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One of must-have utilities on Linux desktop is file manager (or file browser). If you are not happy with a default file manager that comes with the Linux desktop you are using, don’t worry. There are plenty of other file managers to choose from. In this post, I showcase 13 popular file managers available on Linux.

Emmabuntüs is more than a Linux distribution. It is a collective which does not accept the consumer society as it now exists: it is not long-term reliable for our planet, and it is not for us.

With FreeBSD 9.2 being anticipated for release soon, the GhostBSD distro is out with their 3.5 release candidate that's based upon the upstream FreeBSD.

After the release of Kubuntu 13.10 Beta 1 and Lubuntu 13.10 Beta, the Xubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) Beta 1 operating system was unleashed for testing, bringing new applications and system enhancements. This first Beta release of Xubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) is distributed as Live DVD ISO images, supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Until about a year ago, I considered the Xfce desktop to be boring and bland and not that beautiful. I never thought it could be a decent contender for the likes of KDE and Gnome. Then, one day everything changed. It was the day Gnome 3 was born, and I figured that my favorite choice for the desktop environment was gone now, living in the shadows. While a few distributions still cling to the good ole Gnome 2, and there’s the MATE reincarnation, the landscape has been forever changed.

The Xubuntu team is happy to announce the release of Xubuntu 13.10 'Saucy Salamander' beta 1 today. With this beta, we hope to have all of the most important features ready. We now seek people to actively test and identify bugs so we can squash them before our final release. Some of the highlights of the release include: new version of Xfce Settings with a new dialog to set up your monitors; improved themes with GTK+ 3.8 support and bug fixes; a new tool to change your theme colors; updated version of Gnumeric.

The second beta build of the 3.5 development release is now available on SourceForge with LXDE and Xfce on amd64 and i386 architectures. Please be aware this release provides users, beta testers and developers with a system to test out new features in the upcoming release. It may contain buggy code and features, so we encourage you to run it only on non-critical systems. Changes between -BETA1 and -BETA2 include: FreeBSD BETA2 to RC2; fix amd64 divers packages; fix amd64 and i386 packages. Known issues: Caja is in both Xfce and LXDE editions; Openbox and MATE editions are not yet ready, chances are that they will be released before beta 3. We look forward to receiving your feedback.

An article about looking for a new distro and deciding to return to Xubuntu 12.04, which looks great and is stable. Xfce remains a desktop environment worth considering.

The KDE edition works extremely well. The Xfce edition has taken a few steps forward, but other things have pushed it a few steps back too.

SolydX is the lightweight version of the SolydXK distribution. It is based on the Debian testing branch which means the applications stay more relevant than base Debian which runs off the "Stable" branch.

Fedora has shipped a new kernel — 3.10.3-300. But the kmod-catalyst package is still at 3.9.9-302 on my system; in the RPM Fusion repository, it’s at 3.9.11, and I can’t successfully run the 3.10 kernel without removing kmod-catalyst and giving up all that the Catalyst driver has brought to this very new hardware.

This is a review of the lesser known Linux Mint 15 with the XFCE desktop. Linux Mint has a consistent look and feel across all its releases but how well does the Linux Mint brand work with XFCE?

This is a simple Ubuntu versus Xubuntu article, or is it? This article attempts to disassociate the operating system from the desktop environment.

On the Unix portion of this digital magazine, Debian "Wheezy" is reviewed.

After a shaky start with Fedora’s fedup update tool to bring my Fedora 18 with Xfce system to Fedora 19, I did manage to successfully upgrade my HP Pavilion g6-2210us.

Manjaro Linux is a distribution that makes it very easy to play with Arch. Manjaro is to Arch as Sabayon or Calculate Linux is to Gentoo. Manjaro makes it very easy to deploy an Arch-based desktop using Xfce and other lightweight components, a theme that's continuing with their upcoming 0.8.7 release.

Xfce 4.12 still hasn't been released yet and it's running months behind schedule. Xfce 4.12 will be a major update to the lightweight desktop that's becoming an increasingly used alternative to Unity and the GNOME Shell. Here's an update on some of the completed features.

With all of the controversy surrounding the Mir Display Server for Ubuntu Linux on non-Unity desktops, a Canonical engineer sought to find out what Linux desktops would work atop Mir if using the XMir X.Org Server compatibility layer. Thomas was able to get the GNOME 3 Shell, Xfce, and LXDE running on XMir.

