Think XFCE looks bad? Think again! - XFCE Customization

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For as long as I've used Linux, I've heard, and thought, that XFCE was a "bad looking desktop". While my first contact with it didn't really change my mind, it's time to take a look at how to change its look and feel, and hopefully get rid of that preconceived notion. We'll start with a few examples of changes applied to XFCE by some distros, and then we'll try to build our own look and feel.
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Ok, so let's start with something that's really close to the default: Xubuntu. Xubuntu doesn't change much from the default XFCE layout: they keep the top bar mostly intact, and they remove the bottom panel with its quick launchers.
They swapped out the default XFCE Menu for something people have been recommending quite a lot: the Whisker menu. When you right click it, you get access to a LOT of options to really make it your own: you can display apps as icons instead of lists, elect to show the "generic app names".
On top of that, the whisker menu lets you change where the category list is displayed, where the search field goes, and a lot more.
Apart from that, Xubuntu doesn't change much: the default theme is Greybird, and the default icons are the elementary XFCE ones.
For a good close to vanilla XFCE experience Xubuntu seems perfect, but that's not what we're looking for here.
Let's move on to Linux Mint. Mint tweaks their XFCE implementation to look and feel exactly like Cinnamon, their main desktop, and it's quite nice.
They basically move the top panel to the bottom, in a more windows-like layout, and they also use the whisker menu, which apparently you can resize. Mint also got rid of that second panel that default XFCE ships, to integrate its features in the main one, namely the quick launchers.
The rest of the layout is pretty much bog standard, with the window list, and the system tray applets.
In terms of look and feel, Mint brings its own green appearance, with the Mint-Y, or Minty GTK theme and icons, and going over to the Ubuntu fonts instead of the Noto family.
Still, that's a simple customization effort, it's basically a new theme for everything, and flipping the top panel to the bottom. We can go further than that.
Pick and choose
This is Enso OS, and honestly, if you had told me it was based on XFCE, I just wouldn't have believed you initially.
The layout is nice: you have a dock, and a top panel with a global menu. On top of that, you get the regular system tray applets, but with a better calendar than the default.
The bottom panel isn't an XFCE panel at all, it's the Plank dock, aligned to the left of the screen. It hosts an application launcher that looks pretty cool and can be invoked with the "super" key, a "multitasking" icon that opens the multitasking view that elementary OS users will be familiar with, and there are also some quick launch shortcuts.
Speaking of elementary OS, Enso OS uses their window manager, which means that you also get animations when minimizing, maximizing, and tiling windows. It looks pretty good.
Enso OS also changes the theme for their own, the icons using the "Paper" theme, and uses the Ubuntu fonts, and the Breeze cursor theme that KDE Plasma created.
My own results
So, I moved the panel to the left. I added Whisker menu, and configured it to be pretty much just an applications list: I only use the menu as a search engine, and as such I don't need fancy icons or categories, just a nice list of apps.
Then it's a separator in expanded mode, and pretty much the standard notification applets, clock, and logout menu.
On the bottom left, I used Plank, the dock elementary OS uses, because it's fast, it's super simple, and it handles window management. I decided to go without a border around icons, and to group everything on the left, to make mouse operations easier.
The theme I used is called Qogir, for the GTK theme, the window borders and the icons, I think it looks quite good, and I already use it as a backup theme for GTK apps on my KDE desktop.
I moved all window buttons to the left, except for the maximize one, because I like trying new stuff out, and I changed the font to Inter, because it's a lot more professional looking than Noto in my opinion.

[@christopherlewis1948]

Much as I dislike ads, I love the "let's pay the bills" line.

[@abhinavchavali1443]

Sponserblock users: What ads?

[@PengolodhNoldor]

@@abhinavchavali1443 true

[@ShiroCh_ID]

@@abhinavchavali1443 eh what ads? -Said Adblock,KZbin Vanced and SponsorBlock Users

[@ShiroCh_ID]

@questioningfox thats what i do too

[@RGV2300]

@FRIDO does it block the ads embedded in the video? How does it detects them?

[@zerotheory941]

xfce is super customizable and can look amazing all while still being one of the most lightweight DEs. Don't let the default look fool you.

[@waltherstolzing9719]

Besides, the default look (default xfwm + Adwaita) looks just fine nowadays; except for the icon theme. The only thing I customize is the icon theme (elementary-xfce).

[@MarkHobbes]

It still doesn't support Wayland

[@BryanChance]

Right on. Good advice. I didn't like it when I first installed it. Took me some time to customize it. I love it.

[@zerotheory941]

@@MarkHobbes Its cool and a necessary for X to have alternatives/competition, but Wayland just isn't there yet. The folks I know that do use Wayland have already done away with the DEs altogether and have moved to just a WM like bspwm or i3. Support for Wayland is in the works for xfce so I imagine by the time Wayland becomes a serious alternative to X, xfce would have caught up.

