How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

Skaperen · 2018-12-29 02:05:24

the font size was 9. i increased it to 15 leaving all else the same. better to see with at my age.

Skaperen · 2018-12-29 02:28:27

got my color gradient in the background. #204A87 on top and #CE5C00 on the bottom.

ToZ · 2018-12-29 02:56:55

Skaperen wrote:

i'm not really accustomed to GUI environments. Unity really didn't help; i'd mostly open terminals and Firefox and did very little with Unity in particular. but XFCE looks like it is intended to be useful at the GUI level.

The really nice thing about Xfce is that it stays out of your way while giving you as much or as little GUI as you need. It's modular and very customizable.

Skaperen · 2018-12-29 08:37:59

more things i need to do:

1. change the focus mode to follow the mouse. can't seem to find this.

2. on the userids i use to watch videos or TV, disable screensaver. have not looked for it, yet.

ToZ · 2018-12-29 13:30:14

Skaperen wrote:

1. change the focus mode to follow the mouse. can't seem to find this.

Settings Manager > Window Manager > Focus tab > Focus model

2. on the userids i use to watch videos or TV, disable screensaver. have not looked for it, yet.

You have some options.

Use xfce4-power-manager's Presentation mode . Make sure the power manager plugin is added to the panel, then left-click it and select "Presentation Mode". This will prevent the screensaver from kicking in. You can also use the following command:
```
xfconf-query -c xfce4-power-manager -p /xfce4-power-manager/presentation-mode -T
```
...as a toggle. Create a keyboard shortcut for the command and it will toggle the setting.
Not run the screensaver at all (uncheck the entry in Settings Manager > Session and Startup > Application Startup
Use a third-party tool like caffeine

MountainDewManiac · 2018-12-29 13:32:53

1. {Menu} / Settings / Window Manager, click on the Focus tab, and change Focus model from "Click to focus" to "Focus follows mouse."

Regards,
MDM

Skaperen · 2018-12-29 15:53:26

i chose 2. Not run the screensaver at all

would be nice to have/find a setting to specify how much idle time to when the screensaver kicks in. i'd like for it to be a little more than one hour. but, given that i am using LCD technology and do not envision ever going back to CRT technology, i really don't need to have a screen saver run anywhere. security lock, OTOH, can be quite helpful. but it would be nice to have a way that a script can disable it on a one time basis so that i can run long running progress monitors and watch them from a distance while eating lunch or dinner.

Skaperen · 2018-12-29 16:24:33

i'm still curious why some and why not other users were switched over to XFCE. not that it's a bad thing; it has sped up the transition. i am (soon) going to have all users switched. one thing i noticed is that before i installed anything, all the files in /var/lib/AccountsService/users were identical. so if this was the basis of which users run XFCE, it should have done the same for all. an then there is that one user that was half-way switched. now, the files in /var/lib/AccountsService/users are different:

lt2a/forums /home/forums 9> sha256 /var/lib/A*/u*/*|cut -c1-64|sort
3474acc4b238ac9616db53a2027840d8ccf712a2d829804ff753467dfec8d649
3d67eed4fd3d65310facbee0d8fd739fa4fa0b6252aaa84a4c2cf8aca3bcf9f2
44542f6e8e4e09c3007cf529d8612d433aebee693af5c683bd0f78d046954823
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
77c4b3bdd00898574de0ca8805e8553d82687d5055635f971db6dd31c0447ff1
8feabc58228fcd4dd15e86c56ea1d1c46e59f479006dbda8f9eb7b946202efb4
8feabc58228fcd4dd15e86c56ea1d1c46e59f479006dbda8f9eb7b946202efb4
8feabc58228fcd4dd15e86c56ea1d1c46e59f479006dbda8f9eb7b946202efb4
8feabc58228fcd4dd15e86c56ea1d1c46e59f479006dbda8f9eb7b946202efb4
8feabc58228fcd4dd15e86c56ea1d1c46e59f479006dbda8f9eb7b946202efb4
8feabc58228fcd4dd15e86c56ea1d1c46e59f479006dbda8f9eb7b946202efb4
a412c3db42053d893059ff71a56980e0743ed505058828f3229ce74d86271d7d
b4de7d6f4ba4a43bc05c89639767f71dc22253766d95343df2e54abee32ab2f9
e4562db569d7bd1c69fcd139ef3235ce12180d9e949b59e50185e8798b7bf9b6
e4562db569d7bd1c69fcd139ef3235ce12180d9e949b59e50185e8798b7bf9b6
e4562db569d7bd1c69fcd139ef3235ce12180d9e949b59e50185e8798b7bf9b6
ec04847e12eddfcf7e5d53ac195f4f32f4df48fbfc80678f06e1b085543595e5
lt2a/forums /home/forums 10>

