It's official, Debian will use XFCE as the default desktop environment

Ya elav I commented on it this article, but it was just a "maybe", now it's official and they specify it in the commit here..

The main reasons for this are… well, obvious: lightness.

Be supposed to Gnome it has become too cumbersome to make the distro fit on a CD, and that is something that creates a psychological barrier, both for ordinary users and developers since, putting it in simple words, it "goes over."

Anyway, it is nothing to write home about, in fact many Debian users use it with XFCE o LXDE, so it will not be a radical change and will remain a viable option for many people; actually I might change my crunchbang on the Netbook for Debian Wheeze, who knows.

Anyway, a piece of news with little to cut, beyond any other implication, what is known is that from now on Debian will come with XFCE, well for those of us who use this desktop environment. 😀


31 comments, leave yours

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  1.   Adoniz (@ NinjaUrbano1) said

    Very successful, the debian ones are better this way, since xfce is more stable like lxde and I tell you that I am in the testing branch, I really did not like gnome anymore now I prefer these environments:
    KDE
    Lxde
    Xfce
    and Mate.

    This is good news because it would really be horrible to see a debian stable with gnome-shell or gnome 3.

  2.   Gregory Swords said

    Hopefully other distros will do the same, let's see if GNOME developers once and for all open their eyes to realize that something (rather, a lot!) Are doing wrong.

    1.    KZKG ^ Gaara said

      + 1 !!

    2.    dwarf said

      The thing with all this is that it is complicated. GNOME does not know what to do with itself and is going around and reaching for things that it should not touch or that if it does it must first consult them. That weird facelift that was done and the defense to the death of a concept that is not working at the desktop level is only going to do them a lot of damage.

      I've come across GNOME advocates, but as die-hard fanboys who don't realize that while they are within their rights to use whatever they want, that doesn't mean they're right just because they like it.

      Will they be fixed for 4.0? It is somewhat complicated, now they want to enter a mobile environment, they announced it, they want to work in a mobile OS but ... Didn't they say that they lack staff? That they do not have a north or a purpose other than to make "great apps"? I don't know, all this makes for very long articles. In fact I don't know what opinions you have but contact me and let's write something xD

  3.   jotaele said

    Sounds like a good decision to me. Especially considering that XFCE, in addition to being lightweight, is highly configurable. Another bad note for the Gnome guys.

  4.   Javier said

    I think it is a wise decision, although I prefer KDE, I used GNOME before but I must say that I have stopped liking it since the third version was published. XFCE is my second preferred desktop environment, good for them and good for Debian for making this decision.

  5.   josephrito said

    Well, a week ago I decided to go from stable to testing (after more than a year) and made the same determination, change gnome for xfce and the reason was precisely that, lightness ... and I have to admit that I am quite happy with it change ... easy, simple, configurable and very fast.

  6.   pipe said

    It is being given the recognition and status that XFCE deserves.

  7.   Wolf said

    Totally logical and expected decision. In my opinion, Gnome has lost the north (and the stir that is mounting on Nautilus), although they have had a creative epiphany as well and eventually get away with it. At the moment, I prefer "outdated, unusable and unintuitive" environments. I'm a weirdo, I know.

  8.   medina07 said

    From my point of view it is a wise and welcome decision…. Thank you for the confirmation.

  9.   Ivan Bethencourt said

    Gnome is dead, long live Xfce ...

  10.   Oscar said

    I think the Gnome team is not interested, they are on something else, despite the fact that many users have switched to other desktop environments they remain firm in their policies. Time will tell who was right.

  11.   Azazel said

    Personally, I am comfortable with XFCE because of its customization and its lightness but there are things that I miss about Gnome 2 such as the possibility of changing the Nautilus background for an image, changing the folder icons at will and the possibility of adding more emblems to the list. The truth is that I have already tried the Gnome 3 but I see it more comfortable to use for a tablet than for the desktop (now that I think about it, it is as if Microsoft had realized the objective of this change and that is why the redesign of its interface to the Metro I think that inspired them since they use SUSE interpricre and as far as I know the SUSE ones bet on Gnome 3 since it came out).

