My Favorite XFCE Features So Far...

Today I talk about my favorite features of XFCE so far.
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==== Time Stamps ====
0:00 Intro
1:46 fast
2:46 Built-in Clipboard manager
4:02 Roll Up
6:01 Xfce-panel
8:49 config files
10:53 Conclusions
#xfce #linux #thelinuxcast

[@TheLinuxCast]

There is an editing snafu midway through, makes a horrible sound. Sorry about that. Complaints can be filed by following me on Mastodon: fosstodon.org/@thelinuxcast

[@aytviewer2421]

Complaints! Is there a warranty for your videos? LOL

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@aytviewer2421 sorry. Sold as is. Lol

[@rivubardhan5176]

Use zentile for tiling...works great...I am using it

[@Egeexyz]

Whoa 1:14 that is one rad looking Xfce desktop.. Was not expecting this 👀

[@Eyuphuro]

XFCE Nation

[@ArniesTech]

🫡🫡🫡

[@fakecubed]

There are dozens of us!

[@flickeringscreens211]

@@fakecubed lmao not wrong

[@jesse7631]

If I could get XFCE to look like your layout, I would definitely use it forever! Another great video Matt.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I'm going to do a ricing video eventually. Because of course I am. 😂

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

@@TheLinuxCast I'll be waiting for. I did my own customization on MX Linux.

[@69152h]

@@TheLinuxCast Can't wait to see your XFCE ricing video. Your XFCE bar looks awesome.

[@poopdeck]

Yeah I was just thinking the same, I have never seen it look so good.

[@rarminqorset3628]

Bruhhhh. You can make it far better than that

[@ArniesTech]

XFCE Squad please stand up 🫡

[@tviel]

I recently switched to XFCE as lightweight DE but changed xfwm for i3. That setup is perfect for me, as I have the comfort, like tray, menu and such up and harmonically running, while still enjoying the tiling window manager workflow.

[@arnorobinwerkman]

and i had xfce running where i replaced xfwm for kwin, a little work to setup, but worth it. Im going to try xfce with i3, this made me really curious

[@janbodnar7815]

What I like about XFCE is that it is pretty stable and does not change much over the years. You don't have to relearn trivial things like where is the settings option located. It is also easy-to-use, very beginner friendly; so far no one whom I installed had issues working with it.

[@arnorobinwerkman]

xfce still has no wayland support, and no indication that they are working on it

[@gunther6598]

>muhh wayland Grow up

[@runwiththedolphin]

the xfconf-query tool is wonderful for scripting. oh, and on those xfce xml settings files, you don't want to edit those directly while the xfconfd settings daemon is running or the changes will be wiped out when xfconf syncs up settings. making the changes with xfconf-query is the way to go. but if you do want to edit a file directly for some reason, pkill xfconfd, then make the change, the whenever you start another xfce app, xfconfd will start back up. I usually just restart the panel (xfce4-panel --restart)

[@KeithBoehler]

A clipboard manager is one of those things I thought would be stupid, but works out to be super useful, like why are clipboards not like that by default?

[@davidrichardson2513]

Interesting, Matt. Inspired by how you customised the xfce panel; perhaps you could produce a video showing viewers how to rice xfce? I worked out how to duplicate the ricing of the xfce panel, but further tips and inspiration would be great. Thanks for your efforts.

[@arnorobinwerkman]

xfce is very simple to rice, only thing required is a little free time, and your imagination. im not a gtk fan anymore, i have used xfce a lot, but since moved to kde. xfce you can make it look and behave just like you want. i had a setup running where i replaced xfce window manager with plasma window manager "kwin". really no need to do it, but i just wanted to test how far i could go on customizing that thing.

[@catayloprince4772]

Yeah. I have a soft spot for DE that don't take so much ram space. That's because I had two netbooks in the past. Tried Gnome 2, Xfce, Lxde, fluxbox, and Mate. So far, Lxde, Mate, and Xfce are the three I like most. But I went back to Xfce because the GUI tools and configuration makes sense to me as a newbie.

