Hi list!
Since the Alternative Desktop SIG didn't happen, we thought we would make a more focused effort and improve the Xfce desktop environment experience on CentOS. That might end up being a dedicated CentOS SIG, or just a couple of improvements to the existing packages from EPEL.
Once upon a time, or more precisely: back in the CentOS 5.0 days, Xfce 4.4 was available in Extras and it was a pretty simple install that just worked "out of the box". Now, there's the newer versions available via EPEL - but the experience is nowhere near painless...
Going to try to meet up with other interested parties during FOSDEM, to see if we can't improve upon that and at least fix the low hanging issues. And get some better Xfce testing and feedback going, as well. A more long-term goal is make it an alternative to GNOME (Workstation).
I've rounded up some of the issues, that currently exist:
* The theme and icons are wrong, either missing or just ugly * The background image is wrong, ending up with a single color * X11 and Fonts are missing, so just adding the group doesn't work * Some bugs need backporting or fixing, like in Terminal or Xfwm.
See http://afb.users.sourceforge.net/xfce/centos/centos-xfce.html
Right now, one starts with a Minimal (or Server) install of CentOS. Then adds Base, X11 (including fonts), and finally Xfce (from EPEL). Once the aforementioned problems are taken care of, that should be it. Eventually, it might even end up being a "spin" or available image ?
As mentioned earlier, here are the applicable versions of each:
* CentOS 5 - Xfce 4.4 (in CentOS Extras) * CentOS 5 - Xfce 4.6 (based on Fedora 6) * CentOS 6 - Xfce 4.8 (based on Fedora 12) * CentOS 7 - Xfce 4.10 (based on Fedora 18)
To replace GNOME PackageKit there's the Yum Extender, and to replace GDM there's LightDM (more work is needed, to make a CentOS-6 version). The GNOME icons and GNOME themes will probably "work" to start with, but one can probably improve upon that as well (as a lower priority).
Something like http://afb.users.sourceforge.net/xfce/xfce-brave.png
If you are interested in helping out with testing, packaging or developing (backporting, fixing the upstream issues, and so on) then please say so. I'll try to have some more detailed lists and updated packages with me, for the FOSDEM meetup in the weekend...
* http://wiki.centos.org/Events/Fosdem2015
--anders