Call This a Respin of a Respin? LXQT on AV Linux

[dreamer]

Great Respin! I have success with QT5/GTK theming on yours, simply choosing my custom GTK themes and then the gtk2 style as you would expect instantly made everything look as expected and match up, no playing with palettes. Getting around LXQT is pretty intuitive and you've done an excellent job of putting in all the little 'extras'.

Thanks, I’m kind of relieved that it is working for you. I have even more ”extras” in my current LXQT desktop, but sometimes a scope increase doesn’t make the ”product” better. For just trying out LXQt, the current respin should be enough. Things can always be added later.

The bad news is I'm kind of shocked at the RAM consumption, in a Boxes VM LXQT uses about double the RAM of E and about the same as XFCE4.

Yes, this is actually expected. I initially thought LXQt was slightly lower than Xfce, but they are about the same.

I have no experience with Nvidia proprietary drivers, but have you looked at how much system RAM your Nvidia driver uses? It might be more than your desktop... As an AV producer you might want to free up as much RAM as possible, but do 200 MiB or so matter?

If you say LXQt isn’t really your cup of tea then I perfectly understand, because we all like different things. I never understood your concern about RAM usage, neither in Xfce nor in LXQt.

do you think that the 1.3.0 packages in Test could be moved to MX main? We could ask if you aren't aware of any barriers in upgrading from LXQT 1.2.0 - 1.3.0..

The LXQt 1.3 packages are solid (thanks Stevo). I have used them a lot. I was lucky to have an LXQt 1.2 install from Debian repos in VBox and it upgraded to LXQt 1.3 from MX test repo without any problems. And LXQt continued to work well after the upgrade.

There is one application from the LXQt family that I don’t think should be upgraded from MX test repo and it is Featherpad. I think it is unnecessary to bring in Qt6 dependencies when all other LXQt packages are Qt5. There are a few extra packages that need to be installed to cover Qt6 themeing. qt6-xdgdesktopportal-platformtheme, qt6ct, qt6-style-kvantum, qt6gtk2 and maybe qt6-gtk-platformtheme depending on DE. They are all in the Debian/MX repos, but I personally avoid Qt6 in MX-23.

There is a great launcher called Albert for those that don’t mind Qt6.

I'm sure picom/compton are options for LXQT but in my AVL XFCE4 days I found compton was goofy with CSD windows and had other quirks..

I have made similar observations. Xfwm with Compton has always given me good results when using Xfce. However, when using Xfwm with Compton in LXQt I did in fact experience problems with CSD windows. Using vanilla Xfwm in LXQt hasn’t given me any problems.

Here are a few more tips:

If you want a system monitor in the panel, multiload-ng from MX repo is a good choice (much better than what is available in LXQt). It is gtk, but the various monitors will scale with the panel just fine. It also works in Plasma panel so my previous conclusion regarding Plasma panel and multiload-ng was wrong.

By installing ocs-url from Debian repo you can click-install as many LXQt, Kvantum, gtk themes and iconpacks as you wish from pling.com without putting a lot of effort into it.

Beware of autostart settings when having dual desktops. In my experience both Xfce and LXQt can behave badly by setting Hidden=true which affects the other DE. Best is to have a separate user account for each DE if you want to modify autostart settings through GUIs.

PCManFM-Qt relies on gvfs (gnome virtual file system I believe) for Trash functionality. If you don’t see Trash/Wastebasket in PCManFM-Qt then gvfs is missing.

You can set whatever default programs you want in LXQt but PCManFM-Qt will open all files on the desktop unless you open Desktop Preferences and check ”Open desktop folders in default file manager by left clicking”.

If LXQt ultimeately doesn’t fit your needs it’s Ok. I just feel LXQt is a somewhat underappreciated DE and this thread can serve as guidance for anyone wanting to set it up. There is more related to LibreOffice and Qt theming, because some people may want to avoid gtk in a Qt environment. Firefox might be one of the few exceptions since the whole UI seems to scale well according to the GDK_DPI_SCALE value.

[AVLinux]

As an AV producer you might want to free up as much RAM as possible, but do 200 MiB or so matter?
If you say LXQt isn’t really your cup of tea then I perfectly understand, because we all like different things. I never understood your concern about RAM usage, neither in Xfce nor in LXQt.

