XFCE Desktop Environment for CentOS-AltArch 7 (1611) i386

[Len E.]

The XFCE environment for CentOS 7 64-bit is readily available from the EPEL repository.
Because there is no EPEL repository for CentOS 7 32-bit, a method for implementing XFCE
on CentOS 7 32-bit is to use the 2-step process (rpm -ivh, rpmbuild -bb) to create the
binary rpm's required for installation from the EPEL source rpm's.

The two attached files, CentOS7XFCE5.txt and CentOS7XFCE5frag.txt list the source rpm's
required, and the binary rpm's created for the essential XFCE environment and the lightdm display
manager respectively. (I've only just learned that unlike Gnome and LXDE, XFCE does not have
its own display manager).

On a host installation with the "Development Tools" group installed.
the following is the optimum sequence (essentially from the ground up) for carrying out the
2-step builds, by module name: libxfce4util, xfconf, libxfce4ui, garcon, exo, libwnck,
xfwm4, xfwm4-themes, tumbler, libxfce4panel, Thunar, thunar-archive-plugins, thunar-volman,
xfce4-appfinder, unique, xfce4-mixer, xfce4-power-manager, xfce4-dev-tools, xfce-polkit,
xfce4-session, xfce4-settings, vte, xfce4-terminal, xfdesktop, lightdm, lightdm-gtk (greeter).

In the build process, lightdm is built first, but won't install totally as it needs the greeter. The
two lightdm-gobject module need to be installed in order to rebuild lightdm-gtk (greeter). Once
the greeter is built, everything else will install successfully.

Once the binary rpm's are built, and starting with a fresh installation of the CentOS 7 32-bit minimal
system with the "X Window System" group installed, the binary rpm's can be locally installed as a group
and the XFCE desktop enabled according to Jensd's I/O buffer procedure.

To enable normal mounting of removeable devices (USB's), it was necessary to explicitly install the gvfs
package.

As a brief application test, OpenOffice4.1.3 was installed from the standard tarball: it worked properly.

Len E.