Modernizing XFCE

This article is more of a memo for myself. Since I often re-install Linux systems, I spend a lot of time doing repetitive tasks and often forget some steps, which leads me to waste even more time figuring out what’s wrong.

These instructions allow you to get a fully functional and modern-looking XFCE desktop on a fresh install of Void Linux (even though they can be adapted to work in any distro).

Initial system update

First thing I tried was to update the system, but the ISO was quite old. I had to update xbps before anything else:

sudo xbps-install -u xbps
sudo xbps-install -Su

Avoid session saving

One thing I hate about XFCE is its fixation to save sessions. A lot of times I get my session saved and restored even with all settings turned off.

A quick and easy solution to disable session saving entirely is just to create an empty file in place of the sessions directory.

rm ~/.cache/sessions -rf
touch ~/.cache/sessions

This way, even with everything turned on, XFCE fails create a folder with that name and everything works (or doesn’t, in this case) like a charm.

Change that shell

Your shell is the main tool you use to communicate with your system, so it makes sense to replace bash with something more modern and feature-rich.

sudo xbps-install -S zsh zsh-completions curl
chsh -s /bin/zsh
zsh
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zimfw/install/master/install.zsh | zsh

Get some good sound quality

I don’t like pulseaudio. Let’s replace it with pipewire and wireplumber.

su
xbps-install pipewire wireplumber
mkdir -p /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d
sed '/path.*=.*pipewire-media-session/s/{/#{/' /usr/share/pipewire/pipewire.conf > /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf
echo 'context.exec = [ { path = "/usr/bin/wireplumber" args = "" } ]' > /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/10-wireplumber.conf
ln -s /usr/share/applications/pipewire* /etc/xdg/autostart
xbps-remove pulseaudio alsa-plugins-pulseaudio
reboot

Make Firefox more secure

I like Firefox as a browser, but it doesn’t come with sane defaults as far as privacy’s concerned.

First, visit Firefox Profilemaker and create a customized profile.zip.

Then, extract your zip file to the correct destination:

sudo xbps-install zip unzip p7zip xarchiver thunar-archive-plugin
unzip -o ~/Downloads/profile.zip -d ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default-default/

Some useful extensions I always install are:

• Bitwarden, a password manager;
• Decentraleyes, to serve common JS libraries locally;
• I still don’t care about cookies, to hide and auto-reject cookie warnings;
• LibRedirect, a redirector for alternative front-ends;
• SponsorBlock, to skip YouTube sponsorships automagically;
• uBlock Origin, the best ad-blocker.

Customize your DE

Install the last required packages for desktop usability:

sudo xbps-install -S xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin xfce4-clipman-plugin xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin xfce4-screenshooter xclip micro neovim mpv yt-dlp

Remove orphaned and cached packages:

sudo xbps-remove -Oo

Now, open XFCE’s Settings Manager and set the following options:

• Appearance → Style → Choose “Adwaita-dark”
• Desktop → Background → <Choose your favorite wallpaper>
• Desktop → Icons → Set “Icon type” to “None”
• Panel → <Customize your panels>
• Screensaver → Disable “Enable Screensaver”
• Text Editor Settings → Enable:
  • “Show line numbers”,
  • “Highlight matching brackets”,
  • “Wrap long lines”
• Window Manager → Style → Button layout → Remove “Shade” button from title bar
• Window Manager → Advanced → Windows snapping → Enable “To other windows”
• Window Manager → Advanced → Wrap workspaces when reaching the screen edge → Disable “With a dragged window”
• Window Manager Tweaks → Cycling → Enable:
  • “Cycle through minimized windows in most recently used order”,
  • “Cycle through windows on all workspaces”,
  • “Raise windows while cycling”
• Window Manager Tweaks → Accessibility → Disable:
  • “Raise windows when any mouse button is pressed”,
  • “Use mouse wheel on title bar to roll up the window”
• Window Manager Tweaks → Accessibility → Enable “Notify of urgency by making window’s decoration blink”
• Window Manager Tweaks → Compositor → Enable “Show shadows under popup windows”
• Xfce Terminal Settings → General → Scrolling → Set “Scrollbar is” to “Disabled”
• Xfce Terminal Settings → Appearance →
  • enable “Use system font”,
  • set “Background” to “Transparent background”,
  • set Opacity to 0.80;
• Xfce Terminal Settings → Colors → Presets → Choose “Tango”
• Keyboard → Behavior → Enable “Restore num lock state on startup”

Shortcuts

Finally, set the following shortcuts:

• Keyboard → Application Shortcuts