debian packages:
http://packages.debian.org/stable/xfce/

look for xfce4, and read whats there, it will surmount to everything. but then ....

one may need more packages.

if one has installed sudo with the appropriate steps of procedure and has done the appropriate steps of adding one`s usr name to the admin and sudo group.
it has been a while since i was in that area so one will need to re search re search re search.

any way,
#sudo aptitude install xfce4=4.6.2
password for usr :

after the install the docs at xfce have in written format:
#$startxfce4

For the sake of Googlers. This should work from a clean Squeeze install if you don't want to install 4.10 from the Sid repo.

Step 1: Install what we need to compile:

apt-get install --no-install-recommends build-essential intltool pkg-config libalglib-dev libglib2.0-dev libdbus-1-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libx11-dev libgtk2.0-dev libwnck-dev x11-xserver-utils libgudev-1.0-dev libnotify-dev

Thanks for posting this, it is a helpful recipe for getting 4.10 working in Debian.

Unfortunately, libalglib-dev is only available in Wheezy or Sid:
http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=alglib

I tried Step 1 on a fresh install of Squeeze but apt-get responded with :

E: Unable to locate package libalglib-dev

I am going to add a Wheezy repo and see if that fixes the dependency issue.

Update

I removed libalglib-dev from the list of packages to install, and executed the command. I then was able to complete the final step and successfully install xfce-4.10 on the Squeeze install. The only issue I noticed was some of the windowing edges looked off, but that could be a conflict with some gnome dependency, as gnome was installed by default in this virtual machine install.
Things seemed to be working well, though I am not using this my primary system...

@Jampola, I Experimental/sid/testing the 4.10 are availables?? you can try install these and maintain all other component normaly

"exec ck-launch-session startxfce4" is not recommended anymore in 4.10, "exec startxfce4 --with-ck-launch" is.

Thanks Nick, I had no idea. I've amended my post.

James

Step 1: Install what we need to compile:

apt-get install --no-install-recommends build-essential intltool pkg-config libalglib-dev libglib2.0-dev libdbus-1-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libx11-dev libgtk2.0-dev libwnck-dev x11-xserver-utils libgudev-1.0-dev libnotify-dev

Step 2: As root, chuck this into an executable file and run it as root.

    wget http://archive.xfce.org/xfce/4.10/fat_tarballs/xfce-4.10.tar.bz2  &&
    tar xfvj xfce-4.10.tar.bz2 &&
    cd src/ &&

    tar xfvj libxfce4util-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd libxfce4util-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install &&
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfconf-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfconf-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj libxfce4ui-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd libxfce4ui-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj exo-0.8.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd exo-0.8.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install &&
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj gtk-xfce-engine-3.0.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd gtk-xfce-engine-3.0.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj garcon-0.2.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd garcon-0.2.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    mkdir -p /etc/xdg/menus/
    cp data/xfce/xfce-applications.menu /etc/xdg/menus/ && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfce4-panel-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfce4-panel-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj Thunar-1.4.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd Thunar-1.4.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfce4-appfinder-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfce4-appfinder-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfce4-session-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfce4-session-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-libgnome-keyring && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfce4-settings-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfce4-settings-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --enable-sound-settings --enable-pluggable-dialogs --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfdesktop-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfdesktop-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfwm4-4.10.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfwm4-4.10.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj tumbler-0.1.25.tar.bz2 && 
    cd tumbler-0.1.25/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj thunar-volman-0.8.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd thunar-volman-0.8.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd .. && 

    tar xfvj xfce4-power-manager-1.2.0.tar.bz2 && 
    cd xfce4-power-manager-1.2.0/ && 
    ./configure --prefix=/usr && 
    make && 
    make install && 
    cd ..

Step 3: If this is a clean install and you don't want to install a display managet (gdm, lightdm, etc), jump back into your user and in your home directory, open .xinitrc and add

exec startxfce4 --with-ck-launch

or you can apt-get install lightdm or something similar and it should automatically detect yotu xfce install.

--

That should be it. To test, type startx from yoru normal user (or restart if you installed an display manager) and you should be good to go.

Note: I am having problems with the xfce4-goodies package when installed from Testing. Problems in the sense that when I add an applet to to my panel (like weather, mixer or mpd), they're greyed out. Not sure if xfce is looking in the wrong place for the libs or what not. I will search on here and post about it.

Thanks for elav at forums.debian.net for this cheat sheet.

James

libxfce4panel-1.0.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

After installing xfce4-panel you need to run ldconfig, did you?

I now tried only to compile, install and start only the xfce4-panel under gnome. The error message was "xfce4-panel: error while loading shared libraries: libxfce4panel-1.0.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory". So I fear, I have to tell ./configure some prefixes - but I don't know which are the correct ones and don't find this info. Can someone help?

I have one working file in /usr/local/bin/xfce4-about - there I can see version 4.10 :-) ... but the rest doesn't work.

I've tried to install Xfce 4.10 on Debian 6.0 stable without success. I tried to compile and install with the following commands

./configure
make
sudo checkinstall

with the packages in the order given on the page http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/building

Many packages had problems with installation. The first one was exo-0.8.0.
dpkg error overwriting /usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/icon-theme.cache
so I tried it with
sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite exo_0.8.0-1_i386.deb
and it worked. Is this a bug? What did I do wrong?

Now I installed all 17 packages from xfce-4.10.tar.bz2 this way, but Xfce doesn't start from GDM3. What do I have to change to get it correctly in GDM?

sorry for these many stupid questions, but perhaps some others will have the same problems?
thanks for your answers
br
Kai