Hi, thanks again for your Respin and all the great info! I don't have time or take time to try many other Respins and I have to say you have a real talent for this, If MX ever wanted to add LXQT to the supported list you've essentially done all the work for them. Your Respin seems like it must be as good (actually likely better) than installing the LXQT variants from the large Mainstream Distros. I sincerely hope you will consider reprising your work for the next MX-25 cycle... *pretty please?

I have to agree with your above comments, on modern machines especially RAM consumption is of little consequence so indeed why do I care? It's probably half OCD and half adherence to my original intent: I started AV Linux on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy and after I learned that '.10' Ubuntu releases had no shelf life I moved to Debian around 2008 and I discovered this new light Desktop Environment called LXDE and my mission was to (a) create a turnkey system with all of the convoluted and pedantic assembly and configuration of dedicated Audio recording done and (b) keep even the most modest of computers under beds and in closets productive as dedicated recording 'appliances' instead of going to landfill. I kept LXDE until about 2012 and AV Linux was 32bit only until 2015 in the interest of efficiency on modern machines and scalability to old and pre-64bit machines so that is a deep set idea that I haven't completely shaken..

Thinking it over this weekend and with the realities that Debian Trixie and QT6 are not too far down the road I think it best to not squander my scarce development time on a whole new ISO and DE now. I will soon release a fresh, refined and reduced AVL ISO and will see if an improved Enlightenment experience strikes a less critical chord with Users and if so that will be good, if not I think perhaps LXQT is an interesting place to look next Debian/MX cycle. I had a great run with LXDE so LXQT has some familiarity to it and it is quite straightforward to deploy. I have no desire to ever return to XFCE4 and KDE has already been evaluated and I don't want to make time for it's extra complexities and resource needs.

[dreamer]

Thank you for the kind words, but it is you who have the dev skills and can create “new things”. I just use GUIs, install packages and edit text files, but with MX Linux some things can be achieved with small means. I would like to have dev skills, but I'm a pretty happy tinkerer.

I wrote that LXQt is a somewhat underappreciated DE and the same is probably true for Enlightenment. The complaints you have received (which shouldn’t be overblown) might not be directly related to Enlightenment. I think it has more to do with that there is a familiarity and liking for Xfce among the desktop Linux user base. Also, whenever there is change, people get a little uneasy.

I like Xfce, my main complaint is gtk3. It gets the job done, but feels pretty old and unimpressive me thinks. Let's not even mention gtk4. This is true for Cinnamon as well so I wonder if gtk3 desktops have a path forward. I haven’t tested Qt6 yet, but I believe it’s a minor update from a user perspective.

MX-25 with LXQt 2.1 could be interesting. Maybe I can make another LXQt respin for MX-25 (you never know what happens in life). One last tip for Qterminal. If you don’t like the border around the terminal area you can easily turn it off in Preferences. This was my only problem with Qterminal.

[macronus]

Sorry that I took so long to come back being the OP but you guys seemed to be doing fine without me. I've been doing fine so far running LXQT on AV Linux but I can't shake the feeling that trouble will inevitably come around the corner. I guess this may be a lack of faith in my tech abilities.

I've been running into a few MX Linux idiosyncrasies but haven't found anything insurmountable.

For example, within the MX Package Installer, I've found that the "Cairo Dock" package within the "Popular Applications" tab is not quite the same as the "cairo-dock" metapackage found within the "Enabled Repos" tab. The "cairo-dock" metapackage will insist on installing "pulseaudio" while uninstalling "pipewire-setup-mx" and "pipewire-alsa". Reinstalling "pipewire-setup-mx" will insist on uninstalling the "cairo-dock" metapackage itself but will leave alone all of those packages that were installed along with "cairo-dock" although these will then be designated as being "autoremovable".

The curious thing that happens though is that Cairo Dock will run perfectly fine at least to my eyes. all of Cairo Dock will still get pulled when "autoremove" is invoked.

The workaround appears to be to install the "Cairo Dock" package within the "Popular Applications" tab within "Docks". THIS will happily coexist with pipewire. Looking within the "Enabled Repos" tab will show that, while most of the individual Cairo Dock packages were installed, the "cairo-dock" metapackage itself was NOT.

I guess that the takeaway is that one should try installing packages from "Popular Applications" while using "Enabled Repos" as your next resort.

