Ambiente desktop leggero, utilizza le librerie GTK+ 2 (come GNOME 2) e il window manager Xfwm. Vedere la pgina Wikipedia.

If you want to set aliases or environment variables you have to rely on the rc files of your shell program; e.g. for the bash you can edit $HOME/.bash_aliases or just the $HOME/.bashrc. Notice that the terminal emulator is not generally executed as a login shell, so the files contained into /etc/profile.d/ directory are not sourced (they are instead executed when logging remotely via ssh). Some terminal emulator have their own procedure to set environment variables, e.g. the konsole program has the Settings ⇒ Edit Current Profile… ⇒ General ⇒ Environment Edit….

Debian uses the XDG system (desktop integration utilities from freedesktop.org) to know what application is associated to a specific MIME Type. So the XFCE file manager Thunar (but also textual managers like the Midnight Commander) can be configured centrally to suit your preferences.

Let's take the image/jpeg MIME Type: per default it is associated to the ImageMagick viewer:

xdg-mime query default image/jpeg
display-im6.q16.desktop

Soppose we want to associate it to the Geeqie program instead, for the current user only (not a system-wide preference) we can do the following.

1. Verify that the Geeqie package installed its Desktop file /usr/share/applications/geeqie.desktop.
2. Create the user's applications directory $HOME/.local/share/applications/ and copy the geeqie.desktop file into it.
3. Update the user's mime database configuration file with the command update-desktop-database $HOME/.local/share/applications/

Now you can verify that the MIME Type is correctly associated:

xdg-mime query default image/jpeg
geeqie.desktop

From now on, every XDG compliant program will use Geeqie to open an JPEG image.

Questi alcuni plugin utili (pacchetti Debian). In Xfce funzionano bene anche alcuni dei plugin KDE.

• xfce4-battery-plugin mostra lo stato della batteria, utile per i portatili.
• xfce4-mixer mixer e icona controllo volume
• network-manager-kde gestione delle connessioni Ethernet, WiFi, ecc. (vedere alternativa WiCD)
• xfce4-xkb-plugin selettore layout tastiera
• xfce4-mount-plugin mostra volumi montati, smonta, ecc.

Per configurare il tasto compose, ecc. si può agire direttamente sul file /etc/X11/xorg.conf (vedere anche il paragrafo sulla localizzazione):

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
    MatchIsKeyboard "true"
    Option          "XkbOptions"  "lv3:ralt_switch, compose:rwin, eurosign:e"
EndSection

Con versioni più moderne del plugin (ad esempio xfce4-xkb-plugin 0.5.4.3 e xfce4 4.8.0.3) è comunque possibile configurare il tasto compose dalle opzioni del plugin Settings ⇒ Keyboard.

May be there is a bug with Xfce and keyboard layout. With Debian Jessie, Xfce 4.10.1, KDE apps 4:4.11.3-1, if I enable several keyboard layouts, the keyboard shortcuts stop to work (e.g. Ctrl-Shift-N for New Window in Konsole, Ctrl-F for Find in Okular, etc.).

I seems that the order of the layouts causes the bug. Just remove the file $HOME/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/keyboard-layout.xml, or remove and re-add the layouts into the Settings ⇒ Keyboard applet.

It seems that the default configuration for Xfce 4.12 Action Buttons plugin on Debian Stretch is counterintuitive. The “Logout…” button (notice the three dots ellipsis) is supposed to open a dialog box with the various options: Log Out, Restart, Shut Down, Suspend and Hibernate. But the default setting simply does a logout, returning to the login manager. There is a Show confirmation dialog into Action Buttons properties (right click), but it does not solve the problem.

The program responsible of the action is /usr/bin/xfce4-session-logout, provided by the xfce4-session package.

You must open Settings, Session and Startup and enable the option Prompt on logout.

Dal file manager Thunar è possibile impostare il programma predefinito per aprire i vari tipi di file. Con il click destro, Open With.. ⇒ Open With Other Application… ⇒ Use as default for this kind of file è possibile scegliere il programma predefinito.

Le preferenze vengono salvate nel file $HOME/.config/mimeapps.list. Ecco ad esempio cosa viene salvato in associazione ai file PDF:

[Default Applications]
application/pdf=okularApplication_pdf.desktop

I progammi utilizzabili sono in effetti definiti da file .desktop contenuti nella directory /usr/share/applications/, nell'esempio sopra si fa quindi riferimento al file okularApplication_pdf.desktop.

Some applets, like the NetworkManager Applet, will show an icon into the Notification Area item that can be added to a panel. That icons may show a tooltip when the mouse is placed over. In some cases the tooltip is displayed out of the screen, this is the case using an Xfce panel aligned to the bottom edge of the screen and the NetworkManager Applet.

There are two workarounds for this problem:

• Open the Notification Area properties and set the Maximum icon size (px) to 30 or above.
• Open the Xfce panel preferences and enable the Don't reserve space on borders. Whith this setting, a maximized window will have an edge hidden by the panel itself.

See Xfce issue #203.