Compiling the sources

          IMPORTANT : YOU NEED TO HAVE A ROOT ACCESS TO INSTALL XFCE PROPERLY.
           

          1) Requirements

          Visit the download page to get the sources.

          1.a) Linux

          XFce compiles out of the box on most Linux distributions. Although, some distributions do not provide the latest version for Xpm librariy (libXpm). On Debian, for exemple, you'll have to install xpm4g-dev and xpm4-altdev otherwise xfwm will core dump at startup.

          You'll need the XForms library for your system (libc5 or libc6). Using the wrong library can cause some oddities such as wrong time displayed in XFce clock or directories full of "D.." !

          1.b) SUN Solaris (tm)

          To compile XFce on SUN Solaris, you'll need the GNU tools :

          • gcc-2.8.1
          • gzip-1.2.4
          • libXpm-4.7
          • libstdc++-2.8.1.1
          • make-3.76.1
          • unzip-5.32

          These applications can be freely downloaded from SUN or most SUNSite mirrors.

          Of course, you'll also need XForms for Solaris.
           
          2) Installing from a tar archive

          Once you've retrieved the archive, ie a file that sounds like xfce-2.?.?.tar.gz,

          Untar the source file :
           

            $ tar xvzf xfce-2.?.?.tar.gz; cd xfce-2.?.?
             
          (Of course, replace the question tag by the release version)
           
          3) Edit Imakefile to suit your system (if needed)
           
          This point could be optional.. If you are new to Unix, first try without editing the Imakefile
           
            $ vi Imakefile
           
          4) Create Makefile
           
            $ xmkmf
           
          If you don't have Imake installed, then you can try with the one shipped in the package or get the makefile that someone else used for your platform, or even better, get Imake from ftp.x.org !
           
          5) Create other Makefiles
           
            $ make Makefiles
           
          6) Compile and install

          To compile and install XFCE, just type
           

            $ make install
           
          This would install XFCE, XFwm and XFbd so it can be run from the command line.

          7) Choose your default language

          Language is defined through the environment variable XFCE_LANG :
           

            $ export XFCE_LANG="fr"
            $ export XFCE_LANG="en"
            $ export XFCE_LANG="it"
            $ export XFCE_LANG="de"
            $ export XFCE_LANG="hu"
            $ export XFCE_LANG="es"
            $ export XFCE_LANG="sk"
            $ export XFCE_LANG="pt"