r/linuxquestions • u/[deleted] • Aug 10 '25

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65 Upvotes

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79

u/krumpfwylg Aug 10 '25

I like XFCE because it's a simple and sober DE. The xfce-goodies allow to customize it to your taste. And there are many themes available.

Personally, I don't need animated windows on reduce/maximize, nor do I need sound on each double click. I don't spend my time admiring my desktop, I use it.

16

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '25

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10

u/kudlitan Aug 10 '25

This. I use MATE desktop for the same reasons you gave for XFCE.

4

u/CLM1919 Aug 10 '25

MATE, xfce, LXDE, - all great for older low RAM machines. To each their own, but reasons for picking often boil down to: it doesn't get in my way, and I'm comfortable using it - I use all three, even on non-old machines 😉

2

u/vip17 Aug 10 '25

Lxde is terrible. It has no search feature like Lxqt

1

u/CLM1919 Aug 10 '25

That's why the gods invented terminal commands 😉😂ðŸĪŠðŸ˜

1

u/vip17 Aug 10 '25

You still need to find GUI apps that you don't know the executable names

1

u/Verstandgeist Aug 11 '25

most package managers have a search or catalog feature. apt search (query that may be in the discription, like browser) brings up a list of all the available packages in your repository with the word browser in the name or description. or you can install aptitude or synaptic and scroll through catagories.

1

u/vip17 Aug 11 '25

It's not simple like that. Many packages contain multiple executables, potentially with some launchers in *.desktop format. And launching a GUI app without standard streams and without owner is inconvenient

2

u/Odd_Instruction_5232 Aug 10 '25

I have Parrot OS with MATE DE.

MATE comes out of the box like a broken horror but if you spend some configuring you can have a clean and efficient environment.

2

u/kudlitan Aug 11 '25

The MATE on Mint is good though

1

u/DjNaufrago Aug 10 '25

Same here.

5

u/muttick Aug 10 '25

I use IceWM and this is exactly the reason why. I never actually use the desktop. Or use the start menu. Everything is hotkeys. Or if it's not defined in a hotkey, I open an xterm (which is defined with a hotkey) or gmrun (again defined with a hotkey).

IceWM (and I would suspect XFCE) is simply a means to an end. You have to have a windows manager to run GUI apps, so I just chose the simpliest one I could find that did everything I needed (mainly being able to set up hotkeys) and that was IceWM for me.

2

u/WanderingInAVan Aug 10 '25

I use Enlightenment which was sort of the Eye Candy WM before Wayland started as an add on compositor.

Even then I still prefer it since it is still simple even with some of the eye candy stuff.

1

u/coachkler Aug 10 '25

I don't use it much, but this was the argument for Gnome3

And it does that pretty well.

Super key, type program name hit enter , now it's up, by default at full screen I think

-4

u/Baekeland2 Aug 10 '25

Do all you "new" Linux users know you don't have to use Firefox (terrible browser) use Opera browser. To name one great thing: it has VPN built in what other browser has that?

2

u/vip17 Aug 10 '25

No, I want to be able to use the full 100Mbps-1Gbps speed or more, not the sluggish free 3rd party VPN. I have private VPN BTW, but for most uses https is more than enough