  12.   diazepam said

    Ok, now what remains is to see how long people will prefer to install a debian with a graphical environment, from a CD and that is not a net-install installation.

    http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/08/msg00035.html

  13.   rock and roll said

    I think that outside of the problem of space to include in a CD an image with Gnome, the most profound reason for the decision made by the Debian team is the stability that the default version wants. Gnome is changing a lot (for better or for worse, there are different opinions), so for a stable version of Debian something more secure like XFCE is better.
    Anyway, it is the default installation nothing more; each user, ultimately, installs the desktop they want.
    Greetings.

  14.   pavloco said

    Good decision on the part of Debian, hopefully and Gnome open their eyes quickly.

  15.   dr.z said

    Totally agree!

  16.   Marco said

    a great decision. XFCE is a great option, especially version 4.10, which I have actually tried and it is going great. as for Gnome, it is unfortunate what seems to be happening, without any guidance. I just hope the situation improves.

  17.   irvandoval said

    How sad that a Desktop Environment that was the most used has reached this point. But they themselves dug his grave, to see what future this project has, they have it very difficult.

  18.   Gonzalo said

    What they should have done is two versions of Gnome, the light one or the old one and the modern one, both using the same libraries as much as possible (the modern one obviously should use some more)
    But the current situation is not so bad either, when using many more people Xfce or Xubuntu will give more support to the desktop and many more people will send errors from it and many more people will solve them in blogs.

  19.   Nonamed said

    good news for my preferred desktop (since gnome is not what it used to be), maybe this will speed up the xfce development process :)

  20.   martin said

    4.10 grew a lot although it did not finish incorporating all the planned changes.
    Xfce is my second option at the moment, but as Cinnamon develops, I have no doubt that as soon as it reaches a usable and moderately complete point it is a great, great competitor.

  21.   commentator said

    You have to wait and see what happens. On the Debian download page, Wheezy beta 1 still comes with cd 1 with gnome, the cd where xfce and lxde come from, is another. Can this change for beta 2?

  22.   Paul said

    I like XFCE, it's fast, but ... it doesn't allow as much desktop configuration, etc ... as gnome

  23.   Blazek said

    This change was seen coming for quite some time. Gnome 3 has certainly been a huge disappointment since it came out.

  24.   Santiago said

    Better times are coming for all fans of the mouse 🙂 !!!

  25.   2 said

    that is very puppet .. first they should have done something to consult with the community (because supposedly it is a community) but they did not .. they preach that it is a community but they do not apply.

    I'm going to change distro

  26.   mc5 said

    I don't quite understand the concept of lightness or the heavyness of a desktop environment.
    On what criteria is it based? It seems that we are in the eighties or early nineties when computers did not have the potential of now.

    If I have 4 or 6 cores and all the ram that I want, the last thing I think about is how heavy a desktop environment is. Unless it is talking about machines from before 2003. My machine is from 2006 and with 4 gb of ram I have tested almost all desktop environments without any problems in terms of performance.

    I think it is more a personal matter, in the same way that the operating system is chosen adapting it to our needs, the same is done with the desktop environment, a matter of tastes and needs.

    Xfce is a good environment, remarkable for that or the other, but it is still just another desktop, within the great variety that they offer us for free.

  27.   Mario said

    Great news !!! Around here for the servers, for the old (and recovered) machines, for all the virtual machines, we use Debian Stable with XFCE !! Finally default Debian installations with XFCE.
    The only complaint with Debian is that they must be more flexible in the repos to allow the coexistence of projects like Mate, Cinnamon or Trinity, that those desktops can be installed from the official repos.
    Those of Gnome are not aimless, from the first day their course was to copy MS (Bonobo == OLE), and if MS goes to tablets, they also go to tablets ... Anyway ...

  28.   Pako Guerra Gonzalezp said

    Well apparently I think I am going to return to Debian after all.
    This distro has worked well for me and more so now with that light desktop

  29.   Rolo said

    enough rumors debian 7 will come with gnome3 as default desktop

    This was posted by Stefano Zacchiroli from his identi.ca account @zack

    http://ur1.ca/a22vo Can people stop saying we changed default desktop environment? Grab a #Wheezy image and see for yourself #kthxbye

    http://identi.ca/notice/96386955