LXDE

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LXDE In Fedora

LXDE ((Lightweight X Desktop Environment) is a new project aimed to provide a new desktop environment which is lightweight and fast. It's not designed to be powerful and bloated, but to be usable and slim enough, and keep the resource usage low. It consists of

• PCManFM: File manager, provides desktop icons
• LXPanel: Feature-rich desktop panel
• LXPolkit: PolicyKit authentication agent
• LXSession: Standard-compliant X11 session manager with shutdown/reboot/suspend support via HAL
• LXSession-edit: GUI to configure what’s automatically started in LXDE
• LXInput: Keyboard and mouse settings dialog
• LXRandR: Configuration tool for monitors and external projectors
• LXAppearance: Feature-rich GTK+ theme switcher able to change GTK+ themes, icon themes, and fonts
• LXTask: Lightweight task manager derived from xfce4 task manager
• LXTerminal: Desktop-independent VTE-based terminal emulator
• LXLauncher: Open source replacement for the Asus Launcher on the EeePC
• LXShortcut: Small utility to edit application shortcuts, used by lxpanel and lxlauncher
• LXNM (no longer under development): Lightweight network manager for LXDE supporting wireless connections (not in Fedora)
• LXDM: Lightweight Display manager
• Openbox: Lightweight, standard-compliant, and highly-configurable window manager.
• GPicView: A very simple, fast, and lightweight image viewer featuring immediate startup
• Leafpad: Lightweight and simple text editor
• XArchiver: Lightweight, fast, and desktop-independent gtk+-based file archiver

LXDE uses a modular approach: Each component of LXDE can be used independently, so you don't need to install the whole Desktop, if you don't like it.

Installing LXDE

LXDE is available in the repository, via the Fedora LXDE Spin and installation DVD. You can also install LXDE packages after installation using DNF or the package manager of your choice.

Fedora LXDE Spin

Download the installable Live CD from

http://spins.fedoraproject.org/lxde/

Command Line

To install LXDE in Fedora 22 and later versions with DNF, execute the following as root:

1. Open a terminal (shell).
2. Install the LXDE group: su -c 'dnf group install lxde-desktop'

To install LXDE in Fedora using yum, execute the following as root:

1. Open a terminal (shell).
2. Install the LXDE group: su -c 'yum install @lxde-desktop'

Graphical Interface

1. Go to System > Administration > Add/Remove Software.
2. In the left side pane choose LXDE desktop.
3. Click Apply to install the package set.

Using LXDE

GDM or KDM

For GDM and KDM no manual configuration is needed, just select LXDE from the available sessions listed by the display manager. If you don't see LXDE, restart your display manager, or reboot.

LXDM

LXDM will start LXDE by default, other sessions can be selected as well. To make LXDM your default display manager (especially if you already have another display manager installed), put the following in your /etc/sysconfig/desktop configuration:

DISPLAYMANAGER=/usr/sbin/lxdm

SLiM

In Fedora, slim may be called through a wrapper, slim-dynwm, which determines the available window managers using the freedesktop information and modifies the slim configuration file accordingly, before launching slim. To use SLiM with Fedora, put the following in your /etc/sysconfig/desktop configuration:

DISPLAYMANAGER=/usr/bin/slim

To reboot or halt, login in as special username "reboot" or "halt" - using the root password. To get a console prompt use username "console", and to switch sessions use F1, screenshot F11.

Make LXDE the default Desktop

To use LXDE as the default desktop for new users, add the following in your /etc/sysconfig/desktop configuration:

PREFERRED=/usr/bin/startlxde

Configure alternative keyboard layouts

The default keyboard layout is configured during installation or with system-setup-keyboard. The settings are stored /etc/sysconfig/keyboard and 00-system-setup-keyboard.conf. However to configure more than one keyboard, manual configuration of the X server is required. Copy 00-system-setup-keyboard.conf to e.g. 01-alternative-keyboard-layout.conf. Changes in the new file will overwrite the defaults. Add the desired alternative layouts to XkbLayout as a colon separated list and define the shortcut for switching layouts by adding the 'grp' option to XKbOptions.

Here is an example:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "Alternative configured keyboard"
    MatchIsKeyboard "on"
    Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us,de"
    Option "XKbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle"
EndSection

Once this is configured, you can add the keyboard layout switcher to the LXDE Panel: Right click on the panel → select Add / Remove Panel Items → Add → select Keyboard Layout Switcher and click Add → use the Up and Down buttons to move the plugin to the desired position. You can now switch layouts by using the keyboard shortcut or by clicking on the xkb plugin.

Add an application to autostart list

If you don't change LXDE session manager, your session is handle by lxsession by default. lxsession will automatically search for and run applications it finds in ~/.config/autostart. Hence, to add an application to lxsession autostart list, you need to create a .desktop file in ~/.config/autostart with the following contents as minimum:

[Desktop Entry] 
Type=Application
Name=My Application
Exec=/path/to/the/executable/file

If the directory doesn't exist yet, just create it. And make sure your file are executable.

LXDE Special Interest Group

The LXDE SIG (Special Interest Group) is a group of Fedora contributors that help improve the LXDE experience in Fedora.

LXDE mailing list

Fedora has a dedicated mailing list for LXDE users and contributors.

Bugs

• LXDE tracker bug

Low battery warning not displaying

The default battery applet(LXPanel) will try to warn you when your battery is low with a simple "xmessage Battery low" command however since xmessage is not installed by default you will never know that your battery is about to die until your computer powers off and you lose all of your work. To fix this simply install xmessage by installing the xorg-x11-apps package - "sudo dnf install xmessage" or "sudo yum install xmessage"will find the package for you.

Alternative to xmessage: gxmessage. Xmessage has a problem with fonts because it doesn't work with UTF charactor encoding. Gxmessage however works better and has better customizations. Instead of installing xmessage/xorg-x11-apps, just install gxmessage and then right click your battery monitor and go to settings and for alarm command try something like

gxmessage -title "BATTERY WARNING" -bg black -fg red -ontop -sticky -center -geometry 315x100 -fn "serif bold 16" BATTERY DYING SOON!

Maybe try it in a terminal first to see what you like, the man page on it is easy to read.

• bug link

Links

• http://www.lxde.org/ - Home of the LXDE Desktop Environment
• http://wiki.lxde.org - LXDE Wiki
• http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Fedora - Fedora in the LXDE Wiki
• http://blog.lxde.org - LXDE Blog
• http://forum.lxde.org - LXDE Forum