@dreamer
It appears that I've been retracing steps that you've already made. Are there any other packages aside from the ones that I've previously mentioned that I should either install or uninstall?

@AVLinux
I have nothing against Enlightenment but I've noticed, particularly on a second thin-client PC I'm playing with, that the performance balance between the CPU and iGPU are different between Enlightenment and LXQT. Compared to LXQT, Enlightenment appears to make heavier use of the CPU while underutilizing the GPU.

My main PC uses a Ryzen 7 5700G and that seems to be more than enough for Enlightenment. Looking at htop I can't tell me if Enlightenment needs 5 cores or 5 threads when running minitube for youtube viewing but all of the other 11 are shown to be idle. The thin-client PC is a fanless HP t620 using a 4-core AMD GX-415GA SOC 1.5GHz APU. Minitube is almost useless under Enlightenment with what I'm guessing to be dropped video frames but works quite well under LXQT.

[AVLinux]

@macronus

Meh, I don't know what to say other than if you're happy with LXQT and it suits your hardware better then go for it! I would be curious if you're running Enlightenment with the default 'Software' compositing or openGL? openGL gives much better performance but I have to ship AVL with the generic software Compositor to accommodate various hardware..

shot-2025-01-22_11-48-57.jpg

[dreamer]

@macronus

It appears that I've been retracing steps that you've already made. Are there any other packages aside from the ones that I've previously mentioned that I should either install or uninstall?

It's hard to say, it depends on what you want to achieve. Normally you install a package when you need something so unless you lack some functionality there isn't a need to install anything.

@AVLinux
May I ask what font you are using? Nice and rounded.

[AVLinux]

@macronus

It appears that I've been retracing steps that you've already made. Are there any other packages aside from the ones that I've previously mentioned that I should either install or uninstall?

It's hard to say, it depends on what you want to achieve. Normally you install a package when you need something so unless you lack some functionality there isn't a need to install anything.

@AVLinux
May I ask what font you are using? Nice and rounded.

Hi, it's Cantarell the default Gnome font, I agree, good readability and it renders beautifully crisp (on my Display anyway)

[macronus]

The compositing was set to software. Changing this to OpenGL did the trick and has dramatically improved the minitube video performance. It's now comparable to what I'm getting with LXQT.

[dreamer]

Hi, it's Cantarell the default Gnome font, I agree, good readability and it renders beautifully crisp (on my Display anyway)

The font reminded me of the one in Windows, but even better. The whole reason I started playing with LXQt was a slight obsession with scaling. I think both Cinnamon and Xfce are better desktops (more developed and feature rich), but I was slightly disappointed with gtk scaling. There is KDE, but I never felt at home using KDE. I felt that LXQt could be a natural companion to MX apps since they are both Qt widget based without the extra components/toolkits that KDE brings.

I probably would use KDE if it wasn’t for frequent CPU spikes caused by Kwin and the Settings application. This is primarily on low-end hardware, but I’m used to “silent” desktops. With default Breeze theming it isn’t so bad, but it can quickly become worse with transparent Kwin style and a different Qt style.

What scale factor are you using? I have noticed that the font in your screenshots always looked good.

[AVLinux]

The font reminded me of the one in Windows, but even better. The whole reason I started playing with LXQt was a slight obsession with scaling. I think both Cinnamon and Xfce are better desktops (more developed and feature rich), but I was slightly disappointed with gtk scaling. There is KDE, but I never felt at home using KDE. I felt that LXQt could be a natural companion to MX apps since they are both Qt widget based without the extra components/toolkits that KDE brings.

I probably would use KDE if it wasn’t for frequent CPU spikes caused by Kwin and the Settings application. This is primarily on low-end hardware, but I’m used to “silent” desktops. With default Breeze theming it isn’t so bad, but it can quickly become worse with transparent Kwin style and a different Qt style.

What scale factor are you using? I have noticed that the font in your screenshots always looked good.

I have a Samsung 4K Display and I currently have my scaling at 1.7 (I'm not young anymore and wear prescription and computer glasses) I haven't directly compared LXQT's scaling because I was trying it out in VM's. You know far more about the scaling per-toolkit details than I do so I can't tell you exactly how Enlightenment handles it's scaling I can just tell you it scales E, GTK, QT stuff seamlessly. There are quirks and rough edges throughout E but it scales wonderfully, easily as good as KDE anyway.