[opensuse-xfce] Cleanup and changes in Xfce Pattern for Tumbleweed and Leap 15.1
Dear All, I would like to announce a cleanup / changes in the Xfce Pattern for Tumbleweed and the upcoming Leap 15.1 release. Leap 15.1 release is an important one for openSUSE-Xfce because it will have a new look (already set in Tumbleweed), will have updated software such as Thunar 1.8, and many bug fixes. Therefore it is a good opportunity to make the default Xfce installation lean and mean: - remove gnome-games (no real purpose having it installed by default) - remove pidgin (except for IRC, the protocols supported are no longer very popular. Users today mostly use Matrix, Telegram, Discord which are not properly supported by Pidgin). - remove sound-juicer (not necessary as default. Modern Laptops don't even have a CD/DVD drive anymore) - remove google-droid-fonts (redundant dependency already recommended by patterns-fonts-fonts_opt) - midori-branding-openSUSE (obsolete) - removed moonlight-plugin (obsolete) - add blueberry (simple bluetooth management applet that sits in the systray) - add hexchat (many conversations/meetings for openSUSE development happen in IRC so a good client by default is important) Please note that removing software from the Xfce Pattern doesn't mean that it will no longer be available. The packages will still be in the official repos for users to install directly. Have fun :-) Maurizio Galli (MauG) Xfce Team https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Xfce -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
On 2/25/19 8:30 AM, Maurizio Galli wrote:
- remove pidgin (except for IRC, the protocols supported are no longer very popular. Users today mostly use Matrix, Telegram, Discord which are not properly supported by Pidgin).
You specifically mention Telegram. Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I use it daily. Its support from chat clients is why I favour Telegram over proprietary-protocol tools such as Whatsapp and Signal. My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Rocket.chat. It remains my primary messenger app here within SUSE. It is very far from obsolete. I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 2019-02-25 at 11:33 +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
On 2/25/19 8:30 AM, Maurizio Galli wrote:
- remove pidgin (except for IRC, the protocols supported are no longer very popular. Users today mostly use Matrix, Telegram, Discord which are not properly supported by Pidgin).
You specifically mention Telegram. Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I use it daily. Its support from chat clients is why I favour Telegram over proprietary-protocol tools such as Whatsapp and Signal.
My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Rocket.chat. It remains my primary messenger app here within SUSE. It is very far from obsolete.
I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat.
Please read again, Maurizio specifically said it won't be gone, we just don't want to install it by default anymore and I for one welcome that. (Also thanks for getting rid of gnome-games) -- Marcel Kühlhorn Have a lot of fun!
Hi Liam,I don't consider Pidgin to be obsolete. Rather not particularly good with the more modern technologies.> Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I> use it dailyI personally had bad experience with the plugin, particularly with "groups" and it doesn't really compare to the official native Telegram app in the repo.> My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google> Hangouts and Rocket.chatIt's not a great IRC client imo missing many of the features of hexchat or weechat.I thought that google chat and Facebook chat plugins were deprecated when the XMPP their support was dropped. Please let me know if new plugins exist because they are not in the default install of Pidgin.I did not know that it supported Rocket chat. Is Pidgin the only tool to use that service (I'm not a SUSE employee)?> I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced> with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat.I can leave this open to discussion of course, here and Factory ML.Best regards Maurizio Galli (MauG) On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 6:33 PM Liam Proven <lproven@suse.cz> wrote:
On 2/25/19 8:30 AM, Maurizio Galli wrote:
- remove pidgin (except for IRC, the protocols supported are no longer very popular. Users today mostly use Matrix, Telegram, Discord which are not properly supported by Pidgin).
You specifically mention Telegram. Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I use it daily. Its support from chat clients is why I favour Telegram over proprietary-protocol tools such as Whatsapp and Signal.
My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Rocket.chat. It remains my primary messenger app here within SUSE. It is very far from obsolete.
I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat.
-- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Your quoting seems to be badly broken. I suggest you look into that, too. It is not Gmail's fault; I use Gmail at home and it bottom-posts just fine. Here is how: 1. Select "plain text" (bottom right, 3 vertical dots next to trashcan). 2. Enter the edit window, hit Ctrl-A to select all, then trim and reply. I have attempted to correct your quoting below. Please forgive me if I got it wrong. On 2/25/19 12:11 PM, Maurizio Galli wrote:
Hi Liam,I don't consider Pidgin to be obsolete. Rather not particularly good with the more modern technologies.
It works with them very well, so I am sorry but I think you are not working from correct, current knowledge. Thus I disagree with your decision, because it is based on defective information.
Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I use it daily
I personally had bad experience with the plugin, particularly with "groups" and it doesn't really compare to the official native Telegram app in the repo.