[@WolfRites]

@@zerotheory941 It's not about having "alternatives" or "competition" to X. It's that X is trash, and needs a *replacement*.

[@experimental0000]

"Linux Mint tweaks their xfce desktop to look and feel like cinnamon, their main desktop" Actually they ran XFCE like this long before cinnamon was even being thought of. Heck this is how it looked back on Gnome 2.x as well. They pretty much kept it like this with Gnome, KDE, and XFCE in those days.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Ah nice to know!

[@heikokraemer2735]

So cinnamon actually adopted the look & probably also some feel from Mint's xfce tweak … interesting! I'm running cinnamon Mint for a year now and absolutely love it - but now I'm curious, will give that xfce version a try.

[@MrGamelover23]

@@heikokraemer2735 cinnamon was made after gnome 3 changed everything, so their version of xfce was more in line with how everyone else was back then.

[@albussd]

I don't think XFCE looks bad in the first place. Beyond the basic good looks, I don't demand super flashy or beautiful desktop environment, cos all those effects and beauty come at a cost - usage of more resources. But then again, for most people that's not an issue. I personally like to keep my computer's resource usage low even if I have high specs. Beyond a basic level of beauty that makes working on my computer pleasant, I don't want more. I don't switch on my computer to stare at the beauty of the OS, but to just get work done. That's the basic reason anyone buys a computer in the first place.

[@jongeduard]

Exactly I found your comment now, after I replied as well with a very simular answer with respect to high specs and still using a lightweight desktop. I would like to add that it's also one of those reasons for me to use Linux (I have many reasons, but Windows so full of bloatware these days, I am still using it as well, but having alternatives is great, to choose the system I want to boot to fit my needs at any moment). I do not like to make my Linux system yet another slow system.

[@marklemoine1634]

I love the humor in this video, I literally laughed out out at several points. Great video, as always!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks :)

[@BasedMando]

The why are you so mean part cracked me up!

[@NostalgiaforInfinity]

The second XFCE panel is a relic from the era when monitors used to be small, low resolution and 4:3. So you'd need a separate panel for the launchers, so that the top panel wouldn't get crowded and illegible when multiple windows are opened. But with 1080p and 4k screens as well as wide screen monitors, the bottom panel is completely redundant.

[@loendsti]

i like having the panel on bottom !

[@ricardo072]

@@loendsti It does NOT matter what you like, you do whatever you want on your PC,... the bottom panel is completely redundant HERE on the way is customized on the video.

[@ricardo072]

@Nostalgia for Infinity I have not been able to find a good video for XFCE customization, this is now a year old

[@mrbanana6464]

@@ricardo072 It does NOT matter what you think of the bottom panel in the video. If someone likes the bottom panel let them use the bottom panel.

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

XFCE does a lot of the layout of more heavy desktops significantly better, such as Unity.

[@WolfRites]

Unity isn't just a layout. And no, Xfce does none of the things that Unity did so well once you got used to them.

[@hiiaminfi]

Can we take a moment to appreciate how awesome the Ubuntu Font Family looks?

[@that_kaii]

absolutely! it is gorgeous and i use it on anything i install

[@TheLinuxEXP]

They’re really cool!

[@amiwatchesyt]

@@that_kaii I do too. That distinguishable l is just perfect.

[@KyleBroflovski4u]

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter that font is... On Plasma, all fonts looks terribly ugly. I think Plasma do not have a proper anti-aliasing and/or font rasterization.

[@amiwatchesyt]

@@KyleBroflovski4u I think it has to do with the screen it is rendering on. In my main screen they render perfectly, but on my older second screen they become sometimes just plain unreadable

[@juanignacioaschura9437]

Even if I had 128GB RAM, a 32-core Threadripper and two RDNA2 GPUs, I would still be using XFCE. It's not just the familiarity it gives you (because indeed it looks like something out of Windows 2000 SP4) but the lightweight nature. I grew up quite spoiled, and would rather have Linux distros that on Idle don't consume more than 1GB of RAM, especially seeing as my Windows desktop is always idling with over 2GB of RAM in use. Nowadays I'm experimenting a bit and trying out Deepin, but before this, I had Debian Buster with XFCE and was able to customize it to my liking. Some people might scoff at the need to tweak a distro's DE from the get-go, but horses for courses, guys. Team Xfce for life here.

[@retrin-o]

same here! using fedora 37 LXDE switching to slackware or vanilla Debian XFCE with 32gb ram.. XP.

