Linux: The Ultimate Guide

Simplicity
xfce has become very similar to simplicity over the years. To put it bluntly, 
“simple” here does not mean little. It means that doing things is very easy. 
Users will not have to look long to find what they are looking for. For 
example, in my opinion, the Settings Manager is the best among all the 
other major DEs. Straight and well divided. Like this one example, all 
other parts of xfce are well-designed.
Lightweight Nature
Another famous and essential feature of xfce is its lightweight nature. In 
most cases, xfce is a small package and convenient for system resources. 
For example, in idle mode, xfce uses just ~ 400 Mb of RAM in my system. 
Firefox open, and 1080p video playback has expanded to 1.20 GB.
Performance
Now, because of all that has been said before, it translates into the fact that 
xfce works well on most hardware. It is fast and responsive. After testing 
and knowledge, users can quickly navigate the system and use high pro-
ductivity. CPU usage in idle (or low) mode is shallow.
Modularity
The xfce architecture is entirely modular. Most of the DE components are 
different, making the system more flexible. For example, the default win-
dow manager is Xfwm, the setup program is Xfconf, the desktop manager 
is Xfdesktop, and the session manager is xfce4-session. These items are 

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usually integrated and do not change in most DEs. Settings for all compo-
nents are integrated into the Settings Manager to provide a compact visual 
interface for convenience.
Configuration
xfce has an excellent range of configurations. From visual interface to hard-
ware preferences, everything can be easily adjusted. The Settings Manager 
covers almost everything needed. In terms of appearance, there are websites 
like these available for you to find various icon themes and system themes.
Stability
xfce project is stable. There are a few bugs in it, and they are often prob-
lematic because of the hardened drivers. The use of the system is entirely 
smooth. The review cycle is significantly stable. xfce 4.14 was just released 
after almost 4.5 years of development! All DE components work very well 
to provide smooth information to users.
Panel
One of the most distinctive features of the xfce panel. It is highly cus-
tomizable, with several plugins provided by the xfce team. The width and 
length of the panel can be adjusted, and users can get it on the screen as 
they wish. You can also place the panel in the center of the display if you 
want. You can add as many panels as you like. By default, one of the xfce 
panels has already provided them installed as a dock at the bottom of the 
screen. Other settings are provided, such as bar blurring, and thumbnail 
size adjustment.
Plugins
The built-in plugins are excellent. They include many applications and 
requirements. There are various plugins in xfce as listed below.
• CPU Graph Plugin: This shows graphical CPU usage right on the 
panel. It helps to track what type of program is included in your sys-
tem. We find looking at this plugin whenever we check out a new 
program, new distribution based on xfce, or different hardware than 
usual.
• Pomodoro Plugin: This is an excellent production plugin. The 
Pomodoro method is widely used to increase human productivity. 
It is followed by a pattern of job exchanges and periods of rest, for 

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example, 25-minute workout, 5-minute break. xfce provides a plugin 
to keep track of time when using this method. It brings the Pomodoro 
timer to the panel timer. This plugin belongs to a third party. The 
link can be found here, along with the installation instructions.
• Mail Watcher Plugin: This can be used to receive email notifications 
from multiple services in one place.
• Notes Plugin: This is not a very unusual feature, but the notes panel 
plugins make it accessible at another level. Creating different groups 
of notes and customizing the notes app makes it even more helpful.
• Verve Command-Line Plugin: This is a helpful feature in some way. 
Using this seemingly empty line, users can open applications, go 
to websites, search using DuckDuckGo, open emails, and open the 
directory completely.
• Workspace Plugin: Workplaces are an excellent production feature 
on desktops. xfce was one of the first DEs to adopt this feature, so 
this feature is very mature in xfce. You can see the workspaces right 
on the panel for better access, with a small view of the open windows 
throughout.
Integration
Every program you put on xfce looks excellent no matter what the origi-
nal DE was developed for or whether the image enhancement kit was Qt 
or GTK. GTK, Qt, GNOME, Electron, etc., everything seems to go into 
the system. All GTK systems work flawlessly, but Qt systems have minor 
problems.
Easy to Fix
Using an operating system will break down once and for all unless you are 
incredibly familiar with the stable distribution, maybe because of a review 
or a user’s error. In some DEs, many things are integrated into each other. 
If you violate the application menu, you will probably need to reset the 
entire DE again. In xfce, as we have said, things are modular. If the menu 
breaks, re-enter that! It is straightforward to do.
xfce Components
We are now finally moving out of the standard features of the DE itself and 
into the software components you will be using. Software applications are 

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