It's surprisingly easier to do than KDE. Unfortunately, this only works for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" and its derivatives, and not any newer versions, so enjoy this while you can!

Installing Debian may be a trivial task for someone. It has never been so easy for me. To start with, my first attempt to install it failed epically. Installation of Debian 6.0 Squeeze without a network connection was a serious mistake. Has installation improved in Debian 7.0? It was my task to study this.

Ubuntu’s SABDFL (“self-appointed benevolent dictator for life,” as he’s known) Mark Shuttleworth just added comment No. 1834 to Ubuntu’s Bug No. 1 — “Microsoft Has a Majority Market Share” — and closed the bug.

SolydK is pretty amazing, and so is SolydX. Both are recommendable to newbies.

I’ve spent just about a month with this new HP Pavilion g6-2210us laptop that shipped with Windows 8. That means UEFI and Secure Boot. And new hardware. We all know how difficult Linux can be with new hardware.

In m23 rock 13.1 there are a lot of visible changes: the web interface can now be adapted with themes, Linux Mint 13 with Mate and Cinnamon was added and you can now install m23 on a Raspberry Pi.

It's been a very hard week, putting out two variants of the JULinux distribution. JULinuXP and JULinOX_OS for Mac users. Two different interfaces, for two different types of users, both are very fast, and don't need compiz. Both protect your privacy and keep your private data secure online...

Time to review Xubuntu, a proud member of the Ubuntu family. And it's just had a new son born this spring, named Billy Bob Raring Jr. Anyhow, there are two critical aspects to this article. One, Ubuntu's been offering a fairly bland experience these past two releases, with subpar Nvidia experience and too many bugs. Two, Xubuntu has been on a steady rise ever since Pangolin, and I even added it to my best list at the end of the last year. So let's see what gives. This time I will be a using a somewhat different approach. Instead of testing on the T61 laptop, which comes with a cheap graphics card and no hardware that requires additional proprietary drivers, I will begin with the HP Pavilion laptop. This machine has both a Broadcom Wireless, as well an Nvidia card. Double jeopardy.

Just a quick post to tell you that my Fedora 18 with Xfce installation on the HP Pavilion g6-2210us is doing very well indeed.

I swapped an old hard drive into the HP Pavilion g6-2210us and gave a few Linux distros a spin today. Why a separate drive? I’m not at all confident about a successful Linux-Windows 8 dual boot.

Linux Advocate Dietrich Schmitz provides a how-to to show that Xfce for Fedora 18 will do just fine against the competition.

Dietrich Schmitz makes his choice: Fedora 18. Fedora Got Game: Leading Edge Technology and Standards. Read Why.

It worked significantly better than last time and is way more polished. This could be among the first contenders for being an easy to use distribution based on Arch!

I really like XFCE's window manager, but somewhat regularly I would get a little annoyed by where it would place new windows. So I had a look at how it determines where new windows will be placed, and wrote a patch to change that behavior to one that I feel works better.

Last month Phoronix published Intel OpenGL benchmarks showing Windows 8 outperforming Ubuntu 13.04 with the latest Windows and Linux drivers from Intel. I also showed that even with the KDE and Xfce desktops rather than the default Unity/Compiz desktop to Ubuntu, Windows 8 still was faster on this Intel "Ivy Bridge" platform. The new benchmarks to share today from this Intel Ultrabook are the Windows 8 and Ubuntu 13.04 results but also with performance figures added in from Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 x64 and Fedora 18.

Ola, guys. Let us review Sabayon 11. This time though, I will be deviating from my usual KDE experience and check whether this semi-monster Gentoo-based distro can deliver equally fun results when blessed with a less mainstream desktop environment. Anyhow, my past reviews with Sabayon have gone from stupendous to buggy to somewhat boring. My feeling is that the distribution has lost its passion and momentum, and that is now merely trying to make Gentoo more presentable, while wallowing in lost identity. That's what version 8 has taught me. So let us see what version 11 can do.

We already know that KDE developers aren't fond of Mir, Canonical's display server for the Unity desktop not derived from X.Org and Wayland. KDE developers aren't happy about it, some Xfce developers have also expressed dissatisfaction with the recent Canonical changes, and now there's a GNOME response. What's GNOME doing about Mir? They're laying out plans right now to move hard and fast with Wayland support!..

Why do I need to delete in Xfce without first sending things to the trash? Because Thunar otherwise can’t delete directories/folders on a partition outside my main filesystem. Out of the box, the Thunar file manager in Xfce 4.8 doesn’t allow for a delete-only option. This is where Custom Actions come in.