[@nahiyanalamgir7056]

I think memory usage should be analyzed more accurately. Is the memory consumption mostly cache? Try scaling up your memory and see for yourself. The 2 GB of memory (maybe in 8 GB of RAM?) for Windows will drastically increase to 7-8 GB on a 16 GB RAM. Windows task manager tells you how much of a process is cache. Afterwards, try spawning tons of memory-heavy programs like Android Studio or even web browsers. You'll be surprised at how well your system manages memory; macOS is one of the best in this aspect. I never managed to break macOS by exploding the memory. But beware that having swap on can be a disaster in those cases. I use earlyoom in my Linux for this reason. But yes, in many cases the memory usage isn't mostly cache.

[@mahfuzurrahman7187]

I love xfce, especially xubuntu... It perfectly meets my requirement, clean, minimal and lightweight high performance desktop environment.

[@minhquannguyen3605]

Do you have issues with touchpad reverse scroll? Is there any way to fix them?

[@MarkHobbes]

Lubuntu is cool, but I think Linux Mint implementations of Xfce is much better and useful. It comes with lots of useful apps preinstalled, that really makes sense for the average user.

[@mahfuzurrahman7187]

@@minhquannguyen3605 I don't have any issue with touchpad, but I am recently having a graphical glitch on screen upon logging in...

[@mahfuzurrahman7187]

@@MarkHobbes I had a rough time with Lubuntu on my laptop. But, regarding mint xfce, I agree with you. However, I would prefer Cinnamon when using mint. It has clean and simple, yet modern interface, takes the cake...

[@GeraldOSteen]

@@minhquannguyen3605 Which natural scroll style are you using? Two-finger scroll, side-area scroll, or three-finger gesture-style scroll?

[@neffscape6353]

Zorin Lite has the best XFCE theme yet. If you haven't seen it you're missing out!

[@Yoshomay]

Zorin os lite is my main os owo

[@SpaceTimeBeing_]

I wish I could install the new Zorin OS that's just in beta on my aunt's old laptop, hope it comes out before the end of next week on something. It should be really good for old people.

[@IGqy]

Absolutely agree!

[@WolfRites]

Hard disagree from me. The light theme is WAY too bright, and the dark theme is WAY too black.

[@eliopineda8057]

@@WolfRites Yes but the icon theme and Zorin appearance are quite good.

[@sbedivere6937]

As far as I know, XFCE is in the process of switching to headerbars. But the dev team is very small so it takes some time. But lot's of the settings and the task manager are already using headerbars. ... It's interesting that a desktop so widely used like XFCE seems to have such a small dev team. In XFCE I also like the balance between customizabilty and ease of use. When GNOME hasn't enough options and KDE has to much, XFCE is a good choice. One can change the looks without digging through so many settings or to install additional applications.

[@SupaKoopaTroopa64]

>When GNOME hasn't enough options and KDE has to much, XFCE is a good choice That's why I started using it (just replace GNOME with Unity), and I've never looked back!

[@aymanhassan8178]

6:24 Indeed a super original look

[@orkhepaj]

every linux wants to be a win10 :P

[@edwinpj7637]

@@orkhepaj or now Windows 11 want to look like Deepin DE in Linux or Zorin IS

[@orkhepaj]

@@edwinpj7637 No it doesn't , there is just so many linux distros it is impossible to make something doesn't look like one of them

[@ramakrishnach3754]

Nice Video. Very nice overview of XFCE. 9:23 very true. I run linux mint (sarah) xfce from 2016 to 2019 and MX Linux Xfce since 2019 on a Lenovo n200 3000 laptop thats purchased more than a decade ago (2008). Its sufficient enough for my browsing and occasional media consumption with 2gb ram. The laptop would've been collecting dust if I haven't made the switch from win 10 all thanks to XFCE.

[@jimbow7787]

I'm over here using xfce4 for the last 7 years with Gentoo. It's honestly the best for low end computers.

[@MenacingPerson]

how are you putting up with compiling software on a low end computer?

[@jimbow7787]

@@MenacingPerson distcc and really with the right flags even a pi zero doesn't take more than a minute to compile something big

[@KentoCommenT]

At 6:19, I didn't even realise I was staring at Windows 10. I was like "oooo now this looks like a fresh Linux customisation I can get behind! That file manager looks pro. Wait. The Windows 10 start menu?!"

[@Daijyobanai]

if you are an ex-mac user or not, XFCE has an application launcher usually tied to Alt + F3 but clever people like me bind it to SHIFT + Win-key/CMD + SPACE . So you get an OSX style application launcher pop-up, then just start typing and hit enter, The non F-key shortcut is better for keyboards that either don't have f-keys, or have them in a Fn modifier, like a lot of 60% or less KBs, or laptops.

[@alwanrosyidi3753]

XFCE is perfect for monitor below 1366x768. It's straight forward, effective, fast. But for 1920x1080 above, it still has a minor downside about fractional scaling. Deepin DE and KDE plasma the only desktop has mature fractional scaling in linux.

[@nahiyanalamgir7056]

Don't you think GNOME does a good job in this too?

