I want my Xfce4

Unlike the TV station with a similar catch phrase, calling your cable operator won’t help you solve this problem.

As you may have read, I recently installed TurboLinux 10 Desktop on my computer. Aside from it being the only Linux distribution that even attempts to properly handle Asian languages, and being the only one to support fair hardware detection, the prospect of getting to use Xfce4 again really attracted me to the package.

From the product Web site:

Desktop environments include KDE 3.1.5, GNOME 2.4 and the lightweight xFce.

According to several beta tests, the version of Xfce included in the package is Xfce4.These beta tests also said the installer couldn’t find any hardware and TurboLinux crashed whenever they loaded any window manager. I believe they said TurboLinux has absolutely no business trying to enter the desktop Linux market, so I guess they can’t be considered too reliable …

Here’s a challenge for you. Pop your CD in the drive, change over to /mount/cdrom0/turbolinux and do an ‘ls -l *xfce*’.

The only version included is the horribly outdated Xfce3, and it’s not even available in any language setting of the TurboLinux installer. Yes, I tried English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

One of the other handy things TurboLinux never mentions is whose RPMs it’s compatible with. Thanks to a lot of trial and error, I can say RedHat 9 RPMs. Anything else will just break stuff, and while I know Linux users love to break stuff, since 90 percent of Linux operation time is spent fixing Linux, I’d prefer to get to use my OS.

Grab the RedHat 9.0 RPMs from the Xfce SourceForge.net mirror and put them somewhere. It doesn’t really matter where, as long as they go somewhere. Now decompress it and change to the folder it will chunk out. ’su’ to root and mercilessly hurl the following command at your console, praying it doesn’t bite you: ‘rpm -Uvh *.rpm’

Ten minutes later, all RPMs should be installed. You may have noticed I used ‘rpm’ instead of the TurboLinux 10D flagship application, Cuick In. This is because Cuick In went bats–t when I tried using it for these RPMs.

Anyway. Now it’s time to ‘ldconfig’, yadda yadda yadda. Then we need to edit .xinitrc.

For mine, I essentially copied what TurboLinux already had put in for me, since I wanted to preserve international support and be able to use ‘turbolangsel’. If you just want English shell xfwm4 and any other bells and whistles you want. For everyone else, here’s my complete .xinitrc.

#!/bin/sh

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/Xmodmap

# merge in defaults and keymaps

if [ -f $sysresources ]; then
xrdb -merge $sysresources
fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f $userresources ]; then
xrdb -merge $userresources
fi

if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then
xmodmap $usermodmap
fi

# setup Open Window env.
if [ -d /usr/openwin ] ; then
OPENWINHOME=/usr/openwin
export OPENWINHOME
fi

if [ -f ~/.lang/langrc.sh ]; then
. ~/.lang/langrc.sh set
elif [ -f /etc/sysconfig/lang ] ; then
export LANG=`cat /etc/sysconfig/lang`
# export LANGUAGE=$LANG
fi

if [ -f ~/.xim ]; then
. ~/.xim
elif [ "${LANG%%.*}" = "ja_JP" ]; then
if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/atokx ] &&
[ -x /usr/lib/im/locale/ja/atokserver/atokx_client ]; then
. /usr/lib/im/locale/ja/atokserver/atokx_client
elif [ -f /var/lock/subsys/wnn7 ] &&
[ -x /usr/X11R6/bin/xwnmo ]; then
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=_XWNMO”
/usr/X11R6/bin/xwnmo -g 1×1-0-50
elif [ -f /var/lock/subsys/atok12x ]; then
/usr/X11R6/bin/kinput2x -atok -server localhost &
alias kinput2=kinput2x
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=kinput2″
elif [ -f /var/lock/subsys/wnn6 ] &&
[ -f /usr/local/OMRONWnn6/Wnn6linux/xwnmo ]; then
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=_XWNMO”
/usr/local/OMRONWnn6/Wnn6linux/xwnmo -g 1×1-0-50
elif [ -f /var/lock/subsys/jserver.wnn6 ] ||
[ -f /var/lock/subsys/jserver ] ||
[ -f /var/lock/subsys/wnn6 ]; then
/usr/X11R6/bin/kinput2 -wnn -jserver localhost &
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=kinput2″
elif [ -f /var/lock/subsys/canna -a -f /var/lock/subsys/IIim ]; then
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=htt”
HTT_GENERATES_KANAKEY=t HTT_USES_LINUX_XKEYSYM=t HTT_DISABLE_STATUS_WINDOW=t /usr/lib/im/httx -if canna &
elif [ -f /var/lock/subsys/canna -a -x /usr/X11R6/bin/kinput2 ]; then
/usr/X11R6/bin/kinput2 -canna &
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=kinput2″
fi
elif [ "${LANG%%.*}" = "zh_CN" ] ; then
if [ -x /usr/bin/scim ]; then
/usr/bin/scim -d
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=SCIM”
fi
elif [ "${LANG%%.*}" = "zh_TW" ] ; then
if [ -x /usr/bin/xcin ] ; then
/usr/bin/xcin &
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=xcin”
fi
elif [ "${LANG%%.*}" = "ko_KR" ]; then
if [ -x /usr/bin/ami_auto ]; then
/usr/bin/ami_auto &
export XMODIFIERS=”@im=Ami”
fi
fi

# for Qt applications
if [ "${LANG%%.*}" = "ja_JP" ]; then
UNICODEMAP_JP=’cp932,nec-vdc’
export UNICODEMAP_JP
fi

# run startup scripts
for apps in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*
do
if [ -x "$apps" ]; then
. “$apps”
fi
done

#START_STARTUP_APPS
#END_STARTUP_APPS

#START_BACKGROUND
#END_BACKGROUND

if [ -f /etc/X11/xdm/xdmreinit ]; then
. /etc/X11/xdm/xdmreinit
fi

#START_WINDOWMANAGER

xfce-mcs-manager
xfwm4 –daemon
#xftaskbar4 &
xfce4-iconbox &
xfdesktop &
gkrellm -w &
exec xfce4-panel

#END_WINDOWMANAGER

My #START_WINDOWMANAGER is taken from the .xinitrc sample for Mandrake 9.0 posted on blog-o grande, also powered by WordPress. It’s taking over the world! Much like the author, I prefer the panel to the task bar. If you want the task bar, change which line of the Shell Script was commented out.

On a more serious note, Xfce4 runs like it was designed for TurboLinux. The second you fire it up, it assumes whatever internationalization you have set your machine to seamlessly. When I fired it up, I was set to Traditional Chinese mode.

Last note and another annoyance, Firefox is being lame and defaults you to downloading a very piss poor version of the browser if you just click the Linux download link. Check the Firefox FTP and get this binary which has FreeType/xft support.

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