[@keylowmike85]

You're better at XFCE than I am. Kudos on the great work, Matt!

[@TheLinuxCast]

I'm learning, that's all it is

[@ourjamie]

That was a brilliant show and tell on xfce. I haven't used xfce for about 6 years other than it being on an old lenovo that I use as a lan management tool. You've now made me want to pop it on and rice the living F out of it. Ta, for that brilliant as always 👌

[@toddpark2893]

Debian Xfce is the perfect match imo. Super stable 🙂

[@toddpark2893]

I'm looking forward to more XFCE content 🙂

[@TheFlexXMLG]

thats exactly what im using ☺️

[@pramodlimbu8381]

That panel looks awesome!! Didn't know that was possible.

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

When I used XFCE, I made my bar as small as possible but as usefully functional as possible, at the top with intelligent hiding, and iconifying my windows (minimizing to desktop) in place of window buttons. Makes it super clean and takes advantage of ALL the desktop interactivity. I would also set the auto-centering to the largest size to detect, so EVERYTHING centered once I restored their size. The drop-down mode for XFCE4 terminal is kick-ass for working in containers.

[@TActually]

That role up feature is called shading and it was one of my favorite features when I started using Linux. XFCE, Plasma, Cinnamon, Mate and probably a few others have it too.

[@ahsanhabib3193]

One thing I like about xfce is that it has everything a user needs. Nothing more nothing less. Also they keep the smaller functionalities as plugins instead of extensions.

[@TheJoseppa]

With xfce you are not bind to xfwm. You can use any wm with xfce, just change in the session manager.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I'm aware

[@bojanstrkovski21]

Anoher Awesome Video Matt thanks!!! BTW please do a video of this rising or tell us when you put the conf diles onlinr so we can view it becouse rounded corners xfce pnel i tried doing last week and messed up the panel!!! 😁

[@TheLinuxCast]

Yeah a video will happen

[@bojanstrkovski21]

@@TheLinuxCast 🤩

[@t0menlegam890]

wow..amazing panel in xfce.. keep it up maat

[@AlexDBall]

I was always on XFCE until 2 years ago, when i switched to a tiling WM. Looks like I'll be giving the latest version of XFCE a visit soon

[@thingsiplay]

The rollup feature exist in KDE Plasma as well. I used to use it when I was on KDE. But want to say, its not tooo much more different than just minimizing a window. But well, it's not a bad feature or anything, just an alternative to minimizing.

[@lgdefekt]

You mentioned the reason you switched to XFCE spin is because KDE is not easily uninstalled. It still leaves traces of itself behind. I'd love to see you rice your panel as a video.

[@victorh2007]

Great video Matt! Thanks very much! Could you please show us how to customize XFCE as the way you did? Thanks!

[@moneysurvival897]

I've used many desktop enviroments and I keep coming back to XFCE - its just the best there is for my needs. Your 5 features are great, but you left out one of the best and most important of all - XFCE is rock solid stable. There is no enviroment more solid and stable than XFCE! KDE is great, but it falls short in this regard. And of course, as you mentioned, XFCE is blazing fast.

[@DavidEngelen]

I don't have a powerful laptop so running Xubuntu has been a blast so far

[@crazycatman4171]

Of course you can also "roll a window up" in KDE Plasma… ;-) Even in Gnome it should be possible with "Gnome Tweaks" if I am not mistaken. In LXQt it depends on the window manager (I prefer Xfwm4 for LXQt).

[@CouldBeMathijs]

If it is possible in gmome, which I don't think, GTk3+ apps, mostly come without a title bar, so how would that work?

[@audiolatroushearetic1822]

Also with Openbox (default wm in LXQt) you can roll up windows but I don't use it really. I prefer most windows to come up with no titlebar at all because to me it's wasted screen estate on my laptops and you can do all window manipulation and workspace switching with key- and mouse bindings after all but it's a nice feature to have.