[1] The question is not whether there is a native client, or whether it is better or not. E.g. Telegram has a client, but FB Messenger does not. Some services have Web clients (e.g. Whatsapp, Skype) but that means leaving a browser tab open, consuming lots of RAM, easy to accidentally close). Some have a native app, but these are often undesirable: Many "native clients" such as Rocket.chat or Slack are not true native clients; they are just frames around an Electron window, meaning that they embed one copy of Google Chrome per instance. The result is that each window takes in the region of half a gig of RAM. The point is that Pidgin _replaces_ multiple native clients with a single, integrated app, with a single point of notifications, a single unified interface, etc. Pidgin is this more in the Unix spirit of small, efficient tools that can handle anything, rather than big, complex single-purpose apps. [2] As for Telegram, it works perfectly. I can add individuals or groups to my buddy list, I can message individuals or groups or get messages from them. I can see emoticons and so on.
My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Rocket.chat
It's not a great IRC client imo missing many of the features of hexchat or weechat.
I don't care. I don't want rich features and chrome. I want something simple, clean and efficient, that integrates multiple messenging services in one app. This is why I use Xfce. I also use Thunderbird, which again talks to all my email accounts in 1 place. It would be very messy and difficult to handle my email if I had to run 6 different email apps, all with different quoting conventions. (Like the official SUSE GroupWise client, which can talk to nothing else, for example.) It would *impossible* if they took a gig of RAM each.
I thought that google chat and Facebook chat plugins were deprecated when the XMPP their support was dropped.
Google Hangouts works with the standard built-in XMPP protocol. I use the web client for audio/video calls and group chats.
Please let me know if new plugins exist because they are not in the default install of Pidgin.
Facebook needs a plugin: https://software.opensuse.org/package/pidgin-facebookchat Telegram needs a plugin: https://software.opensuse.org/package/pidgin-plugin-telegram With these, both work perfectly and better than standalone apps or web pages. The clients are tiny, efficient and do all that I need in a few hundred kB of RAM instead of a few hundred MB. Yes, Electron-based clients really *are* that inefficient. A thousand times more memory usage is *normal*. I am not exaggerating here.
I did not know that it supported Rocket chat.
https://software.opensuse.org/package/pidgin-plugin-rocketchat Rocket.chat is the official internal SUSE channel for the documentation team and several other products and projects.
Is Pidgin the only tool to use that service (I'm not a SUSE employee)?
It is the *only* 3rd party client for Rocket.chat that I am aware of. There is a native client, but it is a huge memory hog, and it is only available for Fedora (although the package does work on Tumbleweed) or as a Flatpak, which I was unable to get to work.
I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat.
I submit that replacing Pidgin with Hexchat is like replacing a Swiss Army Knife with a single small Philips screwdriver. The screwdriver may be better at one thing, but the knife can do 42 different things acceptably well.
I can leave this open to discussion of course, here and Factory ML.
I am no longer on the Factory ML and am not planning to rejoin. My contributions were unwelcome. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Ok noted and like I said I will leave this open for others to chip in. Unless the decision affected multiple users, I still prefer not to install it by default. In that scenario, just remember that "zypper in pidgin" will bring it back. Cheers, Maurizio Galli (MauG) Xfce Team https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Xfce On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 7:52 PM Liam Proven <lproven@suse.cz> wrote:
Your quoting seems to be badly broken. I suggest you look into that, too.
It is not Gmail's fault; I use Gmail at home and it bottom-posts just fine. Here is how: 1. Select "plain text" (bottom right, 3 vertical dots next to trashcan). 2. Enter the edit window, hit Ctrl-A to select all, then trim and reply.
I have attempted to correct your quoting below. Please forgive me if I got it wrong.
On 2/25/19 12:11 PM, Maurizio Galli wrote:
Hi Liam,I don't consider Pidgin to be obsolete. Rather not particularly good with the more modern technologies.
It works with them very well, so I am sorry but I think you are not working from correct, current knowledge. Thus I disagree with your decision, because it is based on defective information.
Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I use it daily
I personally had bad experience with the plugin, particularly with "groups" and it doesn't really compare to the official native Telegram app in the repo.
[1]
The question is not whether there is a native client, or whether it is better or not.
E.g. Telegram has a client, but FB Messenger does not.
Some services have Web clients (e.g. Whatsapp, Skype) but that means leaving a browser tab open, consuming lots of RAM, easy to accidentally close).
Some have a native app, but these are often undesirable:
Many "native clients" such as Rocket.chat or Slack are not true native clients; they are just frames around an Electron window, meaning that they embed one copy of Google Chrome per instance. The result is that each window takes in the region of half a gig of RAM.
The point is that Pidgin _replaces_ multiple native clients with a single, integrated app, with a single point of notifications, a single unified interface, etc.
