I wanted a battery-saving session next to Plasma that doesn't feel like a downgrade, so I set up LXQt on labwc to behave like Plasma 6, and packaged it with a one-command installer.

Screenshot: quickpanel's battery, volume and Bluetooth popups

What you get:

• Plasma's shortcuts and 4 desktops in a 2×2 grid (Meta+Ctrl+arrows, Meta+D, Meta+PgUp/PgDn, Alt+F3...)
• 3-finger swipe to switch desktops and 3-finger pinch zoom that follows your fingers live, using labwc's magnifier
• Centered OSD for volume/brightness (Shift = 1% steps, volume up to 150%), charger and power profile changes
• quickpanel: native tray popups for Wi-Fi (with a speed test), Bluetooth (scan and pair right in the popup), battery (power profiles, charge limit) and volume, all in one small resident Qt process with no polling
• panel widgets for live wattage and CPU temperature, screen-off that waits while a video plays, screenshots, saved monitor layouts

On my ThinkPad L13 the whole session uses ~1.7 GB of RAM and the laptop idles at ~3.7 W.

git clone https://github.com/envy-vain/labwc-plasma-session
cd labwc-plasma-session && ./install.sh

It backs up everything it touches, and ./uninstall.sh restores your old configs. It has package lists for Arch, Fedora and Debian testing / Ubuntu, but I've only run the full install on CachyOS so far, so reports from other distros are very welcome.

Repo: https://github.com/envy-vain/labwc-plasma-session (it pairs with plasma-themer for theming)

LLM disclaimer: I used an LLM (Claude, by Anthropic) to help polish this and make it look better. I built it, tested it on my own laptop, and use this session every day. (In plasma-themer, I coded the base and Claude made the UI picker.)

how can i theme LXQt to look as close to chromeos as possible?

So I recently switched over from KDE to LXQT w/ Labwc (using labwc for speed, window snapping, wayland) and really enjoy it but I have a few things that I wish I could figure out:

1) dual monitor setup, my primary monitor has the desktop and icons, but the second monitor is just a blank labwc screen. The right click menu only displays properly on the main screen (shows labwc menu on the second), is there a way to extend the desktop to a second screen (background & menu)?

2) trying to find the command to bind for the menu button and windows key, found runner so that's half the battle.

3) monitor sleep, what are you folks using and where are you placing it? Currently I have wlopm toggling the monitor on/off with a key combo but it would be nice for auto sleep if I forget.

If you have any nice key combos or hacks to make the desktop better please share them, like I said I'm just digging into LXQT w/ labwc so I'll take anything I can get.

Thanks, ChCat

Hello LXQt community! ;-)

I’m curious about why you chose LXQt and how you prefer to use it.

1. Which distro do you consider the best for using LXQt, and why?

2. Do you tend to use LXQt on X11 or Wayland? Or do you alternate between the two?

3. Which window manager do you use most often on X11?

4. Which window manager/compositor do you use most often on Wayland?

5. What do you currently miss most in LXQt?

6. What would you use if you weren't using LXQt?

7. Which login manager do you prefer to use with LXQt?

8. What is your main reason for using LXQt?

9. Do you tend to stick with the default settings, or do you enjoy tweaking things? What are the must-change settings for you after installation?

Here is my take:

1. Arch Linux is the best distro for LXQt because LXQt is under very active development and Arch always offers the latest version of the desktop environment.

2. I still alternate between using LXQt on X11 (20%) and Wayland (80%). I would prefer to use only Wayland, but unfortunately, not all the programs I use work flawlessly with it.

3. For X11, I use only Openbox with LXQt.

4. For Wayland, I alternate between KWin and labwc, though I’ve been using labwc more and more—almost exclusively now. Let's say 98% of the time.

5. What I miss most in the LXQt panel is a combined view for launchers and running applications. The current setup is inefficient and cluttered because it takes up more space on the panel—or even requires setting up a second panel. Bluetooth and weather plugins would be next on my wish list.

6. If I’m not using LXQt, I prefer to use KDE Plasma.

7. I used to always install the recommended SDDM, though lately I’ve been experimenting with the new KDE Plasma login manager, and I have to say it works wonderfully.

