Xfce/Guide

This guide Article description::provides an extensive introduction to Xfce, a fast, lightweight, full-featured desktop environment.

The Xfce desktop environment
Xfce is a fast, lightweight desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems. It is designed for productivity, and is quite configurable while still adhering to the Freedesktop specifications.

Unlike heavier desktop environments, such as Gnome and KDE Plasma, Xfce uses far fewer system resources. Additionally, it offers greater modularity and fewer dependencies; it takes up less space on the hard disk and takes less time to install.

This guide will not only show how to install and configure a minimal Xfce environment, but will also explore options to create a full-featured desktop in keeping with the Xfce philosophy: light, fast, and modular.

The last part of this guide lists a few commands to run after upgrading to a new Xfce release, so be sure to follow them when upgrading from an older version.

The basics
First, make sure Xorg has been configured as instructed in the Xorg Guide. If these steps have not been completed the rest of this guide will not apply as expected.

In order to have the best experience, the basic desktop profile should be chosen which has many of the common settings XFCE needs.

An example for the architecture:

Emerge
Now that the USE variables have been set in, it is time to install Xfce.

If desired add regular user(s) to the,  , and   groups, so that they can mount and use devices such as cameras, optical drives, and USB sticks.

Update the system's environment variables:

A graphical terminal will be needed to continue working in the new desktop environment. The package is a good choice; it is made specifically for Xfce. Install Terminal as shown:

Starting Xfce
Now that Xfce is now installed, configure it to be the default desktop environment when we issue the command. Exit the root shell and log on as a regular user.

Now start the graphical environment by typing :

Sessions and startup
After installing popular applications such as, , , , etc., then make sure that Xfce launches the appropriate services for these at startup. Navigate to. On the tab, select the appropriate checkbox. This might slightly increase Xfce startup times, but it decreases load times for certain applications.

Xfce has the ability to save the session settings and running programs from the tab in the  menu. They can be automatically saved on logout, or Xfce can ask each time. This feature is particularly useful for undoing configuration mistakes. Accidentally killed a panel? Just select "No" when prompted to save the current session, and the next time Xfce is started, the old desktop is restored. Want to automatically launch the open web browser, terminal, and email client on the next login? Just save the session before logging out.

Additional applications
Every user should consider installing some or all of the following useful applications and utilities:

Desktop applications
Though is nice enough as a basic text editor, when a full-featured word processor is required but don't want the bloat of LibreOffice, try emerging. AbiWord is lighter, faster, and is completely inter-operable with industry-standard document types.

Need a nice email client/newsreader that is not as demanding as or ? Try emerging.

For internet chat needs, is an excellent, tiny, incredibly configurable IRC client that runs in a terminal. For a compact all-in-one client that handles nearly all chat protocols, consider.

For movie and music players, look no further than and. They can play most every media format available quite nicely.

Finally, nearly all graphical web browsers require more resources than most of the other desktop applications. Still, Firefox and Midori are always good choices. Alternatively, Opera can to be quite fast. However, Opera is not available on as many processor architectures as Firefox.

Panel plugins
There are many plugins for the panel available in Portage; see with. Though for the most part their names are self-explanatory, a few deserve extra attention, as they are quite helpful. To use them, simply them. They'll be added to the list of available items in the menu shown when right-clicking on the panel.

Graphical login
Remember when the line was added to the  file? To get into the desktop, type after logging in. To have a GUI login instead, use a display manager that will automatically start Xfce after booting.

First, make sure Xfce loads at boot:

Now, pick a display manager from the list and configure it to start in.

Most display managers can automatically start the Xfce session by adding  to :

Beautifying the desktop
A little customization of the desktop's appearance can go a long way. Xfce has all the options one would expect from a modern desktop environment, font anti-aliasing settings, color schemes, dozens of window decorations, themes, and more. If these are not enough, it is easy to install third-party themes, icon sets, mouse cursor themes, and wallpapers.

A selection of nice Gentoo wallpapers in a variety of resolutions are hosted on the Gentoo website. When looking for icon sets and complete Xfce themes, Xfce-Look has a huge collection. The important thing to remember about any third-party eye candy is that it will usually need to be unpacked and then installed to the proper directory. Icon sets go in, and themes go to ; use these directories for all users to be able to access themes and icon sets. Individual users can install themes and icon sets to their home directories in and.

Finally, Xfce has its own built-in compositor to manage window transparency. This option can be found in. For best performance, a graphics card with drivers that support hardware-accelerated rendering is required. Make sure the package has been emerged with the   USE flag.

This is the bare minimum configuration required for Xfce and Xorg-X11. However, setting up hardware-accelerated rendering depends on the system's graphics card, and is beyond the scope of this guide. Various articles exist in our wiki that assist in the setup of hardware-accelerated rendering for various graphic cards.

Once finished setting up a beautiful Xfce desktop, the next thing to do is take a screenshot of it to share with other folks! Install and post the pictures somewhere for all to admire.

Upgrading
When upgrading Xfce from earlier major versions (4.x), the old cached sessions and profiles will need to be removed; they are incompatible with new releases. For each user, run the following commands to remove the old incompatible cached sessions and profile:

Users will be greeted with a new and shiny interface, but will lose many of their individual settings. Sadly, no migration of configuration(s) exist...

External resources
Need additional help on configuring and using Xfce? Need more lightweight application suggestions? Try checking out:


 * The Gentoo forums
 * The installed help files and other documentation provided by Xfce: . Just point a browser at it and start reading. There are even a lot of "hidden" configuration options detailed in the help files.