Pidgin is this more in the Unix spirit of small, efficient tools that can handle anything, rather than big, complex single-purpose apps.
[2]
As for Telegram, it works perfectly. I can add individuals or groups to my buddy list, I can message individuals or groups or get messages from them. I can see emoticons and so on.
My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Rocket.chat
It's not a great IRC client imo missing many of the features of hexchat or weechat.
I don't care. I don't want rich features and chrome. I want something simple, clean and efficient, that integrates multiple messenging services in one app.
This is why I use Xfce.
I also use Thunderbird, which again talks to all my email accounts in 1 place. It would be very messy and difficult to handle my email if I had to run 6 different email apps, all with different quoting conventions. (Like the official SUSE GroupWise client, which can talk to nothing else, for example.)
It would *impossible* if they took a gig of RAM each.
I thought that google chat and Facebook chat plugins were deprecated when the XMPP their support was dropped.
Google Hangouts works with the standard built-in XMPP protocol. I use the web client for audio/video calls and group chats.
Please let me know if new plugins exist because they are not in the default install of Pidgin.
Facebook needs a plugin:
https://software.opensuse.org/package/pidgin-facebookchat
Telegram needs a plugin:
https://software.opensuse.org/package/pidgin-plugin-telegram
With these, both work perfectly and better than standalone apps or web pages. The clients are tiny, efficient and do all that I need in a few hundred kB of RAM instead of a few hundred MB.
Yes, Electron-based clients really *are* that inefficient. A thousand times more memory usage is *normal*. I am not exaggerating here.
I did not know that it supported Rocket chat.
https://software.opensuse.org/package/pidgin-plugin-rocketchat
Rocket.chat is the official internal SUSE channel for the documentation team and several other products and projects.
Is Pidgin the only tool to use that service (I'm not a SUSE employee)?
It is the *only* 3rd party client for Rocket.chat that I am aware of. There is a native client, but it is a huge memory hog, and it is only available for Fedora (although the package does work on Tumbleweed) or as a Flatpak, which I was unable to get to work.
I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat.
I submit that replacing Pidgin with Hexchat is like replacing a Swiss Army Knife with a single small Philips screwdriver. The screwdriver may be better at one thing, but the knife can do 42 different things acceptably well.
I can leave this open to discussion of course, here and Factory ML.
I am no longer on the Factory ML and am not planning to rejoin. My contributions were unwelcome.
-- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Am Montag, 25. Februar 2019, 14:01:04 CET schrieb Maurizio Galli:
Ok noted and like I said I will leave this open for others to chip in. Unless the decision affected multiple users, I still prefer not to install it by default. In that scenario, just remember that "zypper in pidgin" will bring it back.
I think there's some kind of basic decision to be made. The Xfce pattern is for: A) Installing Xfce with some closely related tools like Thunar, Catfish etc. B) Bringing a somewhat "full flavored" Xfce distribution. For going with A) please leave out Hexchat (an propably other programs) as well. If you're aiming for B) then Pidgin is a crucial part, imho. I'd expect it to be there as Joe User would search for some "messenger" tool. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Hi Vinz,
I think there's some kind of basic decision to be made. The Xfce pattern is for: A) Installing Xfce with some closely related tools like Thunar, Catfish etc. B) Bringing a somewhat "full flavored" Xfce distribution.
For going with A) please leave out Hexchat (an propably other programs) as well. If you're aiming for B) then Pidgin is a crucial part, imho. I'd expect it to be there as Joe User would search for some "messenger" tool.
The standard Xfce pattern should be B). For a minimal Xfce desktop users can use the xfce_basis pattern package. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Hi,
The standard Xfce pattern should be B). For a minimal Xfce desktop users can use the xfce_basis pattern package.
I see. As throwing Pidgin out b/c of Matrix, Telegram etc. would also apply to Hexchat and as we (currently) have no disk space shortage to keep an eye on so I'd vote for keeping them both. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
On 25/02/2019 16:10, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Hi,
The standard Xfce pattern should be B). For a minimal Xfce desktop users can use the xfce_basis pattern package.
I see. As throwing Pidgin out b/c of Matrix, Telegram etc. would also apply to Hexchat and as we (currently) have no disk space shortage to keep an eye on so I'd vote for keeping them both.
Regards, vinz.
Concur. -- regards Eion MacDonald -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
On 2/25/19 5:10 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
I see. As throwing Pidgin out b/c of Matrix, Telegram etc. would also apply to Hexchat and as we (currently) have no disk space shortage to keep an eye on so I'd vote for keeping them both.
