XFCE4 on Ubuntu 18.04

I have been using UBuntu 18.04 for last few months. The default Desktop Environment is GNOME. I have used UBuntu earlier when the desktop environment was Unity. I somehow did not like the GNOME environment. Especially the file manager Nautilus and lack of menu bar. I also noticed that the GNOME desktop environment is heavy on resources. I experimented with KDE and in fact installed complete KUbuntu. But there are some problems with the AMD Radeon graphics card which I have in my Lenovo Laptop. KUbuntu would often just freeze without any warnings. I tried installing Manjaro Linux, but then faced problem with the Bluetooth and wireless functionality. Even though I like Manjaro but working with it was becoming too much. I feel comfortable in Ubuntu space. I am also able to find more information on the internet regarding Ubuntu and its variants then Arch Linux. Two days back then I thought of installing lightweight Xfce4 DE on top of my Ubuntu 18.04. Mind here that I did not install the XUbuntu Desktop but just Xfce4 package by using the command:

sudo apt-get install xfce4

Additionally I also installed xfce goodies package

sudo apt-get install xfce4-goodies

and lightdm

sudo apt-get install lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings

After installing the xfce and lightdm packages I noticed that Synaptic is not launching from the Menu. From terminal if I use sudo then I was able to launch synaptic. I did some research and found that in xfce4 until the package policykit-1-gnome is installed none of the GUIs will be able to launch which need authentication via password. This package is responsible for showing the authentication GUI window for password.

Authentication Window

You can install the package using below command

sudo apt-get install policykit-1-gnome

I am using Xfce for last 2 days and am happy with it. The resource consumption is also on the lower side with system monitor showing around 2.1GB of Memory consumption and CPU consumption to be around 6–7%. Thunar file manager is much better than Nautilus. It is showing devices section separately on top and also shows the total size of drive/folder by default in the status bar.

I have customized the Xfce with Arc Dark theme and Paper Icon scheme. The desktop looks really nice in this theme.

That’s it. I will be using Xfce further and will write one more blog post after some time.