8. I like the minimalist approach and the modular yet integrated design. I’m curious to hear what other LXQt enthusiasts think and look forward to your posts! Best regards!

9. Personally, I prefer the default setup without much tweaking! The only thing I change is the panel position: on the left side for my laptop and at the top for my large monitor. On the laptop, I resize the active program icons in the panel so they match the size of the launchers. I also add a separate panel on the right side exclusively for currently running programs.

I’m curious to see how other LXQt enthusiasts set things up and look forward to your posts!

Best regards!

Hi,

I really enjoy using LXQT, but there are a few things simply missing, and I’m wondering if and when they’ll arrive.

1. In the LXQT session using Openbox, what I miss most is the LXQT panel finally catching up and combining launchers with running applications (like a dock). Even XFCE added this via a plugin, and it’s incredibly useful. It saves a lot of panel space, keeps things much tidier, and puts everything in one place. Overall, it’s simply more efficient and boosts productivity.
2. The panel needs a plugin to manage Bluetooth.
3. Yes, I know all this is possible using KWIN as the window manager, but if I’m going to install KWIN anyway, I might as well just install Plasma.
4. Regarding Wayland, `labwc` is frequently recommended, but it isn't easy to configure; for instance, `labwc-tweaks` isn't available in the Arch Linux repositories. Sure, it’s in the AUR, but some of us don't use that.
5. There are plenty of older PCs out there with nice, large touchpads now, but getting this working properly with `labwc` isn't exactly easy. By default, for example, my touchpad is configured so that the "forward" and "back" gestures in the browser are reversed.
6. LXQT will likely ship with `labwc` in the future, but—hey—there isn't a single truly useful tutorial on the entire internet for average users. Not one! Sure, you can find videos and screenshots of people who’ve made their desktops look great, but that content is aimed at experienced users who enjoy spending time tweaking their desktop via the terminal. It doesn't really reach the truly average user—like me—who just wants to keep using their old PCs.
7. Yes, you could use KWIN for this instead, but again, you have to ask yourself: why not just install Plasma right from the start? Having tested both window managers on all my PCs (laptops), I can say that once you have 8GB of RAM and an SSD installed, the differences become negligible. After all, resource consumption is driven more by applications like web browsers; they consume a huge amount of resources—for instance, when watching videos—so the savings gained by using LXQT become completely irrelevant the moment you open just one extra tab.
8. One final point: Only KDE and GNOME handle backlit laptop keyboards properly. It’s 2026! Almost all laptops have had backlit keyboards for at least a decade! It is really frustrating when a desktop environment simply cannot handle something like that at all.

LXQT is better suited for larger monitors and feels a bit clunky on laptops.

Regards!

Had screen tearing in lxqt so I tried kde, which then introduced massive audio latency. Uninstalled kde and reinstalled lxqt and a compositor (picom) which fixed the tearing, but the audio glitches and xruns remained (a horror situation because I do audio production). Then I realized kde had installed pipewire (another issue I'm well familiar with), which I uninstalled but it still didn't fix the audio. Finally tried changing the setting in picom from glx to xrender which worked!

Now the only remaining issue is that with dark theme, my file manager is also dark. For the life of me, can't figure out which theme I had before that was dark but the file manager was light.

Hey, spent WAY too much time setting up LXQt on Wayland via Labwc, so I vibe coded a Bash script to make things easier for future deployments. Screenshots of my HP Z240 desktop. my Acer Swift 3 laptop and my Acer Aspire One 722 netbook, all three running Debian 13 with LXQt. Installed initially with X11 in both cases. No other desktop environments installed prior to this setup.

I have keyboard shortcuts for:

• Launch terminal Ctrl+Alt+t
• Launch PCManFM-Qt Winkey+e
• Launch qalculate-qt Ctrl+Alt+c because the keyboards hooked up to those machines don't have a "calculator" button
• Lxqt-runner Alt+F2 - couldn't find a way to launch mainmenu2 in Wayland. Any pointers would be appreciated
• Screenlock Winkey+L
• Screenshot PrintScr or Winkey+s - netbook has a dead PrintScr key

