I haven't written about XFCE in Debian for a while. I've noticed that one of my old posts, A look at XFCE in Debian Wheezy, is getting quite a few hits. It's a post from 12 years ago, so I can only imagine that people are really looking for something more current, so it's probably time for an update.
When writing the previous post, I was using a machine that originally came with Windows XP. This time I'm writing on a machine that originally came with Windows 8. The points I made then still apply: XFCE runs quite happily on older hardware, and it's a bit old-fashioned in its desktop paradigm, which may or may not appeal to users.
An interesting point to make is that at the time of writing the previous post, there were a lot of complaints about the performance of Windows 8 on low-spec computers (which this is). XFCE on this machine performs perfectly well, as it does on my even older laptop from the Windows 8 period.
I haven't touched a Windows machine for almost a decade, but I have noticed that Windows 10 has reached its end of life, and that Windows 11 will not run on older, lower spec machines, ones that would be a lot more modern and more powerful than this computer. Deja vu?
This would be a good opportunity to point out that computers running Windows 10 that can't update to Windows 11 will run Linux quite happily for many years to come!
There are of course Linux distributions that are aimed at new users. XFCE in Debian comes very much as shipped by XFCE. There is no welcome screen, there are no tutorials, no helpful system tools, no update, software or driver managers, no system snapshot tool, and no customisation to the desktop panel positions, theme or icons.
If you fancy a more bare bones approach, getting to grips with Debian system tools, and customising the desktop to your own preferences, Debian XFCE does offer legendary stability. This is often assumed to be implied by the name of the current release, Debian Stable, but stable in the name means "doesn't change much" rather than "doesn't fall over". Packages are tested during the two-year development process, and then receive only security updates and minor fixes after release. The corollary of this process is that Debian doesn't fall over very often, as bugs are knocked out during testing, and not introduced by package upgrades after release.
This is especially advantageous for older computers, as support for newer hardware can be lacking in the Stable release. My two older machines had a few minor glitches with Debian when new, but now run it faultlessly.
Over the years I have written about a few niggles with Debian XFCE: problem panels and unwanted saved sessions, ugly fonts, suspend doesn't work when the screen is locked, confusing power management behaviour, no icons for special folders in the home directory in the default theme, authentication dialog for root privileges broken, and media playback and non-free firmware not enabled by default.
I am happy to say that non of these is an issue any more, although the suspend/lock screen issue will require a bit of manual intervention until the XFCE fix is implemented properly in Debian (see the post for details).
One new option in Trixie XFCE worth mentioning is Docklike Taskbar, which is available after installing the package xfce4-docklike-plugin.
It also addresses one of my previous complaints about XFCE: application quick launchers can be added to the panel, but running appear separately. Docklike Taskbar combines quick launch icons with window switching icons.
The default XFCE layout has quick launch icons in a bottom "mock dock" panel, and running application buttons in the top panel. For those who like the layout, I think Docklike Taskbar would be a better option in the bottom panel, combining quick launch and windows switching.
For those who prefer a single bottom panel, here's an extreme example:
Quick launchers and iconified window buttons.
Combined launcher/switcher buttons in Docklike Taskbar (running applications are underlined).
As mentioned previously, Debian does not customise the appearance of XFCE at all. The icons used in the screenshots above are a mixture of Arc and Papirus, the theme is Arc-Lighter, and there is a single bottom panel.
Customising XFCE by changing the theme, icon theme and panel layout is a simple process. Here is my current preference, to compare with the defaults above.
With the Debian Trixie wallpaper.
With the XFCE wallpaper.
With applications open, using the old-school window buttons.
As mentioned above, Debian XFCE does not come with an update manager. The update notification in the second screenshot is my own Genmon script. an update with the latest version is coming soon, so keep watching the blog!
A final thing to say about XFCE 4.20 is that Wayland is available as an experimental option. Keep watching for a post about that too.
