[CentOS] How to install XFCE on CentOS 8?

Thu Feb 11 18:38:57 UTC 2021
Simon Matter <simon.matter at invoca.ch>

> On Thu, 11 Feb 2021 at 12:31, Simon Matter <simon.matter at invoca.ch> wrote:
>
>> > Le 11/02/2021 à 17:08, Simon Matter a écrit :
>> >> But, I'm a bit shocked to find EPEL 8 in such a bad shape of
>> brokenness
>> >> and incompleteness
>> >
>> > I've come to the same conclusion.
>> >
>> > For the past couple years, my solution has been to use RHEL clones
>> (CentOS
>> > and
>> > Oracle Linux) on servers only (multi-user.target).
>> >
>> > I've moved all my graphical installations (workstation, laptops,
>> desktop
>> > clients) to OpenSUSE Leap + KDE.
>>
>> In our situation it's not so easy to say server or client. We're running
>> remote desktops over nx-libs, so, a server is also a client at the same
>> time.
>>
>> I always new EPEL is not perfect but it was usable to some degree and
>> that's why Red Hat told their customers about it and how to use it. But
>> the current state of EPEL is sad.
>>
>>
> EPEL is a volunteer driven repository and not many volunteers have been
> available for EL8. Many of the past volunteers have retired or been
> promoted out of positions they actually have time to do the work anymore.
> Asking for replacements is not easy because most people who are interested
> in EPEL just want the packages built. They have no want or clue to do the
> work themselves and want someone else to do the work for them. This leads
> to a lot of people expecting packages without anyone doing the work.

I know what you mean but my case is a bit different. For ~ two decades I'm
using Red Hat based distributions and built a large number of packages.
There are even packages in RHEL which they took over from me with my
permission. I'm maintaining quite a number of packages which sometimes
also exist in EPEL but I always keep them up to date and available with
the same version on all Red Hat based distributions of the past, even
after EOL. Many of the packages are available as SRPMs to those
interested. Usually we didn't use any critical package from EPEL because
of the state of support it has. But it was handy to consume some slowly
changing things like XFCE from EPEL. To find out now that even such things
are now in a bad state is a bit sad.

Simon