Comment 5 for bug 41791

Thanks for getting back so quickly...see comments below.

Jani Monoses wrote:

>1)Hmm what does not persist here is the state of the toggles accesible in the View Menu of the main menubar. However setting it in edit->preferences->appearance makes it live thoughout invocations.
>Look for the state of MiscMenubarDefault in ~/.config/Terminal/terminalrc
>do this in the terminal then go to the dialog and toggle that check
>$ watch -n 1 grep Menubar /home/jani/.config/Terminal/terminalrc
>it should change in the file as well
>
>
I agree with you a lot, but disagree with you a little (I think...have
patience with me - I'm older and slower). For a new user, there is no
.config/Terminal/terminalrc, so the watch line doesn't really work.
(That's the little bit of disagreement)

However, the following things do happen. If I open a terminal window
(as a new user), and from it, tell it to turn off the menu
(edit->preferences->appearance->etc), and *leave the original window
open* any other terminal instances I open will not have a menu showing.
However, if I close all open terminal instances, and then re-open a new
terminal instance, it will not honor the "no menu directive" and sure
enough the checkbox is checked. I believe the difference in the
behaviors has to do with Xfce4 caching its working data, and as long as
there is an instance in memory, it doesn't need to go to disk. Once
you've closed out the last Terminal instance, there are no settings in
cache, so when you start a new instance, it goes looking for terminalrc
under Terminal. You can play with this by starting terminal instances
from a terminal and changing states of the menu bar on and off, as long
as you have at least one instance open the state persists. Once the
last instance is gone...no state persistence.

Listing the contents of .config in this case reveals still no Terminal
directory, and no terminalrc within the directory. (again for a new
user....one quick fix that I've determined works is to mkdir
.config/Terminal, touch .config/Terminal/terminalrc which of course
gives a zero byte terminalrc file, but because it's there, that's
sufficient for the file to get updated to real values.

So I think it's a question of one-of-two adjustments. Either Terminal
must be made smart enough to create ".config/Terminal/terminalrc" if it
doesn't exist (even if it's by the cheap touch technique above), or the
default first time user scripts must be sure to do the creation. I
think the discrepency between Zen behavior (the expected behavior - you
make a change and it "sticks"), and Xubuntu behavior lies in the default
configuration. When I create a new user in Zen, I get a Terminal
directory, and a terminalrc file underneath it. When I create a new
user under Xubuntu neither the Terminal directory, nor the corresponding
terminalrc exist.

>2) panel help yes I know, it even provides xfce 4.2 help since upstream
>has not updated to 4.4 yet.
>
>
Yeah, it's that way with Zen too. I suspect Jasper Huijsmans (if he is
still the developer), just hasn't gotten around to it...I can relate to
that.

>3) how do you find zen compared to xubuntu (wrt performance, selection
>of apps and whatever other criteria you find important?)
>
>
Kernel:

If I'm only dealing x86, the nod goes to Zen. In general the Slackware
kernel system just seems to kick butt...however Zen *only* supports x86
not AMD-64. So if we are talking non-x86, then clearly Xubuntu has the
edge. What brought me into the Ubuntu fold was the AMD-64 support.

Platform:

Hands down, Xubuntu. I can load Xubuntu onto my laptop, my generic x86
boxes, and by X64's. Your laptop support has gotten *enormously*
better. Zen's is non-existent. Same for X64.

Bootup:

Hands down, Zen. Sorry, but the Debian way is the somewhat tedious way.
I can hand trim the startup to make it a much better horserace, but it
takes a fair amount of work...undoing the splash nonsense, etc. I've
also just always found the Slackware init scripts easier to understand,
and a lot more straightforward. I think that makes me just a
grumpy-old-timer.

Xubuntu could improve here, by making some assumptions that would have
to be tested with the community. Just about everyone (I think) that is
looking for a lean, mean desktop, is also looking for a lean, mean
startup, and doesn't need the splash stuff, or anything else that gets
in the way of boot, login, and rock-n-roll.

Package Management:

Hands down, Xubuntu. Nothing out there is like apt-get/synaptic,
period; not perfect, but definitely the best out there IMHO.

Package Availability:

Hands down, Xubuntu. Thank-you Debian.

Installation:

Hands down, Xubuntu. You have to jump through hoops on Zen to install
from anything other than a vanilla IDE drive.

Wireless Support:

Hands down, Xubuntu, although I'd like to see wi-fi radar become part of
the Xubuntu standard distribution (in lieu of the cruft associated with
the gnome-network-manager)

Overall Performance:

The nod goes to Zen, but it's very subjective. It might just be worth
trying some representative benchmarks and objectify my feelings (well,
there goes a night this week)

Programming Development:

Several answers here:

    As initially installed: Zen ( I can compile right out of the chute)
    Python: Xubuntu ( I do a lot of C-stuff with
Python Wrappers / Apps )
    Kernel: Zen ( Don't need all the Debian cruft to
make a kernel )
    Java: Zen ( It's at least marginally less
painful with Zen, both are hard )
    C-development: Initially Zen, but as you need more support
libraries, Xubuntu

Sorry it took so long to get this back to you...one of those days when
life got in the way of computing; it happens sometimes.

hope this helps,

davemac