The damn thing Just Works™. That’s why the developers aren’t being pestered. It’s a pretty great piece of software.
Every couple of years I install other desktops to check out what the cool guys use nowadays, then go right back to XFCE.
It’s like having a hot cup of tea on a cold day while sitting in a comfy chair by the fire with your slippers on.
Similarly, I like to toy around with tiling window managers, but then someone less technical needs to use the computer, so back to XFCE we go.
Nice read, and much more interesting than mainstream articles with titles like “Linux has 5 % market share now”.
Xfce is the default one in MX Linux, which is #1 entry on distrowatch for years, I don’t know how many install there is of MX, but I’m using it for years, I like Xfce, it’s simple, it works
If I remember correctly, clicking distro links on Distrowatch causes Distrowatch to increase its ranking of that distro, so it’s theoretically possible that MX Linux is only at the top because people who don’t use it and haven’t heard of it think “wtf is MX Linux?”, click the link and push its rank ever higher.
Urban Dictionary (not Linux related nor particularly SFW, but bear with me) had a similar problem with their table of “popular definitions” links. (They eventually took them off the site.)
If memory serves (for a second time), some of the links went to non-existent definitions, but those links looked like the only way to reach those definitions, so people clicked them, increasing their popularity and keeping them in the list. Along comes another visitor, “oh what’s this”, repeat ad nauseam.
That site isn’t phone-friendly at all. I can’t even zoom, all I can do is scroll left and right to read each line, even on vertical. That just hilariously bad.
Firefox reader mode worked great for me to make it readable.
I agree. Responsive web design can be tricky, I was banging my head against the wall for 5 hours trying to debug a mobile-friendly UI for my game.
As far as I’ve seen, responsive web design consists of formatting it for a phone and just serving that same mess up to desktop users.
It might be understandable for something complex like a game, but this is simple text. You have to actively break that so it doesn’t adapt.
Took me forever to get something I like on Jekyll (to host on gitpages)
I used ‘reader mode’, or whatever it’s called, on Firefox and that worked well.
The reasons given seem to be common sense.
Yep, can confirm. I used Xubuntu primarily for years, and never had an account on the official XFCE forums or Git, because why would I? I’m just a user, the software is very stable, and stuff tended to just work.
love this kind of brain dumps
This was a cool read. Thanks for sharing :) I’ve been an XFCE user since 2002 & can confirm that as a longtime user I’ve never really encountered anything other than a few small problems…
I use Xfce daily. I honestly prefer it to others. Never had any issues with it, either.
Recently, my wife asked me how many people in total actually use the software I develop in my free time (mostly thunar).
Wait, what.
8
8-1/2
I love Thunar, has a ton of features + plugin support and it is very fast when opening, here is a benchmark I did on the launch time:
PCManFM (the old one): 0.15 seconds.
Thunar: 0.36 seconds.
PCManFM-Qt: 0.39 seconds.
Nemo: 0.47 seconds.
Dolphin: 0.78 seconds.
mmmm: 1.73 seconds. (I feel like I don’t even need to say which one this is lol)
Your estimates are for sure low.
You will never hear from most people. Of the people that speak up, most will do it via some channel that you will never encounter.
I have been using Thunar for many years by the way, and not just on XFCE. Thank you so much for everything you have done.
I have used Thunar for a long time. You have never heard from me.
Chad gymrat Xfce. GNOME is trash and xfce is proof of that
