Linux/Xfce

Why Xfce?

In the past, I always liked modern looking feature-rich desktops and I never thought of using a "slim" desktop like Xfce.

I used KDE from KDE 3 to KDE 4, switching only to KDE 4 when it was getting more stable.

When KDE 5 (or Plasma 5) was available in the Gentoo repository, I soon tried it, but I had lots of problems:

• crashes of the lockscreen because of segfault in libqt5sql (lots of bug reports, no solution) and a text written over itself to use some systemd tool to unlock after the crash
• crash of plasma workshell
• window contents suddenly destroyed (with Compositing enabled)
• the return of the problems with ALT-TAB (multi monitor)
• sddm with less features than kdm regarding multiple sessions
• no easy VNC solution

I should mention that I am using 2 local sessions, which are configured in kdm settings to be started immediately and I have 2 monitors with 2 separate X screens (:0.0, :0.1) configured in xorg.conf. Also, I am using the Nvidia binary driver because Nouveau is not running fast and stable for me.

So, I decided to downgrade again and stay with KDE 4 as long as possible and I was not the only one: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1042980-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html

Some months later, it was not possible to keep KDE 4 any longer because the Gentoo maintainers where forced to remove the KDE 4 packages from the tree because of conflicts. From there on, it was too much hassle for me to keep KDE 4.

Since KDE 5 and Qt 5 got some updates in the meantime, I was hoping for more luck this time and upgraded once again.

But I still had lock screen and Plasma crashes and it turns out, this is because of my setup with 2 local sessions and Nvidia binary driver: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377031. But then again, this setup was running stable for years with KDE 4.

Besides that, the new recommended display managers sddm and lightdm (kdm is not compatible with KDE 5) make it not comfortable to have 2 local sessions (lightdm lost that ability a while ago). Also, there is still no solution for VNC.

Then I decided to look for alternatives to KDE. Since I do not want systemd, I could not use (unpatched) Gnome 3. Also, some desktops need Pulse Audio, which I also don't like.

A while ago, I installed for fun Linux (Ubuntu) on my Chromebook via Crouton. From that, I already had some contact with Xfce and finally decided to try that as my new desktop.

Installation was easy (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Xfce/Guide) and at first, I stayed with lightdm because kdm was not emerging anymore (see workaround below).

Now I have less fancy stuff, but I have once again a desktop running stable and as I want to.

Installation

I followed the nice Gentoo guide at https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Xfce/Guide and installed xfce4-meta.

Soon, I was able to choose Xfce from the login screen and configure desktop to my liking (I prefer the classic panel at the bottom with quick starters and application menu and so on, very Windows-like. ;-)

Additional software

I installed this additional software:

• x11-terms/xfce4-terminal-0.6.3
• xfce-extra/xfce4-clipman-plugin-1.2.6 (does not work nice for me, so I switched to Parcellite)
• xfce-extra/xfce4-mixer-4.11.0
• xfce-extra/xfce4-cpugraph-plugin-1.0.5
• xfce-extra/xfce4-systemload-plugin-1.1.2
• xfce-extra/xfce4-taskmanager-1.1.0
• xfce-extra/xfce4-indicator-plugin-2.3.3-r1 (don't use that at the moment)
• xfce-extra/xfce4-places-plugin-1.7.0
• xfce-extra/xfce4-datetime-plugin-0.6.2 (much nicer than the standard panel clock)
• xfce-extra/xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin-1.6.0 (much nicer than the standard menu)
• xfce-extra/xfce4-screenshooter-1.8.2
• xfce-extra/thunar-archive-plugin-0.3.1-r2
• xfce-extra/thunar-volman-0.8.1
• x11-misc/parcellite-1.1.9 (better than Clipman for me, enabled syncing of Clipboards)