LXQt is a free and open source lightweight desktop environment. It was formed from the merger of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects.

LXQt
Original author(s)Hong Jen Yee (“PCMan”)
Developer(s)The LXQt team[1]
Initial releaseJuly 21, 2013; 11 years ago (2013-07-21)
Stable release
2.0.0[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 15 April 2024
Repository
Written inC++, C, Qt
Operating systemUnix-like
Available inMultilingual
TypeDesktop environment
LicenseGPL, LGPL
Websitelxqt-project.org Edit this on Wikidata

Like its GTK predecessor LXDE, LXQt does not ship or develop its own window manager, instead LXQt lets the user decide which (supported) window manager they want to use.[3] Linux distributions commonly default LXQt to Openbox, Xfwm4, or KWin.

History

edit

Dissatisfied with GTK 3,[4] LXDE maintainer Hong Jen Yee experimented with Qt in early 2013[5] and released the first version of a Qt-based PCMan File Manager on 26 March 2013.[4] He clarified, though, that this means no departure from GTK in LXDE, saying "The GTK and Qt versions will coexist". He later ported LXDE's xrandr front-end to Qt.[6]

On 3 July 2013 Hong Jen Yee announced a Qt port of the full LXDE suite,[7] and on 21 July 2013, Razor-qt and LXDE announced that they had decided to merge the two projects.[8][9] This merge meant that the GTK and the Qt versions coexisted in the short term, but eventually development of the GTK version significantly slowed and most efforts were focused on the Qt port.[8] The merge of LXDE-Qt and Razor-qt was renamed LXQt,[10] and the first release, version 0.7.0, was made available on 7 May 2014.[11]

With the 0.13 release on 21 May 2018 the LXQt project formally split from LXDE with the move to a separate GitHub organization.[12]

Software components

edit

LXQt consists of many modular components, some of them depending on Qt and KDE Frameworks 5.[13]

Name Dependencies (besides Qt) Comments
QTerminal Use the command line, composed for and now part of LXQt
LXImage-Qt Image viewer
lxqt-menu-data Files required for freedesktop.org desktop menus
lxqt-about About dialog
lxqt-admin System administration tool
lxqt-archiver File archiver
lxqt-common Common files (graphics files, themes, desktop entry files ...)
lxqt-config KScreen System settings center
lxqt-globalkeys Daemon and library for global keyboard shortcuts registration
lxqt-notificationd Notification daemon
lxqt-openssh-askpass openssh password prompt
lxqt-panel Solid Desktop panel (taskbar)
lxqt-policykit Polkit authentication agent
lxqt-powermanagement Solid Power management daemon
lxqt-qtplugin Qt platform integration plugin (all Qt-based programs can adopt settings of LXQt)
lxqt-runner Application launcher
lxqt-session session manager
lxqt-sudo GUI frontend for sudo/su
menu-cache
ObConf-Qt Openbox configuration tool written in Qt
pavucontrol-qt PulseAudio Volume manager for PulseAudio
compton-conf GUI configuration tool for Compton X composite manager (metacity ⇒ xcompmgr ⇒ dcompmgr ⇒ Compton)[14]
PCManFM-Qt File manager, Qt port of PCManFM
qt-gtk-engine Theming GTK 3 programs with Qt styles
ScreenGrab Screenshot program

Adoption

edit
Operating

System

Officially

Supported

Notes
Arch Linux[15] Yes [16] Offered as a desktop in archinstall. Also other Arch Linux based Linux distributions.
Artix Linux[17] Yes A LXQt ISO is available.
Debian[18] Yes Also other Debian-based Linux distributions.
Fedora Linux[19] Yes Available as a Fedora Spin.
Lubuntu[20] Yes Official Ubuntu flavor with LXQt by default.
Manjaro[21] Yes
openSUSE[citation needed] GeckoLinux offers a LXQt ISO.[22]