[@davidprosen5637]

You can scale! But I think it is strange you have to set a number below 1 to scale up. and over 1 to scale down. I am scaling 1920x1080 up with 10% by setting scale to 0.9. If writing 1.1 things will be even smaller. :-)

[@misterspitfire6564]

Super video! I've tried so many DE's, but XFCE is always the one I come back to. MX Linux is ruling right now, and I can understand why - it's the most stable distro I've ever used, and with a little work, can be absolutely beautiful! Don't write it off for it's default theme, coz it's bland and boring! Get yourself a nice new theme for your GTK+, your XFWM4, and your icons, and you will have something amazing and reliable.

[@joshpasstheaxe]

Im also a MXLinux user ~4years and i love it. Just recently received an old Mac Book and out of the handful of ditros i tested MX ended up being the only that worked with no tweaking or driver issues. Conky Widgets also help the feel of the Desktop

[@RetosSpace]

Manjaro XFCE user here and I'm a new guy to Linux so have to google everything,but thanks to Nick and his channel ,it makes things easy to use and learn Linux!! Banging Vid Nick!! Merci

Your customized layout look really nice, good freaking job, awesome

[@theodoros_1234]

LMAO that sponsor transition cracked me up

[@fadedtimes]

your more recent videos are so much better, I wasn't expecting the little sound clips lol I love XFCE

[@elHosed]

I got XFCE Mint running on a 2009 machine (350 MB on boot for a 2 GB machine was the main reason I went with it). The thing is used by my parents and being so close to Windows in layout really made the change seamless and brought life back to a very old machine.

[@SaltyNotSweat]

Perfect timing! I needed this for alpine linux! Edit: Didn't realize that you were going to talk about distros that use XFCE, my bad!

[@theonetribble5867]

You could try a tiling window manager like i3. Would love to hear your opinion on that.

[@raz0229]

Of course, it looks cool and more professional looking with your windows tiled next to each other and makes your experience with Linux more operable with just a keyboard. I think they should ship Xubuntu with i3 as default wm and call it Xubuntui3 or something like that

[@BrunoCCoutinho]

@@raz0229 I use xfce with a global menu and i3wm. Works great

[@SFSAtlas]

@@raz0229 xubuntu is literally Ubuntu with XFCE. Maybe i3ubuntu

[@adityachaudhry7566]

Good job on the video as always Nick. How's the gala experience for you? Last time I tried the shortcuts got all messed up, could you share how you set it up?

[@adityachaudhry7566]

@@TheLinuxEXP oh okay

[@KevinBReynolds]

I'm running MXLinux with its XFCE desktop and am very happy with it. I don't want eye candy, I want functionality and I have it in this mid-weight environment. Maybe not for everyone but I am very happy as things are.

[@MaryamMaqdisi]

MX Linux gang

[@slim_2280]

XFCE isn't for everyone, but for me coming from Peppermint with it's mix of LXDE and XFCE, I had to have XFCE environment again. On my Linux Mint XFCE as I'm not a fan of Thunar, used to using Nemo in Peppermint, so set Nemo as default and everything just works, from opening terminal with Nemo, to right clicking the desktop to change wallpapers. I also made my own dark theme, as wanted to take memories of Mark Greaves with me, using his theme as a template for my own. Every time I switch my computer on I say hello to Mark. I run my Mint with AMD Ryzen 2600 CPU, using Nvidia 1660 for display on a ASROCK B450M Pro4 motherboard, 16GB of ram 3200Hrtz. SSD setup with Icy Docks, meaning I can swap out SSD's at anytime saving on taking the side off of my computer. What I love about Linux is it's versatile, will do what you want it to do within reason.

[@amano_akane]

Hey NIck, talking about Linode, do you know if they have servers in Europe ? I want to setup a personal project but I'm hesitating. Nice video as always tho !

[@norgeball3971]

Hey Nick, thanks for the XFCE series! Wanted to ask, what is your opinion on Cinnamon? Will you also give that DE a deeper look on the channel?

[@egje39jong15]

hello do you know about safetly remove usb icon on taskbar xfce4 ? i cannot find it

[@benjy288]

One thing that never seems to get mentioned with XFCE is the window manager options, as far as I'm aware its window manager (along with Kwin, Openbox, and Compiz) is the only one that gives you decent placement options, for example I can easily disable raise on click, so then my terminal window won't get sent to the back when I click on firefox to copy some text from a webpage, and if I open 2 terminals or 2 file managers they will be placed side by side, instead of in a cascade placement like all the other modern GTK desktops seem to do these days, its like these modern GTK desktops have gone the Gnome 3 route and removed configuration options, I've tried all these modern GTK desktop environments and while they look nice I simply can't use them due to lack of configuration options, so I stick with XFCE with Compiz (the original 0.8 version of Compiz still seems to be the fastest compositing window manager)

[@zeuscorp363]

Is this guy spying me? I just install Linux Mint XFCE this morning in an old laptop and I am about to customize it. Thanks for the video. 😁

[@731Seba]

I like Xfce as a workstation DE because it have all the features I need but don't freeze on me when I happen to overload the CPU and as much as I love the GNOME workflow, even cutting off the animations the overhead was enough to stall, same for KDE that may be lighter than Xfce on RAM but not on CPU usage, also Cinnamon and Pantheon struggles when heavy calculations are done, Xfce gets slow on that, but still responsive. Also the combo Debian + Xfce really embrace the UNIX tradition and stability.

