LXDE

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From project home page:

The "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment" is an extremely fast-performing and energy-saving desktop environment. Maintained by an international community of developers, it comes with a beautiful interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard short cuts and additional features like tabbed file browsing. LXDE uses less CPU and less RAM than other environments. It is especially designed for cloud computers with low hardware specifications, such as, netbooks, mobile devices (e.g. MIDs) or older computers.

Installation

LXDE is considered modular, meaning that choosing a specific package for a task is usually accomplishable; the minimal required packages which you have to install to run LXDE are lxde-common, lxsession, desktop-file-utils, and a window manager.

The complete LXDE suite can be installed with the group lxde, available in the official repositories. It contains the following packages:

gpicview - Lightweight image viewer
libfm - Library for file management
lxappearance - Utility to configure themes, icons and fonts for GTK+ applications
lxappearance-obconf - Plugin for LXAppearance to configure Openbox
lxde-common - Default settings for integrating different LXDE components
lxde-icon-theme - Icon theme for LXDE
lxdm - Lightweight display manager
lxinput - Small program to configure keyboard and mouse for LXDE
lxlauncher - Application launcher mainly for netbooks
lxmenu-data - Collection of files intended to adapt freedesktop.org menu specification
lxmusic - Lightweight XMMS2 client
lxpanel - Desktop panel for LXDE
lxrandr - Screen manager
lxsession - Standard-compliant X11 session manager with shutdown, reboot and suspend support
lxshortcut - Small program used to edit application shortcuts
lxtask - Lightweight task manager
lxterminal - Lightweight terminal emulator
menu-cache - Daemon which automatically generates the menu for LXDE
openbox - Lightweight, standard-compliant and highly-configurable window manager typically used with LXDE
pcmanfm - Default lightweight file manager for LXDE which also provides desktop integration

After the installation finishes, copy three files to the local configuration directory as instructed by pacman:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/openbox
$ cp /etc/xdg/openbox/{menu.xml,rc.xml,autostart} ~/.config/openbox

You will also need to install gamin (a file and directory monitoring tool) with the package gamin.

leafpad, obconf and epdfview are some lightweight applications that are typically used with LXDE and are also available in the official repositories.

Starting the desktop

There are lots of ways to start a LXDE desktop.

Display managers

If you are using a display manager like GDM, KDM, or SLiM, switch the session to LXDE. Please consult the display manager's wiki page for instructions.

Instructions for using LXDM, an experimental display manager provided by the LXDE project, are included in LXDM page.

If you are not using a display manager you might want to add

export DESKTOP_SESSION=LXDE

to your ~/.bash_profile in order for xdg-open to function properly.

Console

To be able to start the desktop from the console, several other options exist.

To use startx, you will need to define LXDE in your ~/.xinitrc file:

exec startlxde

If you want to run startx at boot automatically, take a look at the Starting X at boot guide.

For other tasks you'll want to be sure that dbus is running as a daemon.

See xinitrc for details, such as preserving the logind (and/or consolekit) session.

Tips and tricks

Application menu editing

The application menu works by resolving the .desktop files located in /usr/share/applications. Many desktop environments run programs that supersede these settings to allow customization of the menu. LXDE has yet to create an application menu editor but you can manually build them yourself if you are so inclined. Third party menu editor can be found in AUR - lxmed^AUR

To add or edit a menu item, create or link to the .desktop file in /usr/share/applications, /usr/local/share/applications, or ~/.local/share/applications. (The latter two have the advantage of putting your application outside of directories governed by pacman.) Consult the desktop entry specification on freedesktop.org for structures of .desktop files.

To remove items from the menu, instead of deleting the .desktop files, you can edit the file and add the following line in the file:

NoDisplay=true.

To expedite the process for a good number of files you can put it in a loop. For example:

$ cd /usr/share/applications
$ for i in program1.desktop program2.desktop ...; do cp /usr/share/applications/$i \
/home/user/.local/share/applications/; echo "NoDisplay=true" >> \
/home/user/.local/share/applications/$i; done

This will work for all applications except KDE applications. For these, the only way to remove them from the menu is to log into KDE itself and use it's menu editor. For every item that you do not want displayed, check the 'Show only in KDE' option. If adding NoDisplay=True won't work, you can add ShowOnlyIn=XFCE.

