Xfce Desktop Environment
xfce.org
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.

After years of using Gnome 3/4 with a modified setup on Debian, I returned to Xfce, and am quite impressed by the state of Xfce 4.18.

My background: Using Linux since 1998 or so (yes, I am old) as my main OS, I used a lot of different window mangers and DEs.

Gnome 3 actually never really matched my personal workflows, but I always discovered many paper cuts using other desktop environments and thanks to dconf at least I could automatically configure Gnome 3 in a way which made it usable for me.

For life reasons I needed a cheap, small sub notebook (or netbook, as it was called when I was younger), and settled on the HP Stream 11 with an N4120. No way to run Gnome on this machine and work fluently, so I recalled that Xfce was at the sweet spot between being full featured, fast and light on memory. (+stable and Gtk+ based, KDE hasn't been an option for me since 3.5 and I check it regularly.)

I got more than I bargained for, Xfce felt so quick, responsive, good and simply sane that I run it now on every Linux desktop/laptop I own. (But my entertainment system, which I only use for Netflix.)

What I really like about Xfce 4.18:

  • Speed and responsiveness, even on my beefy machine I feel the difference
  • Sane size of titlebars etc.
  • Customizable panels out of the box and xfce4-panel-profiles for 1 click setups
  • Thunars split view. I get tired by the Gnome developers, who removed this feature from Nautilus, explain that two Nautilus windows side by side are equivalent to a split view. It is not
  • Ansible support for xfconf out of the box to automate the deployment of my configuration
  • Light on RAM: Around 400 MB vs a little above 1 G for Gnome
  • Everything I need for my DE is included, no search for plugins which might or might not fix my problems
  • Useful and fast default applications (Thunar, Mousepad, Parole...)
  • After tweaking the hotkeys/shortcuts a little bit a perfect keyboard driven experience

So far the only 'downsides' I have with Xfce 4.18 is the lack of Wayland support (AFAIK coming with 4.20), the Terminal does not resize the text area if you add new tabs (easily fixed by configuring it to always show the tab bar in the terminalrc) and the type-ahead launchers (whisker-menu, xfce4-appfinder) are 'weaker' than the type-ahead launchers in Gnome/KDE.

Big shout out to the Xfce developers for this excellent desktop environment!

tl;dr: If you haven't used Xfce for some time, give Xfce 4.18 or later a try, you might like it.

  • ogeist@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    ·
    11 months ago

    For the launcher you should try rofi, there is nothing running as a daemon. It runs fresh everytime but it is still quick and looks nice if you want to make it look nice.

  • Ramin Honary@lemmy.ml
    ·
    11 months ago

    Xfce has been my go-to for over a decade. It is one of those pieces of software that is so stable and reliable that I genuinely forget it exists most of the time, I take it for granted. That is a property of a quality piece of software.

      • simonced@lemmy.one
        ·
        11 months ago

        I tried during the week-end, and it's a confortable and light experience.

        But Steam (I game a lot on my computer) doesn't work well, it stops showing the store page (it gets all black) when I change the virtual desktop.
        I then have to display my library then click again on the store to see the content again.
        Very annoying.
        If it was not for that bug, I might have switched permanently.

        I kept it installed and will retry from time to time if the Steam issue goes away.

        • wolf@lemmy.zip
          ·
          11 months ago

          Thank you for your experience report.

          In the past, I had no bigger trouble with Steam on Linux (Intel graphics mostly) - but that was before they updated their client a few months ago.

          Not sure if your trouble are caused by your video card, xorg, Xfce, the Steam update, something else completely (or everything combined ;-)).

          I'll give Steam via Xfce a try some time.

          • simonced@lemmy.one
            ·
            11 months ago

            I submitted a ticket to Steam about some issues I had with their client, and they told be those were addressed in the Beta version.
            And all my small issues I had are gone! So I can use Steam with XFCE without issue right now.
            Pretty happy, really.

            I am switching to XFCE to see how it goes, the fact it is lighter on resources than Gnome is a big plus ;)

            • wolf@lemmy.zip
              ·
              11 months ago

              Thanks and great job! I'll surely benefit from your ticket once I have some vacation time to tackle my steam backlog! :-)

  • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
    ·
    11 months ago

    XFCE has two different launchers: alt + F2 for executing anything on your $PATH and alt + F3 for starting installed programs (I think these need an *.desktop entry). The latter is neat, because it learns what you open the most. Also, you can entirely hide the category tab by resizing it. This way you can use your arrow keys to change the selection more easily.

    *fliesaway*

    • wolf@lemmy.zip
      ·
      11 months ago

      Thank you very much for the hint. F2 and F3 start both xfce4-appfinder, will have to figure out if the non-collapsed (=F3) version behaves different for me.

    • wolf@lemmy.zip
      ·
      11 months ago

      Thanks a lot @mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org!

      I don't understand why the xfce4-appfinder behaves so differently when started with the --collapsed option, but basically the F3 version works exactly how I need it/expect it and the F2 version does not.

      • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
        ·
        11 months ago

        Very nice to hear!

        The F2 version enables one to directly call scripts by e.g. issuing sh myscriptfrompath.sh. Or start a program within a terminal: st -e top. The F3 version wouldn't accept these.

        My usage is 95% of the time F3 - and I am a sw engineer. So very specific reasons.

        I am really glad you liked it and prompted your question. I was playing for hours until I simply dragged away the categories 😅😃!! Now it is preserved :)

  • American_Jesus@lemm.ee
    ·
    11 months ago

    I started using XFCE because of GNOME 3, it wasn't for me, and XFCE where more customizable, it suited my need. On GNOME each new version breaks extensions, or stick with the old one, just a headache.

    • wolf@lemmy.zip
      ·
      11 months ago

      This!

      Every time there was a new stable release of my distribution, with Gnome I was feeling stressed:

      What functionality would they remove this time? Will at least my most important plugins to make it usable be supported in Gnome? What other regressions will happen?

  • Writerly Gal@lemm.ee
    ·
    11 months ago

    Xfce is just amazing. I’ve used it for many years, starting with Xubuntu I think and it’s my go to Linux version. So minimal and functional.