[@glucid4222]

Hey Nick, you forgot to point out one thing that I've only seen in XFCE: right-click anywhere on the desktop and you can have another apps menu slide out of the the context menu. I love that feature. It's like having a floating whisker menu. Like I said, I've only seen that in XFCE, but I could be wrong. Do you, or anyone else know if that feature is also available in any other desktop?

[@fredmckinney8933]

In MATE, if you press Alt-F1, you get MATE's compact (main) menu wherever your mouse pointer happens to be. Also, while they're window managers and not desktop environments, Fluxbox, IceWM, and Openbox all do this, too.

[@TheStruKt]

Interesting conclusion, I find preference for UI is usually determined by what UI you've spent the most time in growing up. I started on Win 95 and used WinXP for years. I find XFCE is the closest to that old school desktop metaphor. I've tried a variety of others from GNOME to KDE and Elementary and I always bounce off attempts to "revolutionize" and "modernize" the desktop experience.

[@nahiyanalamgir7056]

I can relate to that. Windows 95 and XP are in my roots, and XFCE gives me that nostalgic simple but solid look and feel.

[@DijTheWhiteEmperor]

I just changed my distro last week for an XFCE thanks to your last video about it. I didn't known anything about the DE. Funnily enough, first things I did was to remove the "dock" panel and install the whisker menu. Seems to me it's a standard procedure for everyone too.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Looks like it, yeah!

[@westonbean9674]

Wow!! Your videos are getting better and better!! I might actually spend more time trying out XFCE.. even though I'm currently fully invested in Gnome.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks :)

[@westonbean9674]

@@TheLinuxEXP not a problem! Super appreciate the work you do sharing your experience using Linux. You are one of the many that help me walk away from Windows.. especially the video where you used Linux for your actual work.

[@nachocdbz]

On my 2 screens setup it was impossible to put the primary one on the right. XFCE always wanted the left one to be the primary, so I couldn't really use it when I tried it 2 years ago. Anyone knows if this is fixed yet?

[@glowiak3430]

4:07 I hate Panel 2, because it's occupying a lot of space and it's useless. Especially on small monitors (mine is 1366x768)

[@katech6020]

Same, and same monitor size

[@GeraldOSteen]

You can change its size.. and its placement.. and hide it. I have a main panel(panel 1) at the top of my primary screen and then two secondary panels(panels 2 & 3), one at each bottom corner which is mirrored to every screen. Panel 1 is set to 32 pixel height, 85% opacity on enter, 75% opacity on exit, always shown. Panels 2 & 3 are set to 24 pixels, 'smart hide'(they automatically hide if there's a window in that area, but they automatically show if the area is clear or if you mouse-over the edge), 85% opacity on enter, 75% opacity on exit. XFCE can be good at getting out of your way if you tell it to, and still gives you what you need to get your work done.

[@glowiak3430]

@@GeraldOSteen XFCE is too heavy. I'm using dwm

[@glowiak3430]

@@GeraldOSteen My dwm setup on CRUX 3.6 takes 116mb without any apps opened. How many takes your desktop without any apps?

[@GeraldOSteen]

@@glowiak3430 On *this* system, nearly 1.4 GBs, though I do have a lot of panel plugins/applets(like 25+). GTK/+ itself is pretty large, so that tends to cause a lot of the resource drain. I could minimize it more, but that wouldn't serve my purposes nor my workflow. Then again, I also have 64 GBs of RAM in this system because it was necessary for my work. Just to quash it here, before it starts, in case there was any risk... If dwm serves your purposes, that's great. It doesn't serve mine, which is why I don't use it, but it's a nice WM and I can't fault people for liking it if that's their thing. I commented because you noted that you disliked panel 2 and it took up too much space, so I offered some suggestions to customize it, and included my basic starting configuration as an example which I recommend even for smaller resolutions. There's no need to compare whose WM/DE is better or which conforms to what ICCCM/EWMH standards better, etc. I've been through all that before both as a user and as a developer for 30+ fscking years and you may even be running some of the code I wrote during those arguments now, so consider me officially done with it.

[@romaind1257]

Any plan to make a video on elemantary os customization ?

[@MarkHobbes]

Is elementaryOS main theme actually a fork of Greybird? It looks so much similar.

