Installing and Theming XFCE on LMDE | Linux Mint Debian Edition with XFCE

Linux Mint Debian Edition only comes in the Cinnamon DE, but many more are available to install from the Debian repository. Here we install XFCE and theme it to look like the regular Mint XFCE.
#mint #debian #xfce
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[@Malik-101]

Linux Mint team should focus on LMDE 100% Agree

[@diotitus]

I disagree. I would say unless Ubuntu does go down or something, Mint should stay put on where they are.

[@Malik-101]

@@diotitus Its better to get rid of corporate garbage, direction of ubuntu is not good & they are now they are forcing their own garbage like snapshot

[@diotitus]

@@Malik-101 Personally I'm more neutral on the Ubuntu issue, but why do you garner so much hate towards companies?

[@fredmckinney8933]

​@bigmikeobama5314 Speaking of, I read the other day that there have been a few snap packages in the snap store with malware on there -- FROM MICROSOFT, as part of an agreement with them that Ubuntu VERY foolishly entered into. Now I knew Ubuntu had been losing its way for years -- but THAT is INEXCUSABLE. I officially have ZERO use for Ubuntu anymore. I myself switched to Debian about...3 years ago, IIRC.

[@hopelessdecoy]

I'm trusting that the Mint team know thier priorities and direction. If they feel Debian is the right choice they will make it. Debian is not perfect and despite not being corporate have thier own set of politics. Jumping ship everytime someone does something dumb isn't a good strategy.

[@mjaga56]

Something to be aware of when replacing cinnamon with another desktop, is the fact that the LMDE upgrade tool, i.e. the tool you would be running when upgrading to a new major version, assumes that you are running cinnamon. It will not work otherwise! I am using mate myself and had to do the upgrade manually when elsie was replaced by faye. It's not a problem, just soemthing one needs to keep in mind. Nice video!

[@AndreaBorman]

Once you have installed the Xfce or any desktop of your choice on LMDE or Linux Mint 21.2 you can then remove the Cinnamon desktop. At least that's what I do. I think with LMDE the desktops come direct from the Debian repositories not Linux Mint. Which is why you get the Debian themes not the Mint ones but you can change that. I have installed Debian 12 with the Cinnamon Desktop. What I did was download the Mint Icons and themes from the Linux Mint packages website then install them. So I now have my Debian Cinnamon looking pretty much like Linux Mint.

[@ronsingh]

OK, I did as Tom showed re: installing XFCE, rebooted, proceeded to remove the Cinnamon bits, rebooted and lo and behold! It booted and ran well with just Xfce on there! I did all the Mint-y theming and added some key bindings that rock my world and now, I so so freaking happy having a Debian-based distro that has a clean implementation of proper hibernate(much needed for me and my peeps) and well-themed to boot. I attribute my success to the Mint team doing a bang up job of removing any "dependency hell" scenario from cropping up and borking the install. I will run this Xfce'd LMDE for a month to see how it fares, but I will also replicate what I did here with another laptop and rip/replace Cinnamon with Mate, my other fav "old man with shotgun yelling get off my lawn" desktop environment🙂 Thanks for this vid Tom, sure saved me a bunch of time researching! I will do a followup in a month re: stability of the Xfce'd LMDE play laptop that I use 5-6 times a week.

[@capnsalty0200]

I purchased a Dell with Ubuntu installed when 23,04 with cinnamon came out I installed it. I love the cinnamon desktop and I love Linux Mint I was having trouble getting LMDE 5 on my new computer but as soon as LMDE 6 came out I was in and everything is working on my computer, all the drivers Bluetooth, Wifi and my printer. So I am all set to go. Thanks for you channel watch all the time.

[@carrolltonnewsjournal]

I always favor having a different user account if you are going to run xfce and cinnamon on the same machine. You can set up the startup files on each one different without conflicting. You can also do things like delete the duplicate things that can show up on the menu like 2 different terminals. And also in case of a conflict. But good video, you can pause to see how he does things.

[@martykong3592]

THANKS MUCH and YES I would prefer LMDE over other vesions, AND CHANGING the Desktop to XFCE OR Plasma 6.x ! ALL the BEST and Cheers ! : )

[@lazyfant]

LMDE would be my default, if the mint team will provide a xfce version. Till then I'm running plain Debian with XFCE.

[@fredmckinney8933]

Yes, I don't see why Mint doesn't dump the Ubuntu base, either. When Ubuntu was introduced 19 years ago, it rocked and was a game-changer for the Linux world. But anymore, thanks to some VERY boneheaded decisions, Ubuntu SUCKS!

[@rc2276]

This is fantastic. I've always struggled with themes and icons. Linux mint should focus on lmde.

[@jimw7916]

in cinnamon you can make all your folders in home , any color you want( each one a different color), also on the main menu, you can right click on any app and uninstall it.

[@Bareego]

that uninstall only works if there isn't a dependent package for it, so if there's only one entry in Synaptic. Otherwise you'll still have to go and search in Synaptic.

