I Switched to XFCE!

Today I talk about why I'm leaving window managers behind for awhile.
👇 PULL IT DOWN FOR THE GOOD STUFF 👇

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#ramble #xfce #thelinuxcast

[ArniesTech]

XFCE is like this old friend who will never be angry at you for going Out on adventures and instead will greet you with open arms when you come back ❤️🙏

[Zeioth]

XFCE was the reason why I came to linux in the first place. Best desktop environment. I won't change my mind.

[jds]

For me, having a keyboard-driven, fast user experience is the main point. I once thought I need a tiling window manager for that (bspwm in my case), but nowadays I just use XFCE and have keyboard shortcuts for the main UI operations (switching workspaces, moving applications to workspaces, tiling to the left, right, bottom, top, top-left, ...). I am also using tmux, so I get the tiling for terminals there. If I used bigger monitors and not mostly laptops, I may be going back to tiling window managers since then it would make sense to have more than one window automatically laid out on a single workspace.

[Phoenixwizard]

Xfce is my favorite desktop environment. It's so light and so customizable.

[skelebro]

Finally he became a chad Xfce enjoyer.

[dguimaraes]

XFCE has been my choice since 2003 or 2004 when version 4.0 was released... Right now I am using Gnome in my personal computer, but I still use XFCE in my work computer. It is the perfect desktop environment for virtualized systems, as you can disable all eye candy and have a very snappy experience. I don´t personalize it much though -- I just change the panels to follow the old-school CDE style and leave the desktop color as the windows 2000 teal.

[AdriaanW]

I am using Debian and Xfce for many many years. Sometimes I was distro hopping, but i always came back to this rock solid combination. It works for me, so I will stick to this.

[stephenwilson]

Matt - I had pretty much the exact issue as you regarding monitors not going to sleep when I first started using Linux. Drove me absolutely nuts. I finally figured out there was a setting on my monitor itself (Acer) called Auto Source, which apparently looks for another available input when it loses signal (i.e. Linux tries to put it to sleep). Turning that off fixed the issue immediately. Something to look for if your monitors have an option like that.

[danielwebofrito]

XFCE has just updated to 4.18 so it's a great time to install it! it's been my favourite Linux home for 10+ years! from Pentium 4s to the latest hardware, runs beatifully everywhere!

[davidrichardson]

Matt, showing temperature in weather app is very easy. Right-click it, set your location then you will see a dialogue box called "scrollbox" I think. From that, you can add various criteria such as temperature, wind speed, apparent temperature, wind direction etc. Whatever you select and add to your list will display on the panel bar and alternate each choice. Hope this helps.

[themisterchristie]

I use XFCE regularily and haven't delved extremely deep into it.

For the ALT+TAB switching to go reverse you don't have to do ALT+TAB then ALT+SHIFT+TAB, just ALT+SHIFT+TAB will work fine.

For the the monitor power managment and having the options in two places, that could be a Fedora issue. I run Linux Mint XFCE and it handles the screen sleep consistently and properly. Also there is no Screen Saver Settings screen in Linux Mint XFCE. As a note, I'm not using multiple monitors and am running on a laptop that is plugged in.

XFCE is great, not as fancy as KDE or Gnome, but I find it is more usable for me.

[eriksiers]

I've been using xfce since... 2005? I've tried other WMs but none of them really do it for me.

[iodreamify]

You can also press alt + tab and then while holding alt use the arrow keys to select a window

[topherfungus]

xfce4-terminal is great, and it supports nerd fonts no problem. Also you should search for color schemes for it.... it's definitely my favorite terminal. Also if you switch your xfce4-panel workspace switcher to the icon view, you can drag windows to your other desktops. You can do that with the keyboard, too.... but it's pretty nice to be able to see which programs are open on which desktop

[mikacasaubon]

My new love is Gnome (I know, I know), but once you get used to it, I think is the perfect combination between window manager and desktop envirnoment since it's very keyboard oriented. Fedora workstation may very well be the best linux experience I've had so far and the defiinitive cure for my distro hopping. I hope you can give Gnome another chance and maybe do a long term review sometime, it would be interesting to see if your opinion has changed. Thanks for the content, Mat!

[camerontgore]

I would love to see a follow up video when you get the window movement key bindings down! I switch between xfce and qtile and the one thing I always miss in xfce is knowing where windows will open and how to quickly snap them in place from the keyboard!

[gunthergamefreak]

Lean, efficient and configurable. What more do we need?

[phonewithoutquestion]

Typing this from Gnome 43; glad you picked XFCE! Fantastic desktop and doesn't reinvent the wheel even as a version releases 2-3 years after the last.

Honestly, all DE's are pretty keyboard-fluid, I hadn't missed too much going from i3 to Gnome. I've given up extensions right now and am holding up just fine.

I've now limited my ricing to container-specific color schemes.

[nado]

Niceeee, there's something about XFCE to me that says: "Alright time to get shit done." I also had a similar stress on productivity last year and my conclusion was, everything didn't matter, just give me tmux LOL

[Shugari]

Nice experiment, i think xfce was a good choice! I actually started my Linux journey with MX standard xfce edition and still enjoy it!
For the terminal i would go with with kitty, with some configurations it fits in every DE or WM!