[@MrJunkes]

Probably. At least the icon theme is the same.

[@bernardev3]

PeppermintOS also uses XFCE and has an really beautiful and modern interface.

[@angelrivera8013]

Where can I get that background at 5:38

[@David_Granger]

I really like xfce, it's my backup option with gnome after my favourite desktop, Pantheon. But I only like it customised, but it's the same with gnome.

[@filipposgra4715]

your videos look professional great work!

[@breadpirateroberts4946]

xfce with i3wm blew my mind tbh, its really nice and fast and it integrates well, even the workspaces widget works! Im considering switching to it from GNOME

[@wahyuman]

Great video as usual! Thank you for the great video

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thank you :)

[@fparisi]

Is there a Way to have desktop dark theme and light theme for liberoffice? Tnks

[@badabadabadatubababadadaah1410]

i know i could be asking someone else but i dont know where to start. i want to try to help volunteer in being a visual designer for xfce, do you know whether or not that is an opportunity open at thr moment? im asking because you share linux news. again, i know i could ask someone else but it doesnt hurt to try asking anyway at all. maybe theres some inside knowledge or personal input i can hear from another side of someone else?

[@classicallemur1190]

Have you thought about trying out the budgie desktop?

[@MrJunkes]

Budgie is just GNOME with a different shell. All the settings are Gnome related; All the Budgie's settings are a fork of Gnome Tweaks built into it; Even the "default" apps are Gnome apps. Budgie doesn't even have their own file manager, for this reason, they use Nautilus. It still needs Gnome and its libs to work; It would be interesting if it goes Qt as they promised in the past.

[@abbbb5625]

It is not a question of look... for developers, xfce is a lightweight, easy, intuitive, stable reliable environment where the power of your machine is not bothered by the window manager. This is the reason why I use it on MxLinux and BSD.

[@paulj505]

Maybe I am a young old-timer (I'm 26), but I really like XFCE and the clunckiness is not an issue for me. I don't have very strong laptop and still like playing games, so it's the best DE for me. I like it especially after my customization. Okay, not entirely mine, I am new to linux and I am using for only 3 or 4 days for now, so most of my customization, I did with youtube tutorial.

[@matthewsjardine]

I wonder how different Zorin OS Lite running Xfce is from the Gnome version of Core or Ultimate.

[@MarkHobbes]

How is it different? Do you mean perfomance related? ram usage?

[@bronzekoala9141]

The reason why I don't use a top panel is mostly, that I want my browser tabs to be at the very top of the screen, so they are easier to click. I really like your setup though.

[@garfield-pro]

Hey there. How to install xfce desktop in Cygwin in Windows?

[@zac_5295]

Would you do a video on i3wm?

[@MarcCastellsBallesta]

I give a try to different desktops every now and then. I always come back to XFCE. Years ago, when I gad more time to spend learning settings, I tried OpenBox. I loved it. But the lack of time made me go back to XFCE. Setting up everything through text files makes you better understand, but it was too time consuming.

[@treyquattro]

"but first, let's pay the bills..." Or, as Steve Jones (Jonesy's Jukebox) says, let's visit the Duke (Duke Of Kent: pay the rent - it's cockney rhyming slang, or something, Funny though). Linode should hire you: I actually watched/listened to the "ad" whereas I can't stand most ads on YT

[@Dr_Dude]

6:21 always creative Nick, hehehe liked that a lot.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks :)

[@ms.emirhan]

My reason for not using xfce is there is no animation. I mean no smooth effect, smooth animation etc.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

You can change that and use another window manager :)

[@ms.emirhan]

@@TheLinuxEXP right but I don't want to configure it. It is very complex to me. BTW thanks for this video :D

[@TheLinuxEXP]

You’re welcome :)

[@ms.emirhan]

@@TheLinuxEXP thanks :)

[@LevisRaju]

@@TheLinuxEXP You're right. You can use kwin to get the cool animation like KDE. But imo, they were not stable for me every-time.

[@FarizaBarreto]

I used Xfce for two years and it helped me a lot to get my design programs running in Ubuntu Studio, but now that I have a touch computer I had to switch to Gnome, because my pen was going crazy on screen. Love gnome, but xfce is in my heart.

[@bennypr0fane]

I've seen the Compton window manager used on a lot of distros with Xfce, it's supposed to be the best match. I don't remember what cool animations it does or doesn't have though. I don't understand why you said you can't have a global menu with Xfce when you presented an OS that ships that global menu with Xfce. What did I miss? One thing I like about Xfce is the set apps it typically comes with. They're the same style of just-what-you-need, no-bloat apps.

[@ADITYA-zc1bd]

Xfce is basically performance based. Low power, small size,. So when you cover more Xfce in future, please include performance and consumption metrics and comparison.

