quick look at Mint 14 XFCE

tested on my new i3 machine...

there are few changes compared to Mint 13; a a new kernel update, update to the Software Manager.
changelog:
http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_nadia_xfce_whatsnew.php

i'll make this short; this is my favorite Mint release.
it feels insanely fast in daily use, everything is a lot more snappier than in Mint Cinnamon or KDE.
it also feels a lot faster than Win 7 & Win 8, even with the Compositor enabled (for desktop effects).
i love speed and Mint XFCE is very hard to beat in that area.
it feels like going from a 2 core machine to a quad using this OS.
or like my whole machine was fed whatever Lance Armstrong was on. lol

and XFCE can look pretty damn good if you get some themes and icons from Gnome-Look.org

fonts look good out of the box, although it's always recommendeds to download and install the Microsoft foreconts.
Thunar is the default file manager but i installed Nautilus, because of Cover Thumbnailer, a third party addon for Nautilus.
they both feels very fast in use, unlike some other file managers.
Dolphin for example feels like a turtle in comparison.

i don't know about you folks, but this new Mint XFCE, it's better than sex! lol

here's my baby: with Shiki Midnight theme and Faience icons:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=235692&d=1354635575

 

I'm glad you posted about this. I have a spare desktop at home, and decided to throw a Linux build on it, as I've never tried the OS before, and was curious. I decided I was going to go for Mint, but wasn't sure which flavor to try. You've swung me in favor of XFCE, I was leaning towards KDE.

 

i recommend turning on the desktop effects in Compositor as they are very light on system use and make the desktop effects more pleasing.

it's located in Settings Manager/Windows Manager Tweaks/Compositor

 

another tip that's gonna be helpful; how to create shortcuts on the panels/taskbars.

right click on the Panel, Panel/Add New Item
then select and add the Launcher. it will appear on the Panel.

then right click that Launcher, go to Properties and click the + button to add a app or command etc

that should get you started.

after that, you can go the the Panel preferences and adjust the whole panel color, transparency, location etc

 

Thanks a lot moontan, I appreciate the advice! Looking forward to trying Mint out, you've given me a good start.

 

Since the Google cross fonts are available for free, I don' t need the MS fonts anymore.

I install Arimo, Cousine and Tinos, which are claimed to have same characterisics as Arial, Courier New and Times New Roman. I also might install Inconsolata.
And I took 30-0-google-croscore-arimo-fontconfig.conf as an example to create my local.conf (attached as txt, as this file format is required by the forum)

Give it a try, you might be pleased.

Afterwards, verify with "fc-match 'Times New Roman'" that Tinos is used.

 

tnx m8!

i'll give those a try when i have the time.

 

moontan,
the wallpaper you´re using is awesome! Can you please tell me where i can get it? Thanks

 

Why is this always recommended? Does it help with LibreOffice compatibility or something? I've always kept them out of my personal systems and I've not noticed any difference on other installs I've done.

 

There are many opinions with regards to font rendering, but here is a nice blog that I followed:
Making fonts in Linux browsers look exactly like those of Windows & Mac

 

Thanks for the link. I'll check out the Google fonts.

 

here:
http://coolvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/scifiwallpaper1.jpg

for more, check out Google search for Images in "space station wallpaper"

 

Thanks!

 

I'd really like to try Mint 14 XFCE but everything above kernel 3.2 will not work decently on my Zenbook. My laptop wll not be able to shutdown and I'll not be able to format usb keys... Talk about lame kernel bugs! So right now it's bye bye Linux & hello precious Windows 7.