[@jeffrodrequez]

Been using Archcraft as my daily driver (Openbox primarily, but bounce between Hyprland - not quite there yet but nice, BWSPM, etc.) and they use XFCE as the base with their window managers. I had forgotten about some of this cool stuff that XFCE itself has so installed it as well so I can play with it. One thing I always did like about XFCE was its ease of theming with gtk themes. Thanks for the video!

[@Pattoloko98]

Archcraft also has a full XFCE Flavor

[@jeffrodrequez]

@@Pattoloko98 Exactly 😊

[@bertnijhof5413]

I use xfce since Xubuntu 18.04 for the VM that takes care of my communication apps, like; Evolution; Transmission; KDE Connect and MS Edge with Skype; WhatsApp and FB Messenger. Xfce is very fast, Xubuntu 24.04 LTS VM boots in ~7 seconds on the 2nd slowest Ryzen ever; a Ryzen 3 2200G; 16GB and a 3rd gen nvme-SSD (3400/2300MB/s). Note that I use OpenZFS, so storage and L1ARC memory cache are lz4 compressed.

[@russellrussell5495]

Can't remember the name of it now, but there is an xfce layout saver GUI where can you name and save your customisations and easily switch between them at the click of a button.

[@russellrussell5495]

Found it: xfce4-panel-profiles

[@russellrussell5495]

Just for panels, obs

[@markhckidz87]

Love what you did with xfce panel... Can you share how you make the panel looks that way

[@TheLinuxCast]

I'll be making a video about it eventually

[@NoMastersNoMistress]

XFCE is extreme fast... using 4.18 in MX 21.3 on a Ryzen 1700 stock with only 16GB of RAM and a large medium speed spinning HDD and it blazes though everything.

[@Your_Degenerate]

As good as the XFCE4 panel is I prefer Tint2 for it's styling options (font glyphs scale well at small sizes). The issues start when you find that XFCE4 panel even if stopped will keep Tint2 from using the system tray. Sometimes using a kill command in the startup scripts works. I've also seen but didn't get it to work the ability to use i3 window management within XFCE. That might be a bit too transformative though.

[@leo28804]

You can get tiling without swapping out the wm, my favorite script rn is cortile but there are plenty

[@christopherexline6247]

Can you do a how-to video on your panel config?

[@patpopov]

The coolest thing about Xfce is Chicago95.

[@decivox]

Lol that's how I got to this video... Considering switching from cinnamon for some nostalgia 😂

[@dovedozen]

Maybe I should try re-enabling the roll up thing again... at first I was pretty sure it'd just confuse me, but now that I'm more used to this DE it might come in handy. Alt-tabbing all the time doesn't speed things up a whole lot when you're Browser Windows Georg..

[@simont1974]

Nice video. How on earth did you get your xfce panel floating like that? Would love to know. I know you said your where going to do a ricing video, if you did I can’t find it. Also would Love to see your “work area” it don’t matter if it’s not tidy.

[@TheLinuxCast]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5jchXanp5pkn6ssi=fhvQGQLOhS-Y_tCS

[@charlietyran4375]

Hay mat what u did to your desk top is amazing man I not seen any thing like it on KZbin.... so would u do a video on how you did it like you did with i3 and your others you did I learned a lot of you so far and I enjoy nerding out and fooling along

[@donpeer4477]

I like "roll-up", also. But, don't you find yourself using workspaces more? Or, do you combine the two? How many apps do you usually have running at one time?

[@gelogia]

Anyone know how to turn on notification sounds, like startup shutdown and other events ik KDE

[@ericjohnson5990]

Given your fondness for xfce, have you thought about trying Peppermint OS? It’s pretty fast from what I hear.

[@shonebinu5583]

Hi Matt, how's your multi monitor experience with xfce, currently I'm using cinnamon and last time when I used XFCE, it was perfect exept one thing. Everytime i wake my pc from the sleep mode, my multi monitor configuration gets messed up and i had to run the xrandr commands again to regain my initial setup. Do you face anything like this? If so, please link me to a workaround or something.

