So finally – here goes the official post for the Xfce 4.14 release…
Why is the release manager late to the party with his blog post? The explanation is simple: We prioritized sticking to the schedule and getting our releases out to everyone as planned, as our codebase was ready. What was not (entirely) ready was some parts of the website, which were brought up-to-date over the course of last week.
So I’m pleased to give you the official Xfce 4.14 tour, which nicely summarizes many of the nice user-facing changes that we pushed into the release (despite it being planned as feature-less, porting-only).
We’re also working on other aspects of our website, like the screenshot reel on the frontpage, which is mostly up-to-date now, and the screenshots section. If you have more screenshots that you think we – and everyone else – should see, please get in touch via IRC (join #xfce on freenode) or the mailing list and if we like it too, we’ll gladly add it!
What’s next?
Well, obviously Xfce 4.16, for which the planning phase just started. We want to certainly stick closer to our release model (which prescribes a 6-month release cycle) this time and go for roughly a year to get to our next stable release. To some extent the schedule will depend on the outcome of the planning phase, but one thing I’m pretty sure I can announce straight away is that we’re not going for the next technological jump (yet) – so don’t expect Wayland or Gtk4 to play a major part in the coming cycle.
However, what we will need to do is some house-keeping and improving things for ourselves and potential contributors. We are strongly considering to follow freedesktop.org and Gnome in terms of switching to Gitlab (for Git and issues at first). They have done a tremendous job and as someone who recently contributed to one of the Gnome libraries I can say the bar is so much lower than what we currently have with Xfce (read: create bugzilla account, report bug, attach patch, wait patiently…).
In any case, enjoy Xfce 4.14 and join us to make 4.16 a great (and shorter) cycle!
Thanks for all mate.. xfce the best
Awesome work, as always – thanks for a great Desktop!
You should definitely move to Gitlab ASAP – reducing contribution friction should be a big priority. I understand why you might not want to move to Github, but that would also bring network effects that you won’t get from Gitlab – but either would be a huge win over the current situation.
please do have really shorter cycle of release (lets say max 1 year every new stable) this stucking in few years (now 4.5 years) is small death for this great project (more and more people leaving xfce for another DE like MATE which is obviously more live in his life -thats important also for many users 🙂
Meh. Everyone should give different DEs a try. Reality is, if you like XFCE, you’re probably coming back to it, regardless of release schedule.
I’m delighted to see a new Xfce version out. I love the DE to bits. 🐁 🐭 🐧 🐂
Hey guys. Your release cycle (one new release every 4 years) is OK with me. Leave the shorter release cycle to all the young punks out there who run after the next new shiny thing. Cheers from an IT consultant in South France.
Concur. Most heartily
Why not a rolling release model? I mean most components of Xfce have their own version number anyway?
Xfce is the business!
Hello:
Thank you very much for your wonderful work!
Great job! Thanks for the hard work!
Not working on Wayland support is a mistake. Wayland could very well be ready to replace XOrg completely in a year.
I feel like you might as well not even make this release if it doesn’t add GTK4 and Wayland support… It’s really not going to help you feel like you’re getting updated more frequently if a release doesn’t bring you up to date with the curren things. I would rather you take another 4 years and actually get up to date with what is being used.
use notabug.org. Ignore wayland — we don’t need it.
Wayland is needed and anticipated somewhere in the future. It is technology of the future with security benefits for everyone. X is and will be supported for a very long time. First by default then later at least via XWayland. Actually not even supported – it’s still developed and doesn’t go anywhere.
There was a very long time gap between releases and most of the changes are porting. It is highly understable that now it’s time for new features with keeping in mind that finally there will be time to switch to the new technology.
The new release looks fantastic! Great job everyone!
Thanks Jannis – much appreciated, especially coming from you 🙂
Best graphical interface, I am currently using version 4.12 and it is running beautifully without losing performance which is the main point of the interface. Many thanks to the developers.