[@marksulloway5669]

Thank you for this.

[@VeryUsMumblings]

thanks for this. This was helpful to me because almost all the things you changed to xfce are the same in Debian12 xfce. I suppose it translates to other distros as well.😀

[@Bareego]

About the icons on the bottom right, it's related to the "Status Tray Plugin" which now has as one of it's properties the size of the icons it shows. This is independent from the other icon sizes of the panel that get changed through the properties of the panel itself. Latest Mint 22 XFCE now has issues with even more of the icons having odd sizes, which was still ok in 21.3. Bug report has been committed for this whole thing, hopefully will be ironed out soon. Thanks for this guide btw, partly stayed away from LMDE because it didn't come with XFCE as default, but with this guide have it looking just the same now.

[@codelinx]

LMDE 5/6 does have workspaces. You can drop your shortcuts for what you want or use defaults.

[@ronsingh]

I wonder what would happen if I try to remove the Cinnamon-y bits? will the install blow up real good? I would love to have a *pure* LMDE-Xfce distro. Well, only one way to find out, wish me luck!

[@ByThisShallAllMenKnow]

I rather liked Cinnamon when I used Mint a while back. Using Plasma on Manjaro right now, it is also decent, but I've found it is a bit buggier than Cinnamon, as I recalled it. I did install openSUSE on another drive with XFCE and I don't mind it, I like how lightweight it is and it reminds me of the early 2000's Mac environment. Ubuntu 22.04 was a nightmare after trying to ditch Gnome for Plasma. Gnome is just a fickle bitch and won't let go of anything. That rambling being said, I really enjoyed this video.

[@VeryUsMumblings]

I prefer cinnamon, but xfce uses very low memory without giving up too much functionality.

[@hd-be7di]

I

[@TangBengYong]

For Linux Mint standard edition Cinnamon, you can install mint-meta-xfce to get the Mint Xfce interface. However mint-meta-xfce is not in the LMDE repos. Does anyone know how to install it in LMDE?

[@tonywise198]

Nice job.

[@rikhardfsoss]

why not instead use pure debian or even #!CB for a more light install?

[@BobSockTwo]

I tried it, but it crashed on loading xfce :-(

[@rmccain99]

How do y😊ou get desktop items moved to the task bar?

[@ronsingh]

OK, on a P17 Thinkpad, I loaded up LMDE6, ripped/replaced Cinnamon with the KDE DE and damn if that go 100% too. No crashes, no issues with panels and such, I still have to tweak some of the theming, but overall excellent. Whatever Mint did to ensure that the DE portion of LMDE can be easily changed is just perfect. Going to run the P17 like this for a while. Again massive kudos to the Mint team and yeah, hopefully the decide to re-base in Debian going forward.

[@aronlinesl]

How did you install KDE on LMDE? Because I want to install gnome, Deepin or Panthron.

[@ronsingh]

Well, I just did this in ther terminal -- " sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop " and rebooted, logged into the KDE DE(I did both in X11 and Wayland), proceeded to utterly remove all Cinnamon-y bits, rebooted and wound up with a pure KDE LMDE that can be run as an X11 or Waland session. Works a treat. I am sure your experience with Gnome(ugh) or Deepin will be the same. Give it a try! @@aronlinesl

[@ronsingh]

Sick of my recurring comments yet? 🙂 OK, Added the full MATE Desktop Environment and rebooted. Logged into Mate and then removed all of the Cinnamon stuff(except for themes), rebooted again, logged into the only choice(MATE) and themed with Mint-y look-feel. BAM! Bob's your uncle. A perfectly working(zero issues) LMDE-Mate install. This was done on a Thinkpad T560 laptop. Next up, a Thinkpad P17 behemoth that I will give a go with LMDE set up with KDE only. Let's see how that goes. I will report back🙂 I am truly hearten by how easy this process is and how "uneventful" an exercise it is to do so, at least to a drooling mouth-breather as I!

[@rojoroj9777]

Will LMDE cinnamon work under 1GB of RAM and celeron processor Single core single thread cpu

[@SwitchedtoLinux]

Probably not well. I would try Linux Mint XFCE, Linux Lite, or MX Linux for that computer. (MX is debian based, same as LMDE, the other two are based on Ubuntu).

[@rojoroj9777]

@@SwitchedtoLinux since Ubuntu ended 32bit cpu support, so will u please help me wheather MX Linux, Antix, LMDE, Q4OS debian based 32 bit OS will run on 1GB ram of single core cpu like celeron. Keeping in mind less hungry RAM usage desktop environment like (Trinity, LXQT, LXDE, XFCE)

[@MrBobWareham]

I will just stay with my LMDE no change, thanks.

[@SouthFacedWindows]

I like xfce but their fractional scaling is awful

[@Mrneilthompsonuk]

Lol put Mate on mine.

[@somegeezer4058]

LOL did he enjoy it?

[@fabricio4794]

Victoria