1y ago

Xfce appreciation post

There is a place for graphically gorgeous distro’s, but when it comes to ease and speed, Xfce is just the best for me.

I started using Xfce when Xubuntu first came out and I switched to Linux Mint Xfce when that started. I did try other distro’s when others recommended them, but always switched back to Xfce.

I have an old Eeepc that runs so smoothly on the latest Mint Xfce despite being a senior in computer years.

And that’s why it was about time I gushed about Xfce on here 😀

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I like XFCE. It's the only DE that was just happy to run in my super weird setup without issues.
- That is amazing. Great job!
- Woah. Interesting setup. Looks like a PinePhone with 3D-printed case. But what about the keyboard? and the original Android status bar?
  
  https://feddit.de/post/3049646
  
  This is probably Xfce running in Termux on a normal Android phone
- XFCE is something else. I used as my desktop for years but at some point I changed to Mate.
  What always got me fuming was not having the double pane feature in Thunar I could get in Caja.

There is a place for graphically gorgeous distro's
As a current KDE user but extensive user of XFCE in the past, it may not come "pretty" out-of-the-box but XFCE can be a very aesthetically pleasing desktop environment. It can be configured just about every which way, and if I had to switch back to XFCE right now I could have things just about how I want them and be 100% as happy with my desktop as I am with KDE.
It's got defaults that just make sense, doesn't try to reinvent the wheel or the way we interact with our desktops, it's light and fast and reliable. It's associated default programs (Thunar, etc.) follow the same design paradigms and are a delight to use.
I Iove XFCE, and it will always have a special place in my heart.
- “Simple” and “aesthetically pleasing” aren’t mutually exclusive!

I remember installing XFCE on an old Pentium 3 tower some office had stored under the stairs. It was like magic - the system just... worked again?! It was the first time I successfully installed Linux and it felt so fast. With Windows the thing barely worked.
That became my younger sister's first computer. The tower and monitor etc. all just stayed on the ground and we played games on it together. Eventually I found an ethernet card and learned how to plug it in. I ran an ethernet cable from our modem through the house along the floor. Then we could go on Myspace and send email to each other.
Can't believe my parents were ok with tripping over all that stuff, ha!
- Perhaps your parents recognized the valuable skills you were developing!

XFCE is the distro for getting stuff done. I run it even on new PCs. I know that whatever device I'm using, because of XFCE, my desktop is gonna be blindingly fast. I try to switch to other desktops sometimes but I always go back to XFCE because the speed and reliability are off the charts. Windows wishes it could be this (it kind of was, in the XP or 7 era).
- Windows was never as zippy and stable as XFCE. And I hate to be a know-it-all, but XFCE is a Desktop Environment, not a Distro.

All XFCE needs is better defaults in terms of aesthetics.

As a poor person with low-end, old hardware, I love XFCE. It has extended my laptop’s practical use-life by at least 8 years now, and counting.

Every time I try another DE I always come back to XFCE. Lightweight, stays out of the way, gets the job done. NEVER crashes. Ever.
- You've never had a panel suddenly crash and disappear?
  
  I have!!
  ...on KDE
  
  Nope
  
  I did, maybe 2 debian releases ago, though.

Xfce is such a great interface.

If you ever run a "mostly server", where you are mostly in the command line but sometimes want to pop into a GUI for whatever reason, XFCE. I have a computer from 2000 with Ubuntu server plus XFCE after the fact, and it runs great. Still.

Xfce has been great at giving old PCs some extra life. I've got some people using a Pentium E2180/2GB Ram/Hard Drive machine for some browsing with Mint Xfce. It runs great and is quite reliable. I just hope that it does eventually gain support for Wayland.

I main and ♥️ xfce. we are friends now 🤣 and anybody else that feels the way we do. 🫂

Eeepc... Dude, I miss the days of 300$ netbooks 😞 would still have my Dell Mini 9, but it got stolen.

Can I just say that my favorite thing about Xfce users is that whenever the dumb "GNOME vs KDE" shit starts, you guys are all chill in the back being like, "let them fight while I drink my tea and move on with my life".
I might be a very longtime Plasma user, but I appreciate the shit out of Xfce and what its capable of while being light as a feather. Other than Budgie, it's the only DE I could actually see myself using if I absolutely had to ditch KDE for whatever reason. Although my reliance on Dolphin alone makes that very, very difficult. Thunar is pretty good, though. More file managers should have batch renaming built-in. Then I wouldn't have to use GPRename or KRename for so much shit.

Xfce is the Linux I appreciate. Its not made heavy for some opinionated features addition and setups are exposed to users.
There is also a place for DEs that are more opinionated and polished out of the box, its fine. But I'm glad composable things such as Xfce still exists.

my first foray with linux was Xubuntu. transferred to MX Linux since but stayed with xfce. looking into having a go with xfce Debian. so satisfied with this DE, am not even tempted to try others.

I came across xfce very recently looking for something that ran well on a 10-year-old laptop. I started with ubuntu but you could feel the weight of it - tried mint, pop os, eventually found my way to Debian with xfce, which runs great.

Xfce has been my main desktop for 15 years. I keep trying KDE and Gnome every now and then, but Xfce just delivers serious reliability and just enough configurability to make it great.

XFCE is my favorite Desktop Environment, and I use a lot of their apps (because they're they're very good and don't have many dependencies) as a part of my Window Manager workflow.

XFCE is seriously underrated.

The first Linux distro I used was Xubuntu and I've use Xfce primarily ever since. I've used a lot of different distros over the years but have almost always used Xfce. I think my only serious time away from it was using Plasma for a while before Xfce had hidpi support.

I just tried EndeavourOS with XFCE on a really old laptop and it works quite well. Xfce lacks some niceties that Gnome or KDE would provide, but its stability and reliability are unquestionable.

I switched from XFCE to Mate; I aways loved crazy & light desktops, like XFCE, Enlightenment, Window Maker! Simple things that DO work!!!

It does have some issues. Like when using multiple workspaces and you get a popup on a different one it will move that whole application over to your current workspace. That is just extremely annoying for my usecases. KDE plasma does not do that, I think it might be a GDK thing?
- You can change that behavior in the settings.

I come from Motif, mwm, so for me Xfce is the best. I'm using it with MX Linux, superb distro too.

Runs great on my raspberry pi 400. With rpios upgraded to Debian Sid.

I adore XFCE, simple, functional, lightweight. What more do you need? I am currently running popos which defaults to Gnome and by comparison it just feels heavy and clunky. The other DE I had love for was enlightenment years ago. A purely keyboard driven DE. It was glorious.

And you're running Xfce ≥4.14? Pretty impressive that they kept it lightweight despite switching to GTK3.

Using gnome now, but have always enjoyed Xfce. Was going to use it for my current setup, but at the time it didn't support Wayland. It looks like it's getting close, but not quite there yet.
Maybe once Wayland is fully supported I'll give it a shot again.

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