A Comparison of LXDE and Xfce on openSUSE 11.3

Instead of writing two separate posts, I am consolidating my notes into a single post. Besides, the install is identical, as it is just a matter of desktop selection during the install process. Testing various distributions on a multi-boot machine has its problems, and there are always a few gotchas with every distribution. If every thing was perfect, I wouldn’t need to write about it.

These installs were made on an HP Pavilion ze4300 with 512 MiB of memory. The purpose was purely to test the installs before making the final upgrade decision for my Dell Inspiron 8100, which also has only 512 MiB of memory. One of these days, I might actually get a laptop that is new, or at least newer. Have to pay off the medical bills first.

When it comes to installation, openSUSE is my favorite for its layout and flexibility. After building the installation parameters through a set of screens, openSUSE gives you the ability to easily modify any section. For a multi-boot machine, I wanted it to boot from a partition and not the MBR. Back when I installed Linux Mint 9, I had it set to boot from the MBR and not the partition. This configuration survived through the installation of Fedora 13 and both versions of PCLinuxOS. It didn’t survive openSUSE.

Technically, openSUSE did what I asked and not what I wanted. The boot was set to the correct partition, and it booted from that partition. The problem was that I lost the MBR boot in the process. This wouldn’t have been an issue, except for the fact that openSUSE uses Legacy GRUB, and Linux Mint 9 uses GRUB2. Even though openSUSE attempted to build an entry for Linux Mint 9, Legacy Grub cannot boot GRUB2. However, GRUB2 can boot Legacy GRUB. After this, I will always boot from the partition in a multi-boot environment. The worst case scenario is that I may need to run cfdisk to change the active boot partition. CentOS, which was set to boot from its partition, was not impacted by all this insanity.

You need to be aware that openSUSE sees all Linux partitions as potential install partitions. The first root partition that is sees, it wants to mount as the root partition. I recognized what it was doing, when I couldn’t not format its new partition as the root partition.  The simple solution solution is to change the settings so that openSUSE does not format or mount those partitions.

The one other install gotcha only applies to those who connect to Internet via a wireless network.

• With LXDE, the install script correctly detected the presence of the wireless card. However, the network test failed, because the script does not provide a mechanism for selecting a wireless network with which to make a connection. The simple workaround is to skip the test, as the wireless connection works after a normal login.
• I had problems with Xfce, as it did not install the network manager by default.  I tried to install the Network Manager package, but it never appeared in the menu system, nor did it install as a desktop icon. I could not configure the adapter via YaST, as the firmware was not installed. Yet, the kernel firmware package was installed.

The login screen for LXDE far more elegant than the one for Xfce. I really do not like the X console window that Xfce appears at the login, and remains as a open window. I made a login error, and it dropped me to a shell login on Xfce, which is not a response that I expected.

The free command provided the following results, when checked immediately after a login:

• For LXDE, the amount of free memory was 136,552 KiB. When adding in available buffers and caches, the result was 354,580 KiB. A little less than PCLinuxOS, but significantly better than Gnome or KDE.
• For Xfce, the amount of free memory was 85,520 KiB. After adding available buffers and caches, the result was 377,812 KiB.

When it comes to graphics viewers, there is a difference between LXDE and Xfce:

• For some reason, the default LXDE application opened for an image is mtPaint, and not an image viewer. The out-of-the-box viewer is gpicview, which is rather limited. It works, but as I said before, I prefer Eye of Gnome.
• Xfce uses ristretto as the default image viewer. It is even more limited in functionality than gpicview.

Videos are even more of an issue between the two:

• For LXDE,  the default video player is Totem. However, openSUSE does not provide the “restricted formats” required to play .mp4, .wmv, and .flv files. When you click more information, the Web page suggests the codecs from Fluendo Workshop. However, Fluendo is not free. It is easy to solve the Flash Video problem, but the rest are going to take a bit of work.
• Xfce does not provide a video player as part of the install. I installed Totem from the installation CD, and received the same results as in LXDE.

I installed Eye of Gnome and Quanta on both LXDE and Xfce. On both installations completed successfully. Eye of Gnome appeared in the correct menu entry for Graphics. Quanta, a KDE Web development application, failed to appear under any menu entry. In June of 2008, I wrote a post called “Confusion Reigns” on another blog, regarding this same problem. Two years later, the problem remains. I am not sure who is the culprit, but the problem is either:

• LXDE and Xfce do not recognize the /opt/kde3/share/kde/quanta.desktop file
• KDE applications are not playing by the same rules
• The quanta.desktop file is not correctly formated for either the LXDE or Xfce menu system

If developers would only follow the Desktop Menu Specification at freedesktop.org, we would not have this problem. Can you imagine how much easier it would be to go from distro to distro and see the same menu system for the desktop?

Multi-boot installs are always a challenge. The flexibility of openSUSE’s install script makes it easy to perform multi-boot installations. You just need to be aware of the decisions that you need to make prior during the installation. As for the choosing LXDE or Xfce, the decision is to go with LXDE for the following reasons:

• It does connect my wireless modem without a problem
• I cannot stand the login screen for Xfce
• The dependence on the X-console in Xfce leaves with the feeling that Xfce is a half-baked project

The failure of both LXDE and Xfce to create a menu entry of Quanta is a serious minus. I didn’t take the time to test other KDE applications to see if they presented the same problem. Alas, the new versions of both KDE and Gnome require to much memory and use features that old graphic cards do not support. It is going to create more work, but I am going with LXDE. Yes, I still like openSUSE. It is still my favorite distro.