apparently, to make the final switch, i can change all these to have session=xfce and reboot.

Skaperen · 2018-12-29 18:19:10

method 2 to disable the screensaver did not work. maybe one of the other methods is needed. i will try one.

edit:

i enabled presentation mode in the power manager (already plugged in). we'll see.

edit:

did not work. the screen saver came in just a little over 10 minutes into the video i was watching on YouTube. then it did so, again, near the end of the 21 minute video.

edit:

i changed the time to activate the screen saver from 10 minutes to 720 minutes (12 hours), the highest it will go. i tried setting it to 0 in hopes that was a special value to never activate it. but it did not let me set that.

Last edited by Skaperen (2018-12-29 19:24:17)

Misko_2083 · 2018-12-29 19:20:35

Hi Skaperen,

I use the script to toggle the screensaver and power saving behaviour of monitors (DPMS).
notify-send notification tell me what is on/off

#!/bin/bash
# Query dpms with xset and switch status, exit and restart xscreensaver

if xset -q | grep DPMS | grep -q Enabled ; then
  while xset -q | grep DPMS | grep -q Enabled
   do
      xset -dpms
      xset s off
      xscreensaver-command -exit
      sleep 1
   done
  notify-send -i gtk-dialog-info "Screen saving is OFF"
else
  while xset -q | grep DPMS | grep -q Disabled
   do
      xset +dpms
      xset s on
      xscreensaver &
      sleep 1
    done
  notify-send -i gtk-dialog-info "Screen saving is ON"
fi

Skaperen · 2018-12-30 03:05:02

i don't need to toggle the screensaver because i don't ever need to have the screensaver on. securing the screen is another different matter. it should be a different thing with separate settings as should the "power saving at the display(s)". but for the way things work now that might be a useful tool. i am wanting to move to doing more things as "GUI features" (buttons and other flexible controls). i have learning to do to be able to code some GUI things in Python.

Misko_2083 · 2019-01-01 18:04:17

Skaperen wrote:

i don't need to toggle the screensaver because i don't ever need to have the screensaver on.

Well you could run

xscreensaver-command -exit

on startup, with some delay

Skaperen · 2019-01-02 02:14:01

Misko_2083 wrote:

Skaperen wrote:
i don't need to toggle the screensaver because i don't ever need to have the screensaver on.
Well you could run
xscreensaver-command -exit
on startup, with some delay

that seems to work. a process was running for a few users (the ones now doing xfce) named "xscreensaver" which is now non-existent after doing that command. it is still running for the other users.

it gets started automatically. i do not want it to run. i have a program of my own i want to be run automatically at login. if i am unable to find the proper way to have my program be run, i could just uninstall the xscreensaver packages and drop in a small executable script which runs my program(s) as file /usr/bin/xscreensaver.

i could uninstall the xscreensaver packages and put a small executable do-nothing script at /usr/bin/xscreensaver to disable the screen saver.

#!/bin/bash
exec sleep 45.0857248249528183982152984565772158020990900695323944091796875

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#26 2018-12-29 02:05:24

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#27 2018-12-29 02:28:27

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#28 2018-12-29 02:56:55

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#29 2018-12-29 08:37:59

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#30 2018-12-29 13:30:14

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#31 2018-12-29 13:32:53

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#32 2018-12-29 15:53:26

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#33 2018-12-29 16:24:33

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#34 2018-12-29 18:19:10

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#35 2018-12-29 19:20:35

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#36 2018-12-30 03:05:02

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#37 2019-01-01 18:04:17

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

#38 2019-01-02 02:14:01

Re: How can i switch ONE X server over to XFCE?

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