Using XFCE quite often because it is stable, predictable, easy, and not getting in my way. Love it. I don’t care much about the release cycle. Just keep it the way it is, reliable.
Is there any memory usage increase between xfce 4.12 and xfce 4.14?
As Gtk3 uses more resources there will an increase, I haven’t made any comparisons yet though.
Thanks to all who worked on XFCE!
I have read one wish over and over again,
Thunar with 2 windows in one instance, like pcmanfm…
is there a option ?
But even without I love this desktop and the handling!
As long as the project keeps following it’s filosophy of being an easy, simple, stable and lightweight desktop environment, I don’t have a problem with waiting one or two years for an update.
Why not switching to Codeberg (formaly known as Teahub)?
GitLab use open source but also using server infrastructure of “bad” companies in much more “bad” countries. And GitLab will be the next company bought by a big player.
Codeberg using Gitea, is free as in free software and need support from popular projects.
Disclaimer: I am not a Codeberg developer. I am just a user.
Just wanted to say a big thank you for all the hard work that has gone into this update to everyone in the XFCE development team. I’m looking forward to seeing all this come my way in the next LinuxMint release at year end. I’ve tried all the other DEs and settled on XFCE many years ago as my only desktop across all my machines along with several family and friends; I’ve even installed it on my Raspberry Pi 🙂
For the record: we would absolutely welcome XFCE on Codeberg.org!
Please let us know if there are any special issues that we might resolve.
Quick introduction: Codeberg.org is backed by Codeberg e.V., the non-profit NGO operating under German law, with infrastructure hosted in Europe.
Our bylaws aim to build a community-driven developer network, heavily inspired by the principles of the Wikimedia bylaws, and everything we learned from Wikipedia’s story. We are trying to build an open, friendly and safe home for the development of knowledge, code and documentation, Free and Open Source Software.
Full disclaimer: we are operating https://codeberg.org and would like you all to join our journey, as users, supporters, or active members of Codberg e.V.
Very thanks to all who worked on XFCE!
I miss information in your article whether the new version runs in recent stable versions of Ubuntu. The “offcial” packaged versions of course are somewhat behind.
If 4.14 has potential to work, there should be links to places where one could e.g. download it as a deb package, as e.g. for LibreOffice. I know how to apply them: unpack them, locate the directory DEBS in them and then sudo dpkg -i *.deb.
One more technical level would be to compile everything and install it properly. However, a step by step tutorial how to do that would be helpful. Then of course more users would be able to test the new version and report bugs, if they find some.
I am using Xubuntu and xfce for many years. It is ok for me.
Meanwhile I have found a minor glitch in 4.12 not being able to remove an entry from the start menu using menulibre, but before bothering you with it I would prefer to look if that is still present in the new version 4.14.
I am very delighted to see that the integration of Catfish and Thunar itself have improved. Therefore I would like to run Xfce 4.14 and all its associated new components under Ubuntu 16.04 and possibly 18.04 (I am just preparing an upgrade, but before doing that, I have to save by dual-boot installation first).
In search how to compile a package I came across http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/cvs/xfce/xfce-core.html.
Would this be the right recipe to make Xfce4.14 and everything belonging to it?
Please don’t switch to GitLab for issues – it is inferior to Bugzilla. The next Bugzilla release will be a revolution in UX/UI: https://github.com/bugzilla/bugzilla-ux/wiki/Bugzilla-6-Roadmap
You can continue using Bugzilla, because GitLab has BZ integration: https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/user/project/integrations/bugzilla.html
Thanks a lot for the hard work! XFCE has been my daily driver for some time now, I noticed lot’s of bigger and smaller improvements that I like a lot.
Very thanks to all who worked on XFCE!
Can I ask you something? Is it possible choose two different themes? One theme for the panel and another to the rest?
Um forte abraço!
This is not currently possible and also likely won’t be in the future. I’ll add a dark theme switch though in 4.16: https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/4.16/roadmap/xfce4-panel