[@elmariachi5133]

I find the roll-up feature purely irritating. It easily leads to loosing windows out of sight. So if I want a windows to not take space, I just minimize it - like it has worked great for decades xD

[@c0llateral192]

Hey, i've been watching your vids about xfce, and im in doubt between sticking with my bspwm and switching to xfce. One thing that i really like about bspwm is that i can assign apps to certain workspaces. Is there a way of doing something like this in XFCE

[@TheLinuxCast]

I don't think so but I've not looked into it.

[@MENTOKz]

i think there is a way to use a window manger like i3, bspwm instead of the stock xfce one

[@russellrussell5495]

That's what I do. Open up the start-ups menu and turn off xfwm and desktop. Autostart i3. I keep the xfce panel on the bottom for the sys tray, btw.

[@elton9412]

How did you customized your xfce ?

[@Martin-lc1sk]

Xfce may look a little dated, but it's fantastic if you don't need all the bells and whistles

[@Little-bird-told-me]

how did you install alacritty in XFCE ?

[@oldcodger]

Workflow workflow workflow! I wish you content creators would spend a few moments describing what it is you are using your computers to do. And then go on to describe HOW you use your DE to your advantage. It would make the content much more useful to have more context in it. Please take this as constructive criticism.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I have done that.

[@paulj505]

I need to use XFCE, but I stopped "being sad" about not being able to use gnome, kde or cinnamon, in case of Mint, which I use. I managed to make it the way I like, with separated panels, which in XFCE are just multiple panels and also rounded. I even found a theme with rounded windows and also made gaps. Okay, not real gaps, as there are still no gaps between windows, when tiling them. So through a tiny bit of trickery in xfce4-settings-editor and workspaces-->margins settings, I made so that panels and windows are away from edges of screen, and windows additionally, when entering fullscreen or tiling them, don't touch panels.

[@Abdelkrim.]

can u do xfce rice pls

[@yomboprime]

The issue with the monitors not turning off, I'm sure it is because of X. It happened to me but now with Wayland it doesn't happen. BTW, don't you use any sort of CPU usage monitoring? I find it essential.

[@joshua_lee732]

I don't get the floating panel

[@johanb.7869]

Me neither. I don't like it at all. Must be because I'm old or something.

[@itsfish8672]

GVM .

[@SwiatLinuksa]

Worst thing, for me, in XFCE are hitbox for changing windows size. Second thing is lack of monitoring widgets like Vitals in Gnome. And another thing - missing fantastic themes from 4.12 and lower.. but, let everyone use that what he/she like. Cheers

[@russellrussell5495]

You need to get used to hitting the super key (I think) and right clicking to resize windows...

[@SwiatLinuksa]

@@russellrussell5495 thx, i will try that

[@RESPEKTOS]

first thing I do is uninstall xfce-terminal and install gnome-terminal so I can paste with control V.... xfce terminal wants you to setup some nonsense that never works, gnome-terminal allows you to tick "control V = paste"

[@TheDrunkenAlcoholic]

I thought that ctrl + shift + "v" works for pasting on xfce terminal and many other terminals

[@RESPEKTOS]

@@TheDrunkenAlcoholic yeah but i want that to be control + v..... its next to impossible to do that in xfce terminal, but in gnome-terminal you click 'shortcuts' and click what you want and change it instantly. I have no time for simple things made hard for no reason by developers

[@audiolatroushearetic1822]

I use Terminator at the moment. U can change the keybindings too in the gui settings if you like, it's light weight and it has some nice features like "tiling" screens and you can save terminal window layouts as profiles to start with your favourite applications in different split screens. May be worth a try.

[@dovedozen]

@@TheDrunkenAlcoholic OHHH, it's ctrl+shift+v ?? I never got around to looking that up; you may not have helped this person but I'M about to feel like a wizard. thank you!

[@TheDrunkenAlcoholic]

@@dovedozen no problems mate, just fyi, if you use a mouse that has a middle mouse button / scroll wheel button, the middle mouse button can also be used for "Paste"