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Which DE would be a better fit for awesomeWM?

I want to build a void linux based system with awesomeWM window manager

But immediately there was a question about the choice of DE

After googling I realized that xfce and lxqt are suitable for me.

Which one should I use?

24
24 comments

  • Do you need a DE? I use sway and a few kde apps (konsole, okular, gwenview, dolphin) + firefox and thunderbird, I wouldn't call that a DE…

    • I don't want to autostart all programs by myself, most of DE control autostart and dbus session by it self... Furthermore,DEs are contain settings manager etc

  • @minicx What's the reason for installing a DE alongside #AwesomeWM? Is it just for a file manager, terminal, etc? Could be those are better installed separately vice a whole DE for a few programs. There also may be similar programs that suit your needs that are not part of any DE.

    • The main reason is that I don't know how to run background programs like pipewire normally.

      If you do it via xinitrc, it will work only for one user.

      Also I'm not sure that for example vscodium or lightdm
      without dbus.

      Also DE automounting usb drives

      • @minicx #PipeWire service should be fired up via services management and depending on how void sets it up, there may be something you need to launch when the wm starts. AwesomeWM uses ~/.xinitrc for auto-starting programs.

        If you're worried about each user's initial $HOME configuration, /etc/skel/ is where you can throw that base xinitrc and any other configs you want every new account to start with.

        I know nothing about #vscodium, sorry, can't help in that department.

        Automounting could be handled quite user-frienlyful by udiskie, it has a tray icon to make things easier. I'm pretty sure the Thunar volman plugin is also able to handle this. You don't need all of #xfce for #thunar.

  • The idea of those window managers is to 'skip' having to use desktop environment.

    On WM you do stuff differently. Mostly configured on your WM config. You don't really need to use DE.

  • Lxqt is lighter weight and more future proof. Xfce is more mature, full featured, and easier to find gtk apps to use

    • What about lxqt customization?

      • Are you looking to rice? If so, both will offer basically the same tools and impediments as you'll have to redo everything. If you just want to tweak some settings, XFCE should be easier to tweak. Though I might be working with outdated information

  • Both have good file managers. XFCE has more options for visual customisation in my opinion. Memory usage is similar. I think XFCE works better with multiple monitors. I use LXQt and it is a little quirky---but that may be related to Openbox.

  • For a long time my setup was mate with Compton and awesome but I had to switch to just mate as my family and kids started using the computer more. Mate's gtk suite is lightweight and complements awesome well as it gets out of the way, and caja/pluma/etc worked well with very few rough edges.

  • If you really want to use AwesomeWM with one of the DEs you mention, I'd suggest reading this: XFCE: Using another Window Manager

24 comments