Auto mount

PCManFM#Volume_handling

Autostart programs

Note: More methods to autostart programs can be found in Autostarting

By default, Openbox is the window manager for LXDE, so Openbox#Startup programs affects LXDE too.

.desktop files

First you can link a program's .desktop in /usr/share/applications/ file to ~/.config/autostart/. For example, to execute lxterminal automatically at startup:

$ ln -s /usr/share/applications/lxterminal.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

Once .desktop files have been added you can manipulate them with the GUI configuration tool lxsession-edit^AUR.

autostart file

The second method is to use a ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart file. This file is not a shell script, but each line represents a command to be executed, if a line begins with a @ symbol, the command following the @ will be automatically re-executed if it crashes. For example, to execute lxterminal and leafpad automatically at startup:

~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

@lxterminal
@leafpad

Note: The commands do not end with a & symbol.

There is also a global autostart file at /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart. If both files are present, all entries in both files will be executed.

Bindings

Mouse and key bindings (i.e. keyboard shortcuts) are implemented with Openbox and are described in detail here. LXDE users should follow these instructions to edit the file ~/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml

An optional GUI for editing the key bindings is obkey^AUR available in the AUR. The default edit for obkey is rc.xml, but you can direct it to the LXDE configuration as follows:

$ obkey ~/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml

More information on obkey is here.

Cursors

Main article: X11 Cursors.

The latest lxappearance2-git^AUR in AUR provides functionality to change cursor themes. If you do not want to install newer, experimental lxappearance2, you'll have to define your cursor in your ~/.Xdefaults file. See Configuring Cursor Themes.

A basic way is to add the cursor to the default theme. First you will need to make the directory:

# mkdir /usr/share/icons/default

Then you can specify to add to the icon theme the cursor. This will use the xcursor-bluecurve pointer theme:

/usr/share/icons/default/index.theme

[icon theme]
Inherits=Bluecurve

Digital clock applet time

You can right click on the digital clock applet on the panel and set how it displays the current time. For example, to display standard time instead of military time in the format of HH:MM:SS:

%I:%M

And in YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS format:

%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S

If you wish to display standard time with and AM/PM:

%I:%M %p

See the man page on strftime (3) for more options.

Font settings

Most users of LXDE usually try to use GTK+ programs because GTK+ is the backend for LXDE. To set the fonts, you can use lxappearance and set the main font. For other fonts you will need to use the Openbox configuration tool obconf.

Keyboard layout

Using udev

When you use udev, the default input configuration is written to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf under Section "InputClass". You can edit it or create a new file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-keyboard.conf following the example below, using a generic swiss keyboard, with a french variant.

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier        "evdev keyboard catchall"
    MatchIsKeyboard   "on"
    MatchDevicePath   "/dev/input/event*"
    Driver            "evdev"
    Option            "XkbModel" "pc104"
    Option            "XkbLayout" "fr"
    Option            "XknVariant" "ch"
EndSection

You can find a list of all layout and variant options in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst.

Other ways

1 way: Add in /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart following line before @lxpanel --profile LXDE:

@setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,ru

or ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart (for separate user):

setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,ru

2 way: Create /etc/xdg/autostart/setxkmap.desktop as following:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Fix keyboard settings
Exec=setxkbmap -rules xorg -layout "us,ru" -variant ",winkeys" -option "grp:alt_shift_toggle"
Terminal=false
Type=Application

3 way: Edit ~/.Xkbmap for current user or /etc/X11/Xkbmap for all system add following line:

-option grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,ru

4 way: Add folowing line in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc or ~/.xinitrc:

setxkbmap -option grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,ru

5 way: Install fbxkb from AUR.

6 way: Xorg#Switching_Between_Keyboard_Layouts.

Add the “Keyboard Layout Switcher” to our taskbar

Right-click on your taskbar
Choose “Add/Remove panel items”
Choose “Add”
Choose “Keyboard layout switcher”

Gnome-screensaver with LXDE

Install the needed packages gnome-screensaver and gnome-session.

Create a simple launcher for gnome-session to allow the screensaver to work in ~/.config/autostart/gnome-session.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=/usr/bin/gnome-session

Now logout and log back in to enjoy gnome-screensaver.