IMHO duplication is a bad thing. There's no reason to have 2 different apps that do the same thing in the standard install of any OS. (Reluctantly I'll exclude low-level command-line apps like, say, vi + nano.) Any IRC client offers a subset of the functionality of Pidgin, which is a perfectly good IRC client and has been my go-to one since I stopped using Win 9x. So if the base install should include a chat client, which I would say it should, then Pidgin is the most capable chat client in the openSUSE repos, AFAIK. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Am Dienstag, 26. Februar 2019, 14:49:57 CET schrieb Liam Proven:
Any IRC client offers a subset of the functionality of Pidgin, which is a perfectly good IRC client and has been my go-to one since I stopped using Win 9x. So if the base install should include a chat client, which I would say it should, then Pidgin is the most capable chat client in the openSUSE repos, AFAIK.
My impression was that Hexchat is out of discussion. That's why I said I'd vote for keeping both. If that's not the case then you're right, of course, installing both is a useless duplication. Regards, vinz. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Dear All, On 2/26/19 10:05 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
Am Dienstag, 26. Februar 2019, 14:49:57 CET schrieb Liam Proven:
Any IRC client offers a subset of the functionality of Pidgin, which is a perfectly good IRC client and has been my go-to one since I stopped using Win 9x. So if the base install should include a chat client, which I would say it should, then Pidgin is the most capable chat client in the openSUSE repos, AFAIK. My impression was that Hexchat is out of discussion. That's why I said I'd vote for keeping both. If that's not the case then you're right, of course, installing both is a useless duplication.
Regards, vinz.
Please see SR: https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/680769 Pidgin will remain in the Xfce Pattern for now. Thanks a lot to those who shared feedbacks in this ML and chat. Cheers, -- Maurizio Galli (MauG) Xfce Team https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Xfce -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
On 2/26/19 9:49 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 2/25/19 5:10 PM, Vinzenz Vietzke wrote:
I see. As throwing Pidgin out b/c of Matrix, Telegram etc. would also apply to Hexchat and as we (currently) have no disk space shortage to keep an eye on so I'd vote for keeping them both. IMHO duplication is a bad thing. There's no reason to have 2 different apps that do the same thing in the standard install of any OS.
We agree on something ;-). If in the end Pidgin is the undisputed winner here, I will not add Hexchat to the pattern. Best, -- Maurizio Galli (MauG) Xfce Team https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Xfce -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
On 25/02/2019 13:01, Maurizio Galli wrote:
just remember that "zypper in pidgin" will bring it back.
Not much use , if user does not already know pidgin and its uses. -- regards Eion MacDonald -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
Hi Liam, I don't consider Pidgin to be obsolete. Rather not particularly good with the more modern technologies.
Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I use it daily
I personally had bad experience with the plugin, particularly with "groups" and it doesn't really compare to the official native Telegram app in the repo.
My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Rocket.chat
It's not a great IRC client imo missing many of the features of hexchat or weechat. I thought that google chat and Facebook chat plugins were deprecated when the XMPP their support was dropped. Please let me know if new plugins exist because they are not in the default install of Pidgin. I did not know that it supported Rocket.chat. Is Pidgin the only tool to use that service (I'm not a SUSE employee)?
I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat.
I can leave this open to discussion of course, here and Factory ML. Best regards, Maurizio Galli (MauG) PS: sorry for the spam. My first email had its format all messed up. On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 6:33 PM Liam Proven <lproven@suse.cz> wrote:
On 2/25/19 8:30 AM, Maurizio Galli wrote:
- remove pidgin (except for IRC, the protocols supported are no longer very popular. Users today mostly use Matrix, Telegram, Discord which are not properly supported by Pidgin).
You specifically mention Telegram. Telegram works fine in Pidgin and I use it daily. Its support from chat clients is why I favour Telegram over proprietary-protocol tools such as Whatsapp and Signal.
My copy of Pidgin is also connected to IRC, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and Rocket.chat. It remains my primary messenger app here within SUSE. It is very far from obsolete.
I request reconsideration of this, especially if it is to be replaced with a more limited, single-protocol client such as Hexchat.
-- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
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On 2/25/19 12:28 PM, Maurizio Galli wrote:
PS: sorry for the spam. My first email had its format all messed up.
Ah, then I am sorry for criticizing its formatting. I hope my instructions on how to bottom-post were useful, though. (Hint hint! ;-) ) -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
On 25/02/2019 11:28, Maurizio Galli wrote:
It's not a great IRC client imo missing many of the features of hexchat or weechat.
weechat may be politically unacceptable to some uses/ countries. -- regards Eion MacDonald -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-xfce+owner@opensuse.org
participants (6)
-
Eion MacDonald -
Liam Proven -
Marcel Kühlhorn -
Maurizio Galli -
Maurizio Galli (MauG) -
Vinzenz Vietzke