be made and saved, and are found after a logout/login cycle.
- confirm day to day desktop functions are working.
- confirm all settings dialogs come up and work.
(More specifics can be added when final changelogs are available)
Updates:
- confirm yum groupupdate 'XFCE' works and all packages are properly updated/obsoleted.
- confirm the updated desktop works fine.
User Experience
- This release incorporates many changes to the Xfce desktop environment, including:
- A move to GIO from the older, less flexible ThunarVFS
- A re-write of the Xfce panel with better multi monitor and launcher support.
- Menu editing is available via packages such as alacarte.
- Core libraries streamlined to use less memory and provide a more stable user experience.
Dependencies
- None
Contingency Plan
Revert to older Xfce 4.6 version. This may require a Epoch and rebuilding packages and plugins. Or if the dist-f14-xfce tag has not yet been merged back into rawhide, only reverts in git will be required.
Documentation
- The Xfce 4.8 desktop
Release Notes
- Xfce has been updated to version 4.8. This version includes many enhancements and bug fixes. See the tour at http://www.xfce.org/about/tour for more information.