Disabling screen blanking without installing GUI screensaver

If you do not want to install GUI screensaver, to disable screen blanking add these lines below to ~/.xinitrc before exec command.

xset s off &
xset -dpms &

lxpanel icons

Default icons used by lxpanel are stored in /usr/share/pixmaps and any custom icons you want lxpanel to use need to be saved there as well.

You can change default icons for applications by taking the following steps:

Save the new icon to /usr/share/pixmaps
Use a text editor to open the .desktop file of the program whose icon you want to change in /usr/share/applications.
Change

Icon=/default/icon/.png

to:

Icon=/name/of/new/icon/added/to/pixmaps/.png

LXNM

Note: LXNM is no longer under active development. It's suggested to use NetworkManager and nm-applet.

LXNM is a program based on scripts that attempts to manage the network connections. It is script-based and strives to make networking configuration as automatic as possible. It is not a full blown networking system like NetworkManager. If you want greater control, Wicd and Gnome's versions of NetworkManager works well with LXDE. You can install lxnm from the official repositories. The main script will need to be run as root. LXNM works with the network status monitor applet in lxpanel. LXNM works well most of the time, though at times it can take a while to get a connection.

PCManFM

If you want to be able to access the Trash, mount volumes, and folder/file tracking you'll want gvfs support:

pacman -S polkit-gnome gvfs

polkit-gnome provides an authentication and will need to be started on login:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart
$ cp /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop ~/.config/autostart

Arch's polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1.desktop currently doesn't exempt certain desktops. If you have trouble launching it remove the line:

OnlyShowIn=GNOME;XFCE;

PCManFM @ LXDE wiki

Replacing window managers

Openbox, the default window manager of LXDE, can be easily replaced by other window managers, such as fvwm, icewm, dwm, metacity, xfwm4, compiz, etc.

LXDE will attempt to use window manager from the user lxsession configuration file ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf. If it does not exist, it will then attempt to use the global configuration file /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf.

Replace the openbox-lxde command with the window manager of your choice:

[Session]
window_manager=openbox-lxde

For metacity:

window_manager=metacity

For compiz:

window_manager=compiz ccp --indirect-rendering

Shutdown, reboot, suspend and hibernate options ( LXSession-logout)

To have all Shutdown, Reboot, Suspend and Hibernate Options working you need to have dbus running. You also need to have upower installed.

See xinitrc#Preserving the session for details on avoiding breaking the logind/consolekit session.

Troubleshooting

SSH key management

A very lightweight solution to ssh key management can be found by using keychain. See the using keychain article for details.

NTFS with chinese characters

For a storage device with an NTFS filesystem, you will need to install the NTFS-3G package. Generally, PCManFM works well with NTFS filesystems, however there is one bug affecting NTFS users that if you have files or directories on an NTFS filesystem, the names of which contain non-latin characters (e.g. Chinese characters) may disappear when opening (or auto-mounting) the NTFS volume. This happens because the lxsession mount-helper is not correctly parsing the policies and locale options. There is a workaround for this:

Remove the /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g which is a symbolic link.

# rm /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g

Create a new /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g with a new bash script containing:

#!/bin/bash
/bin/ntfs-3g $1 $2 -o locale=en_US.UTF-8

And then make it executable:

# chmod +x /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g

Add or edit the following line to /etc/pacman.conf under the [options] tag to prevent modification of this file in case of upgrading:

NoUpgrade = sbin/mount.ntfs-3g

KDM and LXDE Session

As of KDE 4.3.3, KDM will not recognize the LXDE desktop session. To fix it:

# cp /usr/share/xsessions/LXDE.desktop /usr/share/apps/kdm/sessions/

GTK+ warnings with lxsession 0.4.1

When starting GTK+2 programs you get the following message:

GTK+ icon them is not properly set

This usually means you do not have an XSETTINGS manager running. Desktop environment like GNOME or XFCE automatically execute their XSETTING managers like gnome-settings-daemon or xfce-mcs-manager. This is caused by the migration of lxde-settings-daemon config files into lxsession. If you made customizations to these config files, you are in need of merging those config files:

/usr/share/lxde/config
~/.config/lxde/config

into

/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf
~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf

Alternatively, you can use lxappearance from the community repository to fix this.