Two and a half years ago, I bought myself a dandy little netbook, and then loaded it with Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx netbook edition, which it ran until about a week ago. With three years of long term support closing to an end, I had to decide which Linux distribution I would use for this machine, given its limited power and somewhat advanced age.

And so I decided - something simple and lightweight. And while I was tempted to try Ubuntu with Unity, Kubuntu Plasma and Cinnamon, I decided to forgo all the performance games and go for a proven solution. So I settled for Xubuntu 12.04, the latest LTS, which has impressed me a lot. And even though Xubuntu Quetzal is even better, it has a shorter life span, too short for my needs. So let's see what gives.

SolydX is released. SolydX and SolydK are Debian-based distributions with the Xfce and KDE desktops. SolydXK aims to be simple to use, providing an environment that is both stable and secure. SolydXK is an open-source alternative for small businesses, non-profit organisations and home users.

LXer Feature: 17-Feb-2013

The latest installment of the LXer Weekly Roundup. Enjoy!

With Steam officially being released for Linux I took some time out this evening to run a few benchmarks on my Ubuntu 12.04 based Bodhi system to see how a few of the different modern Linux desktops compare in terms of OpenGL performance with the source engine. KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Unity and E17 are compared.

Thunar is the default file manager for XFCE desktops. While it is easy to integrate DropBox into Nautilus, the default file manager for GNOME, it is not so trivial for Thunar. This guide explains how to use DropBox with the Thunar file manager on a Fedora 18 XFCE desktop.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Fedora 18 desktop (with the XFCE desktop environment) that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

Razor-qt is the lightweight Qt-based desktop environment that's come around in mostly the past two years as a much more slim desktop alternative to KDE. It's similar in nature to Xfce but written in Qt rather than GTK. This Qt desktop environment is on initial approach for its next release and further out they are getting excited over Qt 5 and Wayland...

I’m testing Fedora 18 again. Yes, the live image. I didn’t do an install, though I’m certainly thinking about it. In this release’s GNOME 3.6 desktop, at least a few applications — all from GNOME proper — like Nautilus are putting more functionality into the “global” menu that pops down from the app’s icon in the upper panel. While not catastrophic, it is problematic.

In this article are some early benchmark results comparing the OpenGL gaming performance of the Unity, Xfce, Openbox, LXDE, KDE, GNOME Shell, and Enlightenment desktops when running on a recent development snapshot of Ubuntu 13.04. As many earlier benchmarks have shown, the OpenGL frame-rate for Linux games can sway quite greatly depending upon the desktop in use and more specifically the desktop's compositing window manager.

The BackBox team is pleased to announce an updated release of BackBox Linux, version 3.01. This release includes features such as Linux kernel 3.2 and Xfce 4.8. The ISO images (for 32-bit and 64-bit architectures) can be downloaded from the download page. What's new? System improvements; upstream components; bug corrections; performance boost; improved auditing menu; improved Wi-Fi drivers (compat-wireless Aircrack patched); new and updated hacking tools (e.g. backfuzz, Beef, Bluediving, cvechecker, HTExploit, Metasploit, set, sqlmap, WebSploit, Weevely, WPScan, zaproxy, etc.)

Fedora 18 has finally appeared in its final form after many delays. Largely responsible: a new Anaconda installer that has seen much criticism, mostly from users who like complicated manual partitioning. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

LXer Feature: 20-Jan-2013

I need to apologize to all our readers. I have not been keeping up on the LXWR as of late and I am sorry. I could give many excuses but they would be just that, excuses. The roundup is going to get a lot better in the weeks ahead. It has yet to reach it's full potential and I know it.

Some readers might have seen this post appear and disappear, appear and disappear again. That's because my first "fix" for this annonying Xfce problem didn't really work. Neither did my second attempt. Nor my third. Screw proverbs. The fourth time now seems to be "the charm."

I recently got a Raspberry Pi from RS online store. I wanted one so bad and it took so long before I got to play with it that by the time I got it, I was pretty much drooling over it. I started off by installing Raspbian which worked out of the box (what fun it is! :( ). I then moved on to try Arch and the fun began. Arch Linux install guide at elinux is pretty good but it only helps you to get bare bones Arch up and running. After that you are on your own. So here I am going to discuss how I managed to get Arch up and running with XFCE, a login manager and a web browser.