[@classicallemur1190]

He did

[@MarkHobbes]

LXQt is ligher than Xfce nowadays. Even Plasma, it's close to Xfce, what makes it "huge" for some people it's the quanity of animations and effects that may trick them to think it's slow. I've seen Plasma running about 400 MB of RAM. Xfce is generally about this too. LXQt is 300 or less.

[@orkhepaj]

nah it is old based kde is the best

[@orkhepaj]

@@MarkHobbes it doesnt even matter when we have 16+ gb rams now

[@baraodascolinas979]

@@orkhepaj i use 8gb o my main cumputer..., not everyone has or wants 16gb ram.

[@steph291]

I'm using xfce and I like it. It Looks like xfwm95...(1995~97). At that time, all menu options were edited by hand. No internal graphic menu tool was available. but god it looks good !

[@DouglasERobertsAuthor]

I like and use the Mate black themes. It should be in your package manager. It looks great, imho.

[@JoaoMiguel-pc4mh]

Another great video. Good job!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks :)

[@nintendowiids12]

I just want MATE/XFCE to switch to Wayland.

[@lqlarry]

Try Fedora, I think that might be Wayland on Fedora 34.

[@briansrcadventures1316]

Not for me. Wayland doesn't as yet have any support for colour management.

[@wahyuman]

Mate/xfce is (I think) geared towards old pcs and they don't all support wayland so...

[@wahyuman]

@@wolfgangzeintl6425 because I have an old-ish pc that doesn't support wayland?

[@ahmadyogi1340]

@@wahyuman I have an old laptop and wayland works pretty well

[@sergsergesrgergseg]

how to get window animations?

[@prasenjeetbanerjee2867]

it's finally time you give Window Managers a try....

[@flavioluis8218]

All desktop environments use a window manager. I'm not exactly sure if you mean you want him to use a tiling window manager. In which case... it's very much impractical for most users and most TWMs take too long to setup

[@prasenjeetbanerjee2867]

@@flavioluis8218 yeah...by window managers I meant tilling WM

[@flavioluis8218]

@Linuxspin "most"? I'm not sure what you mean by "most people use a twm or wm"...

[@KA1637]

@Linuxspin It's okay looking but for most users it isn't intuitive to setup, The Linux "Community" should appeal to the public and not just desktop administrators or people in the tech field.

[@flavioluis8218]

@Linuxspin I know about them bro, I used them myself. I even used to post in Unixporn, not TWMs but some heavy XFCE customizations etc. But I wouldn't say "most" people use TWMs or WMs. And they're not that easy to setup. You always need to know some knowledge

[@chucklagos]

For Global menu, Xubuntu have xfce4-appmenu-plugin in the repositories, that let you add a global menu to the panel

[@uberdonkey9721]

XFCE may be a little heavier than it used to be, but now it's MUCH prettier. Not worse than MATE and indeed in some aspects more customizable. I recently swatched from MATE to XFCE and RAM usage went from 730mb to 550mb but it is absolutely just as good. PS also tried lqxt but it is seriously butt ugly and runs at 640mb. XFCE ticks all the boxes (low resource use, pretty, customizability). I can see myself sticking with it for a long time as it's really hit the nail on the head.

[@CarNikola135]

I use Compiz in Manjaro and it works out of the box (or almost, can't remember, but I know there was little to no extra setup after install)

[@AriannaEuryaleMusic]

XFCE is my favorite cuz, first of all, My screen computer is NOT a Xmas painting, it´s work environment, and you get things done quickly without going Starbucks-Hipster (like Arch/Gentoo users)

[@eqvaldi-deer]

How did Xfce use about 800 mb od ram? My uses 280-360 mb od ram.

[@jongeduard]

Thank you for your videos. I know these videos (this one and two others that I watched) of you about Xfce are a while ago now, but I was very curious what you was going to tell about it, because I am a heavy Xfce user on Arch Linux. I use it on both old systems as well as modern, high-end ones. Why? Because in my opinion a powerful computer is No Excuse for a slow desktop. My philosophy is the following one: I want to use my powerful hardware for the applications that I actually want to run (because that's why you buy it). A desktop should steal as little resources as possible. Think about games and other graphical applications for example. The GPU and video memory resources should not be stolen by a desktop, but should be completely available for these applications. However, I am not as extreme in this opinion as it may sound, because I use multiple operating systems (still including windows - I am a software developer on multiple systems) and I also like GNOME a lot for it's smoothness, simpleness and very well-organized settings. And I am trying to like KDE Plasma as well, because it's so beautiful. But the problem is that I didn't get used to all those animations / transitions and especially how the this is done in the start menu. Part of the issue is that they are HEAVY for hardware. If you're not using a computer with VERY good graphics, the start menu is just horribly laggy. And in virtualbox KDE Plasma basically crashes 50% of the time. I may give it more attention on one of my better hardware some day though. And the fact that I don't use Kde's desktop does not mean that I do not use certain KDE applications. I do. A lot of KDE applications are really great and work very well.

