Hello Fedora Xfce community.
First a question: is there someone directly responsible for the Xfce
spin? Or we shape it by reporting bugs to its components?
Last ISO I tried was the nightly build from Sep 21st. I'm not on it
now as my system (single-core, 1GB RAM) struggles with it when I use
it for a while.
I would like to know tips on how to disable some stuff so it loads
lighter (I think I'll try selinux) and also boot 'fromiso' (it works
differently than F17 so the old way doesn't work and boot from USB
isn't an option for me as USB 1.1 is just as slow as a CD, maybe
slower). I'll ask on the test list later anyway for those tips.
Now to the issue of appearance, specially icons.
Package libXcursor (required in F17 by xfce4-settings and gtk2/3)
installs /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme:
[Icon Theme]
Inherits=Adwaita
This looks like a bug.
It points to Adwaita, but Adwaita doesn't point only to a cursor
theme, instead it defines GTK, Metacity, icon (calls 'gnome') and
cursor themes.
/usr/share/themes/Adwaita/index.theme:
{snip}
GtkTheme=Adwaita
MetacityTheme=Adwaita
IconTheme=gnome
CursorTheme=Adwaita
CursorSize=24
Problem, in the live-CD this overrides whatever settings in Xfce. Even
if cursor theme was set to 'Bluebird', GTK theme for something else
than 'Adwaita' and icon theme for something else than 'gnome'
(actually it's set to 'Rodent'), it would load Adwaita GTK/cursor and
gnome icons, as it does now.
So this is the first issue that needs to be addressed. Either
libXcursor uses an alternative system (so each spin uses its choice of
theme) or it calls a desktop-agnostic theme, like 'Fedora' (which
would need a fix to call a cursor theme and maybe a GTK theme).
If Adwaita is to be the default Fedora theme then it must be fixed to
comply with Xfce too.
This means mostly that 'gnome' icon theme would need some improvements
or Adwaita should call 'Fedora' icon theme instead.
The main icon missing for Xfce (in 'gnome' - thus 'Mist', thus
'Fedora' -, 'Tango' and 'Rodent') is system-suspend (see
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=25811#p25811 ), the 'Suspend'
icon in the 'Actions' panel plugin. But a proper icon theme should
have system-hibernate too (currently xfce4-session uses a workaround
for this lack, shipping its own icons for the logout dialogue).
Besides that we have a particular issue with the Xfce choice for icons.
Currently it's set to use 'Rodent' (package
xfce4-icon-theme-0:4.4.3-7.fc18). This theme is inconsistent *and*
still isn't more compatible with Xfce than the other themes.
If this package is to be kept, I suggest to update to a more
consistent icon theme. Maybe
https://github.com/shimmerproject/elementary-xfce ?
I didn't try it with the live-CD or else (and I don't use the
'Actions' plugin on my installed setup). Download is 4.2 MB, doesn't
seem too large. Then it probably would just need to inherit 'Fedora'
icon theme or maybe not even that as there's no more need for
'start-here' icons (and never was in Xfce).
We should look if it doesn't use Ubuntu logos in its icons too.
So that's it folks. I guess I'll post a version of this message on the
test list so we can discuss the issue of default system-wide theme
first before opening a bug report.