ToddAndMargo via users writes:
On 3/29/19 6:34 PM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> xfce 4.13 has been fine for me.
>
4.13 has been a pain in my neck:
Libre Office pulses at me
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14863
That's the one that I find the most annoying. But it's not a showstopper.
I've noticed some occasional glitches like that.
I guess that my standards are pretty low. I don't mind minor, non-critical
bugs like this, and just write it off as a cost of doing business.
That's probably the only one I'd consider to be a showstopper. Reminds me of
a bug that tipped the scales for me in the other direction: way back when,
Gnome's file manager decided one day that my usb-storage mp3 player was an
MTP device. Hillarity ensued. The bug collected dust for a year, before I
ditched Gnome and went with XFCE, after I noticed that the lightweight XFCE
build I installed on a netbook happily mounted the same MP3 player.
Ditching the unusable "usability-improved" Gnome 3 was also a bonus. Never
looked back.
Default browser does not work
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15238
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
I don't think there's a viable way to down or upgrade xfce. If it was only
one RPM, I would seriously look into rebuilding it. But it's quite a few
dependencies, and probably a whole pile of packages needs to be rebuilt.
If I were to try this experiment, this is how I would proceed (of course,
its unrealistic to expect Joe sixpack to put up with this, I understand
this):
1) Grab the newer XFCE base library package, and attempt to hack the current
XFCE source rpm to build it. There's a reasonable chance all that needs to
be done is to bump the version number in the source RPM. Assuming that the
rebuild succeeds (and if not, one will simply have to figure out why, and
there's no cookie-cutter recipe for that, you're way off the beaten path): I
would try a test upgrade, using rpm with the --test option.
2) I would actually think that a dependency failure would be the best
result. This will tell you which packages need to be rebuilt next. At this
time I would switch to mock, install the upgraded xfce packages in a mock
buildroot, and proceed to attempt to build the newer RPM of each package.
3) If there wasn't a dependency failure, I would proceed cautiously.
Upgrading the base package would be ok, but it may or may not solve your
issues, in which case you'll have to guess which next part of the stack you
want to upgrade.
If I were to proceed at all, I would go the upgrade rather than a downgrade
root. After downgrading, dnf will keep wanting to upgrade xfce every time. I
think there's a way to lock it.
One possible answer to this conundrum is the modular Fedora effort. I've
only been following it with half an ear, but at least on paper it seems to
address this very issue: offer alternative version of Fedora components. But
someone has to volunteer to maintain all of that stuff, of course…