[@jonglass]

Great video! I can see your point against CFC even. It put words to how I feel. Now you need to do the same sort of thing for Mate. ;-) (or did you already?)

[@heikokraemer2735]

Just installed Kali Linux for educational purpose - choose xfce to safe resources and was afraid it would look very & feel very poor. But they did a really good job to tweak it into some stylisch dark-mode optic … Kali also would have been some good choice for demonstrating a nice xfce implementation.

[@RedBearAK]

Twister OS for Raspberry Pi uses Xfce and Plank to mimic several different versions of Windows and macOS, with a theme switcher to go between them.

[@arkansawdave7428]

Been using Xfce for like 7 yeaars, it's all I really know. I have Mnajaro KDE on dualboot, and I think it's very cool, but I'm finding it near impossible to make myself leave Xfce. It's my first love.

[@omerefe8955]

It feels like the quality increases every video

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Thanks, I try to :)

[@johnk6749]

I just installed MX Linux on my Thinkpad T420 32-bit(14 years old). I was previously running Linux Mint Cinnamon. I'm getting used to the system and customizing it to my liking. So far, I'm loving it. I'm running Kubuntu on my desktop.

[@thund3rstruck]

Xfce-4 is fantastic on a server. The first thing I do whenever I setup a new Linux server is to install xrdp and then xfce4 and enable remote desktop. This allows you remotely login to the server from any PC on your network and have access to a real desktop environment. The fact that its lightweight is a huge plus since I only want a basic, low resource environment I can use to manage the server (for when SSH won't work because you need a windowing environment).

[@13thravenpurple94]

Great work 🥳🥳🥳 Thanks 💜💜💜

[@mattsbeatsprod]

Can you do a similiar episode for mate and or lxqt?

[@yoman9446]

The Rodent is going to take over this channel someday

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Maybe he’ll team up with mirror dimension Nick

[@matekovacs2696]

@@TheLinuxEXP *boss music intensifies*

[@davidsmith7208]

I just got done with an XFCE beautifying project: global menu on top bar, bottom dock with catfish launcher, terminal command launcher, icon only task manager and weather, and picom with .85 opacity with blue on active tittle bar and .80 opacity on inactive windows. Fade in and out, rounded corners and a combination of black/ neon color designs. It's gotten really heavy for my budget laptop, but I proved it to myself.

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Nick. XFCE is under-rated.

[@novationo]

ever since ive been using linux ive always thought [KDE] looks bad and is hard to use. Has that changed? [not yet]

[@emjaycee]

I think one of the prettiest standard Xfce desktops I've tried is Salient Xfce, but each to their own I guess :) And, of course, you need to be an Arch fan :)

[@Rick_Gregor]

Try the latest Garuda Linux XFCE and the OpenSUSE Tumbleweed XFCE...I can not find info on this. The Application Launcher is not a traditional xfce look. They look like the Launcher on Manjaro KDE, except it is resizable with nicer Icons than the traditional xfce....I have been using the Garuda Linux XFCE and like it as much, probably more than Manjaro KDE...Keep up the great videos!

[@aniketfuryrocks]

The best thing about xfce is that you can easily integrate it with a tiling window manager like i3

[@fgsaramago]

I wonder whats the point of having differemt editions of mint if theyre hoing to make them look and function pretty much identically.

[@jasonpreston2703]

My pc is fine I use xfce by choice and prefer it to gnome and unity. To me they feel like toy desktop environments and better suited to a mobile device than a desktop computer. Not played with kde but I love how lightweight xfce is and how customisable

[@darylandcat]

Xubuntu has been my go to for the past 16 years, to the point I can’t even use anything else. I also used Gnome 2.x on secondary PCs I had. These days I still run Xubuntu, but set up to look like Gnome 2.x. I’ve tried other XFCE based distros and just can’t get behind them.

[@ugurcansayan]

If you want to make Xfce look good, have fancy functions and also be light on system-resources, install kde plasma :D

[@watsoft70]

I like XFCE and appreciate your presentation, but after seeing several well presented adaptions critically reviewed by yourself, you unleash the monstrosity that you created...lol. I here by declare that you are the Frankenstein of XFCE and you should have announced "IT'S ALIVE!" prior to talking us through exactly how you ruined it! ;) At all times I respect your French lack of taste. I do enjoy your videos and your sense of humour, so keep up the good work!

[@CodeCube-rv1rm]

I like XFCE a lot, one of the easiest desktops to modify with everything from look & functionality to the lock screen, screensaver, compositor and desktop selector. My only grump with it is that it loads up in bits, which feels a bit bootleg. I wouldn’t mind a splash until it’s fully loaded