Version history

edit
LXQt releases
Version Date Key features
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.7[11] 7 May 2014
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.8[23] 13 Nov 2014 bringing full Qt 5 compatibility
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.9[24] 8 Feb 2015 Featuring heavy internal cleanups and refactorings. Compatibility with Qt 4 was dropped, requiring Qt 5 & KDE Frameworks 5. Qt 5.3 is now the minimum required version.[25]
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.10[26] 2 Nov 2015
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.11[27] 24 Sep 2016 To address concerns that LXQt being Qt-based might cause heavy memory usage, this release was benchmarked, revealing that LXQt used slightly less memory than Xfce, and that the "memory usage of LXQt is quite similar to the original LXDE (gtk2) while many new features are added".[28]
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.12[29] 21 May 2017 minimum Qt version 5.6.1[30]
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.13 [12] 21 May 2018 All packages are ready for Qt 5.11
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.14[31] 25 Jan 2019
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.15[32] 24 Apr 2020
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.16[33] 4 Nov 2020 Three new themes; Clearlooks, Leech and Kvantum.
Old version, no longer maintained: 0.17[34] 15 Apr 2021
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0.0[35] 5 Nov 2021
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.1.0[36] 15 Apr 2022
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.2.0[37] 5 Nov 2022
Old version, no longer maintained: 1.3.0[38] 15 Apr 2023
Old version, yet still maintained: 1.4.0[39] 5 Nov 2023 Last Version based on Qt 5.15
Current stable version: 2.0.0[40] 15 Apr 2024 First version based on Qt 6.6
Legend:
Old version
Old version, still maintained
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ The LXQt team (21 May 2013). "LXQt Release 0.13.0". lxqt-project.org. Archived from the original on 22 June 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  2. ^ "Release LXQt 2.0.0". 15 April 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
  3. ^ "ConfigWindowManagers - LXQt Github wiki". GitHub. Archived from the original on 27 October 2022. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  4. ^ a b "PCManFM Qt 0.1.0 released". LXDE Blog. 26 March 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  5. ^ "PCManFM file manager is ported to Qt?". LXDE Blog. 19 February 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  6. ^ PCMan (1 May 2013). "LXDE xrandr GUI Frontent lxrandr is Ported to Qt in One Day". LXDE Development (Mailing list). Archived from the original on 9 July 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  7. ^ "LXDE - LXDE-Qt Preview". Blog.lxde.org. 3 July 2013. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  8. ^ a b "The Future of Razor and LXDE-Qt". Blog.lxde.org. 22 July 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  9. ^ Leclanche, Jerome (20 July 2013). "The Future of Razor and LXDE-Qt". LXDE (Mailing list). Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  10. ^ "The First Alpha Release of LXDE-Qt (or LXQt) is in Preparation". Blog.lxde.org. 27 April 2014. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
  11. ^ a b Leclanche, Jerome (7 May 2014). "LXQt 0.7.0 Released". LXDE (Mailing list). Retrieved 7 May 2014.
  12. ^ a b "Release LXQt 0.13.0". LXQt. 21 May 2018. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  13. ^ "lxqt/lxqt". GitHub.
  14. ^ "Compton in ArchLinux Wiki".
  15. ^ "LXQt - ArchWiki".
  16. ^ "Arch Linux Packages - lxqt".
  17. ^ "Artix Linux - Download". artixlinux.org. Retrieved 24 September 2024.
  18. ^ "LXQT - Debian Wiki".
  19. ^ "Fedora Spins LXQt".
  20. ^ Nestor, Marius (23 April 2019). "Lubuntu 19.04 Released with Latest LXQt Desktop and Calamares Installer". softpedia. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  21. ^ "LXQT - Manjaro". 27 July 2022.
  22. ^ "GeckoLinux LXQt - GeckoLinux Github wiki". GitHub. Archived from the original on 28 October 2022. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
  23. ^ Leclanche, Jerome (13 February 2014). "LXQt 0.8.0 Released!". LXDE (Mailing list). Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  24. ^ "Memory Usage of LXQt 0.9". LXQt. 12 November 2015. Archived from the original on 18 July 2019. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
  25. ^ Leclanche, Jerome (8 February 2015). "LXQt 0.9.0 Released!". LXDE (Mailing list). Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  26. ^ "Release LXQt 0.10". LXQt. 2 November 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
  27. ^ "Release LXQt 0.11". LXQt. 24 September 2016. Archived from the original on 26 October 2017. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
  28. ^ "Benchmark: Memory Usage: LXQt desktop environment vs XFCE – LXDE Blog". LXQt. 4 October 2016. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  29. ^ "Release LXQt 0.12". LXQt. 21 October 2017. Archived from the original on 26 October 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  30. ^ "Release libqtxdg 3.0.0 - LXQt". lxqt.org.
  31. ^ "Release LXQt 0.14.0". LXQt. 25 January 2019. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
  32. ^ "Release LXQt 0.15.0". LXQt. 24 April 2020. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
  33. ^ "Release LXQt 0.16.0". LXQt. 4 November 2020. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  34. ^ "Release LXQt 0.17.0". LXQt. 15 April 2021. Retrieved 15 April 2021.
  35. ^ The LXQt team. "Release 1.0.0 · lxqt/lxqt". GitHub. Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  36. ^ The LXQt team. "Release 1.1.0 · lxqt/lxqt". GitHub. Retrieved 15 April 2022.
  37. ^ The LXQt team. "Release 1.2.0 · lxqt/lxqt". GitHub. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  38. ^ The LXQt team. "Release 1.3.0 · lxqt/lxqt". GitHub. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
  39. ^ The LXQt team. "Release 1.4.0 · lxqt/lxqt". GitHub. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
  40. ^ The LXQt team. "Release 2.0.0 · lxqt/lxqt". GitHub. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
edit