Just shy of two years since Xfce 4.16 the latest release has landed with Xfce 4.18 that comes with tons of new features and a "gazillion" bug fixes. It's still one of the most popular desktop environments for Linux, that offers up a lightweight experience without a lot of the fancy shiny stuff found in GNOME and KDE.
A lot of this release went into the Thunar file manager, some of the improvements noted include:
- Image preview in the file manager, with two different modes available. You can have the preview pop over the left panel, or have it so its own panel appears on the right.
- Undo and Redo support for various file operations like moving, renaming, sending to trash.
- File highlighting accent colour support. You can adjust the background and filename to different colours.
- A customizable toolbar.
- A new split view.
- Recursive searching.
- A new Recent file view.
- Bookmarks moved to their own menu.
- + more
There's plenty of improvement elsewhere like the Application Finder having support for systems with hybrid graphics, the compositor now supports adaptive vsync with GLX, better support for UI scaling, you can now decide what to do when a new display is connected and much much more.
More can be seen on a developer blog post and full changelog.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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13 comments
This is probably my favorite DE. Gnome and KDE are nice, but they are heavy and very full off features and other things. More like a whole suite. XFCE I like because there's not a lot too it. It's stays out of my way and let me game and do other basic things.
I'm glad it's getting some love.
I'm glad it's getting some love.
8 Likes, Who?
CyborgZeta Dec 15, 2022
I only use Plasma these days, but I still love Xfce. Cool beans.
3 Likes, Who?
soulsource Dec 15, 2022
This version restores a consistent look&feel, by using server-side decorations on all Xfce windows by default.
I'm very happy about that change, even though I probably won't switch back to Xfce any time soon.
I'm very happy about that change, even though I probably won't switch back to Xfce any time soon.
7 Likes, Who?
This is probably my favorite DE. Gnome and KDE are nice, but they are heavy and very full off features and other things. More like a whole suite. XFCE I like because there's not a lot too it. It's stays out of my way and let me game and do other basic things.
I'm glad it's getting some love.
KDE has been light for years now for me considering it is a full desktop suite .. a fresh install of KDE on most distros for me takes under 1GB of ram for me and on my Arch install takes under 900mb. most of us have upwards of 16gb of ram these days so that VERY light
Last edited by tohur on 15 December 2022 at 7:40 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
I've always been a huge fan of KDE. I've tried xfce but not much. Do you recommend it? How would you compare it to KDE?
0 Likes
Now I have a little bit stronger PC, so I chose Cinnamon, and love it even more for its eyecandy, and the same level of functionality as XFCE. But I always loved XFCE and it will always have special place in my heart :) Glad to see it's still kicking 
Last edited by Avikarr on 15 December 2022 at 10:24 pm UTC
Last edited by Avikarr on 15 December 2022 at 10:24 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
I love Xfce - it's what I've used for 13 of the 14 years I've been a Linux user (I used KDE for the first year, but it was a bit overkill for my requirements), and it consistently does what I want it to do whilst staying out of my way when I need it to. Always delighted to see it improve!
2 Likes, Who?
I've always been a huge fan of KDE. I've tried xfce but not much. Do you recommend it? How would you compare it to KDE?
It offers everything you need from a desktop, and not much else. A great file manager. A decent panel and desktop. A pretty good terminal. Plenty of customizability and a limited but sufficient amount of bells and whistles.
Nothing trendy or exciting, but it does exactly what I need and in a way that feels intuitive to me. But that might just be the fact that apart from a few brief digressions, I've been running Xfce on my computers pretty much exclusively for the last two decades or so.
I couldn't really compare it to KDE, as I never got along with that particular DE enough to get to know it properly. The last time I tried it, it felt big, buggy and clunky. But that was obviously quite a while ago.
5 Likes, Who?
I could never properly use XFCE for their buggy multiple monitor support (in regards of properly setting primary screens when they are the same monitor type).
Will give this one a shot, even though I am pretty happy with gnome nowdays.
Last edited by STiAT on 16 December 2022 at 8:52 am UTC
Will give this one a shot, even though I am pretty happy with gnome nowdays.
Last edited by STiAT on 16 December 2022 at 8:52 am UTC
0 Likes
I've always been a huge fan of KDE. I've tried xfce but not much. Do you recommend it? How would you compare it to KDE?
KDE is perfectly fine, as is Gnome. XFCE is more stripped down compared to those. There's fewer options, toggles and features. There's also much less "bloat", in terms of branded companion apps (or ecosystem rather). It's a much lighter DE, which has some positives and drawbacks.
I prefer it for those reasons. I don't need a special package manager front end, email client, and other things. Yes, I know these extras in K+G are optional, but removing can be difficult due to the way dependencies are handled in different distros, and it takes time. I'd rather spend that time adding specifically what apps I want.
I guess if you aren't using the K+G ecosystems and mostly use your DE as a standard desktop, you might like XFCE's simplicity. On the other hand, if you use tons of widgets, custom shortcuts and workflows, and rely heavily on K+G apps, you might find it frustrating, or very time consuming to set up.
3 Likes, Who?
I've always been a huge fan of KDE. I've tried xfce but not much. Do you recommend it? How would you compare it to KDE?
It offers everything you need from a desktop, and not much else. A great file manager. A decent panel and desktop. A pretty good terminal. Plenty of customizability and a limited but sufficient amount of bells and whistles.
Nothing trendy or exciting, but it does exactly what I need and in a way that feels intuitive to me. But that might just be the fact that apart from a few brief digressions, I've been running Xfce on my computers pretty much exclusively for the last two decades or so.
I couldn't really compare it to KDE, as I never got along with that particular DE enough to get to know it properly. The last time I tried it, it felt big, buggy and clunky. But that was obviously quite a while ago.
Sorry for the late answer. I've been a lot of time without login here. I guess I'll give it another try. It's been years since I last tried it.
I've always been a huge fan of KDE. I've tried xfce but not much. Do you recommend it? How would you compare it to KDE?
KDE is perfectly fine, as is Gnome. XFCE is more stripped down compared to those. There's fewer options, toggles and features. There's also much less "bloat", in terms of branded companion apps (or ecosystem rather). It's a much lighter DE, which has some positives and drawbacks.
I prefer it for those reasons. I don't need a special package manager front end, email client, and other things. Yes, I know these extras in K+G are optional, but removing can be difficult due to the way dependencies are handled in different distros, and it takes time. I'd rather spend that time adding specifically what apps I want.
I guess if you aren't using the K+G ecosystems and mostly use your DE as a standard desktop, you might like XFCE's simplicity. On the other hand, if you use tons of widgets, custom shortcuts and workflows, and rely heavily on K+G apps, you might find it frustrating, or very time consuming to set up.
Sorry for the late answer, I've been ago for a long time. Thanks for all the details you've given me. I guess I'll give it another try. It's been a long time since I used it. It was charming then, gotta see what offers now :-)
0 Likes
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