My Thoughts on XFCE (As a KDE user)

Denshi shares his thoughts on the XFCE desktop environment.

0:00 Introduction
0:31 Some considerations
2:16 What I liked: Smaller install size
3:08 What I liked: Easy customization
3:49 What I liked: Low resource usage
4:17 What I disliked: Few animations
5:12 What I disliked: Virtual Desktops
5:49 What I disliked: GTK2 & 3
7:04 Outro.

[charliekahn]

There are a few counterpoints I'd like to make:

1: Most of KDE's animations stem from its window manager, KWin. Because both KDE and Xfce are traditional desktop environments, the window manager is basically a separate choice. Under Xfce, animations are provided by a third-party compositor, usually Compiz.
2: Having two versions of a toolkit can be needed regardless of which toolkit you use. Qt4 and Qt5 require different libraries, and Qt4 is still used by many applications. Not to mention Qt3.
3: As of 2020, all Xfce applications are purely based on GTK3. This is the result of a four-year effort to port the entire project to the new framework (GTK3 is vastly different from GTK2 due to GNOME 3 being so different). In fact, the next release of Xfce will completely ditch GTK2 support by default. If you wish to complain about outdated GTK versions, there's LXDE.

[tiktok.]

I love XFCE... it's lightweight, easy to modify, easy to use, never boring...

[Martin-lcsk]

XFCE feels dated.
Like 70's music, old fashioned bars.

It's not always a bad thing, it's charming

[djmcwill]

I was similarly annoyed by windows dragging across virtual desktops (your complaint starting sometime after the 5 minute mark). Solution in XFCE:
'Window Manager' > 'Advanced' tab > 'Wrap workspaces when reaching the screen edge' > de-select the 'With a dragged window' option.

Thanks for the video!

[mr_beezlebub]

XFCE is amazing. I like the way Linux Mint themes it, since it's similar to the look of Windows

[noobfl]

i think, xfce is the best linux desktop for beginners. its familiar enough for windows and mac users, the settings have a logical structure, there are enough for fiddeling around but not to much to confuse new users. Sadly the gtk2/gtk3 problem become bigger in newer versions, in wich xfce applications take the gnome approach to move buttons and menus in the "window decoration".. that makes an confusing mess, when the save/ok/whatever buttons are on the top in one application, but on the bottom in others.

[ethre]

Can't wait for the Xorg VS Wayland video! I personally really want to see how far Wayland has come. I really think it's the future of Linux.

[Martin-lcsk]

I love XFCE, so clean, minimal and customisable. KDE, Gnome are great but too 'fancy' for my taste, each to their own 🐧

[phuchu]

I don't care about animations or other bling, Xfce is more stable and uses fewer resources than KDE when considering more than simply memory usage.

[cantdance]

Been a KDE fan since I started my Linux experience couple years ago. But I've had this curiosity about XFCE for awhile. So this video is great info for me. Maybe cuz my newest laptop is an Asus 2014 gaming laptop.

[jackelofnar]

As someone who started my linux journey on kde plasma once I tried xfce plasma seems to be slow and unresponsive. With animations most people are using picom to resolve this.

[Engineeer]

Xfce is amazing on my old PCs. Mint has beautiful modern dark themes. The low isage of resources is where it's at for me. Yes, it isn't fancy, but it has all I need while being snappy and stable even on old PCs.

[tux_the_astronaut]

Actually a main reason I still only use KDE or gnome is cuz of wayland since wayland runs much better on my old laptop like with X11 I always get weird graphical issues while wayland just works once xfce switches to wayland I’ll probably use it on my old laptop

[fredmckinney]

MATE, IMHO, offers a smoother experience while using about the same amount of RAM than Xfce uses.

[isaldarriaga]

I cannot longer do screen sharing thanks to kde and gnome forcing wayland. I switch to xfce! all is perfect here.

[djmcwill]

Xfce completed the port from GTK 2 to GTK 3 in version 4.14, if I'm not mistaken.

[CouldBeMathijs]

In the newest version of xfce 4.16 almost everything is in GTK+3, but, now GTK+4 is coming so, ....

[chaoticsoap]

Rat runs super good and fast, requires manual setup for qt theming tho

[mrmfloy]

The icon/background of 'mouse' is very annoying.

[_nom_]

It's much nicer than KDE. In fact, only really bad desktops are worse. And xfce is super outdated.