KDE Dev tries XFCE!

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[StefaNoneD]

XFCE is for me the sweet spot of being minimalistic and having real useful features. It is also incredible stable which I really, really appreciate!

[oShinobu]

Xfce is perfect if you want something rock solid, lightweight and customizable. It's not super modern but it does its job very well.

[NeWhoa]

A few notes about the video.

The Bluetooth and WiFi applets / panel plugins are not Xfce projects. Bluetooth is Blueman and WiFi is NetworkManager nm-applet.

The theme and icons are also custom to Xubuntu. The default Xfce theme is a bit more dated/plain and there is no official Xfce icon theme, I think Xfce defaults to Gnome's Adwaita icon theme.

The panel app launcher does have some customizations if you click configure in the Panel Preferences > Items tab (or right click on the menu itself and select Properties).

[ishanparikh]

I think xfce’s awesome if u put some work into it. It’s level of barebones simplicity means u can customize it a lot. I think the best way to use it is to swap out the default window manager (I use awesomewm for my xfce desktop)

[chrisvo-pe]

xfce is solid. It just keeps working, day after day. You might go months without and updates or changes. KDE just always feels fragile and unstable, and you have to get tons and tons of updates all of the time. XFCE stays out of your way, Gnome or KDE try to get in your way.... just like MacOS and Windows.

[SC-yysw]

A thing that I LOVE on XFCE is that you can enter a custom format for the clock.
Might seem dumb or trivial but i need to have the current week number (XX/52) at all time for my work.
There are workarounds in KDE, but none that integrate as seamlessly in my status bar as in XFCE (need to download another applet, which font doesn't match the others).
So please, KDE devs, if you're listening, if you could just add a custom format option in KDE's clock, i'd be most grateful.

[Your_Degenerate]

XFCE has some of the most authentic retro/outdated themes I've seen which is part of the reason I use it currently. There are ways to make it more minimal/modern but it starts becoming less XFCE and more Frankenstein at that point. A rabbit hole in it's own right for customization.

[sharkuel]

XFCE is to me the alternative to KDE I use on older machines. Basically it is familiar to KDE users, and is really lightweigh. I dig Thunar, and I usually have it install on my KDE machines as well as it has some awesome admin integrated tools in it.

And basically you have the same level of personalization that you have on KDE, you just need to invest more time in it.

[RaresCelTare]

The biggest difference between xfce and kde is speed. No, not the ram or cpu usage, the speed feeling.

[carminator]

Linux Mint with XFCE looks quite good with dark theme. Another plus of XFCE is the little footprint and reliability. But true it keep this oldish style.

[leonader]

I like XFCE because it's much nore beginner-friendly than Plasma IMO. I started using Plasma first when I started using Linux, and I had a much easier time when I switched to XFCE. IMO its default settings are a lot better, and it's more stable. Plasma is still my favourite for experienced users, though, because of its better customisability and better look. I think if Plasma should take any inspiration from XFCE, it should be the default settings.

[orenbarnea]

Good, fair review.
Considering the size of the Xfce development team, I think they are doing phenomenal job.

[patrickprucha]

Excellent Video!!!! Because i used to run my linux solely using xfce. My reason for not completely switching to KDE, was from my experience to understand how KDE did the things that i could do in XFCE. I found it less intuitive than XFCE. But that was because i had used XFCE so much and was able to create a custom layout Using the same drive for my home, a new install, the time to install was reduced significantly because of my configs. i could reformat, reinstall distro, install necessary software, and reboot to the same desktop.

On your point of intuitive, using your definition, i agree. However, I experienced the same intuitiveness when trying to work with KDE in my 10 trials. But sometimes intuitiveness is less of a factor for experienced users and more for new ones.

It would be nice to have a similar control on wallpaper/virtual desktop in KDE similar to that of XFCE.

Finally, I'm on KDE and it is my default DM. It would be a good idea if there was a poll on what ex-XFCE users would like to see in KDE. It would be interesting to see the results.

Cheers

[EvgenGreat]

I watched few of your KDE videos and now it's time... I subscribed! Yay!

[Mendaz]

You must do a KDE dev tries out/reviews Windows, Mac OS or even Chrome OS video eventually!!! I’d love to see it from your perspective!

[toydotgame]

As someone who has used Xfce more than I have ever used GNOME or KDE: I find this video really interesting. I'm switching over to KDE now after years with Xfce because of cosmetic reasons finally getting to me (and I was shocked to learn KDE was lighter on computing resources than Xfce), and it's been really interesting to see the differences between workflows on the two environments. A lot of the default behaviours on Xfce I am _so_ used to that I find myself doing things that don't work on KDE and even when I'm using Windows.

[Rafael-Morais]

About colorful icons in context menus and application toolbars: it's one of the things I like the most in XFCE! It's worth mentioning that not every icon theme will behave this way. If you use Papirus, you will have symbolic icons there. Some icons sets get broken on that regard (with some icons on context menus being colorful while others are symbolic and some of them without any icon - I'm looking at you, Yaru), so there are two ways of having a consistent XFCE look when it comes to icons: using Elementary XFCE icons (which is the same set that Xubuntu uses by default) or using Papirus for a modern look.

[sambird]

I love XFCE, I hope they implement wayland support soon! I know they are working on it but it sure is taking a while.

[moistness]

I have started linux not too long ago and I would like to say, as someone who started with not a lot of experience in any DE, that XFCE panels were much more intuitive to customize for me, and KDE panels really just started to make sense to me after XFCE. Maybe it's just me but I wanted to share some input.

[maxpoulin]

Xfce doesn't actually provide a lot of stuff. It's basically got a few very basic apps, the panels, a window manager and a compositor, all using mostly dead standard GTK widgets. It's pretty much intended to be fully customized to your liking rather than really providing any sort of standard experience. It's modular and super easy to swap out parts too, so you can replace the WM with Compiz, or keep the WM but use xcompmgr, use third-party bars, use third-party applets. By default it looks like Gnome 2 with a dock, it's kind of a throwback to Ubuntu 7.10.

It makes a fantastic base for older systems or people that highly customize their DEs/WMs but want to keep some sane defaults for handling some basic things. Used Xfce for years until KDE 5 came around and started being usable again after the disaster that was KDE 4. I used the same theme, so it ended up looking pretty similar in the end.