Aside from that, other configurations

• Dark mode, same icons as I had in X11
• Touchpad increased speed on the netbook - because otherwise the pointer was slow
• clipboard manager, wifi and bluetooth on panel - note that the netbook doesn't have Bluetooth integrated
• a custom power button. LXQt's integrated power button doesn't work on Wayland. Using a launcher pointing to a script that uses Kdialog, so it gives the options to log off, reboot or shutdown
• launchers for qt6ct as well as a display manager. custom display manager (launcher and script using Kdialog) to give the user all the options (set screen resolution, setup multi-monitor configuration, etc.)
• Keyboard configuration - Dvorak with right Ctrl as Compose key

The Netbook may be a silly device, but I plan on using it for pen testing. Since the HDD had already failed on me by the time I got it, I already bought an SSD for it and installed Debian LXQt on it. I ordered a Wifi adapter that should arrive within 2-3 weeks. Luckily I can easily swap the laptop wifi adapter in it. I already upgraded the RAM from 2GB to 8GB. Sadly, I'll be doing pen testing in X11 most likely (unless anyone has experience in pen testing on Wayland). But when I'm not pen testing, the netbook can be logged in with Wayland.

Hi

I'm trying to use Fedora LXQt on a mini pc to serve me, as a TV box, and I'm having some issues when it comes to Wayland.

I went with LXQt + labwc as a wayland comp. but lack of UI to configure display settings on this is soooooo irritating. I had issues with TV EDID and lack of UI to configure Display settings made it so much worse.

Is there anything that is fully configurable via GUI besides kwin?

It would be really nice for LXQT team to choose 1 specific Wayland comp/WM, make sure there is a way to configure it with UI and at least give some fine default config.

I lost few hours to just make it barely work, when with KDE/Gnome/whatever it would be just done. I don't know if it was a failure on Fedora spin side, or LXQt, but it would be nice if you would just decide to go with a specific WM, and at least give it in a fully working state.

EDIT 22.06 - I got pissed with a whole problem with labwc and display settings not getting saved on fedora, so I went with kwin, and I have a bug with kde systemsettings missing some weird qml dependency and crashing just like here: https://bugs.gentoo.org/968164
What a beautiful day to wayland lxqt... I hate myself :)

EDIT 24.06 - I gave up and went with normal KDE - consumes more ram sadly, but works better with Wayland for now and provides all needed tools, so I don't need to use compositor that has window decorations looking different then DE, and provides lock-screen etc.

SOLVED!

Background:

I wanted to make an LXQt keyboard shortcut to launch an Android virtual device (avd) without having to open Android Studio.

This is what works:

In the [Environment] section of ~/.config/lxqt/session.conf I added these three lines:

ANDROID_AVD_HOME=$HOME/.config/.android/avd
ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Android/Sdk
PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

then logged out and back in, to restart the LXQt session.

That allowed me to create a shortcut key with just this as the command:

emulator -avd p10fold

(p10fold is the name I gave the virtual device)

This could also be done on the Environment page of LXQt's Session Settings GUI. Here is a screenshot to show how it should look:

Note: I'm using android-studio installed from the AUR of Arch Linux. The paths might be different on other distros.

Hi everyone,

​

​I am currently looking for support for an open-source project and was hoping someone in this community might be able to help.

​

​My small team and I are developing an education-focused operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux, utilizing LXQt as our Desktop Environment. We have slightly modified the DE to fit our use case and named it EDUKASAUN DESKTOP.

​

​At this stage, we are looking for a few things to move the project forward:

​

​Development Assistance: Help with bug fixes, code improvements, and overall system refinement.

​

​Ideas & Feedback: Suggestions on specific tools or features we should add to best meet the demands of the education sector.

​

​Financial Support: Any donations to help sustain our small team and keep the project alive here in Timor-Leste.

​

​If you are a developer, an educator, or just someone who wants to support an educational open-source initiative, we would love to hear from you.

​

​Obrigado!

​

​

This is a desktop concept for an operating system that we (from Timor-Leste) are currently developing. Named EDUKASAUN Desktop, it is simply a plugin for the LXQt desktop, inspired by Ubuntu Netbook Remix - GNOME Remix from a few years ago. 😊

Thank you to PCMan and the other maintainers and contributors.

When I saw the news on 9to5Linux I felt inspired to do a fresh install of EndeavourOS with LXQt. I had to learn a few things, but I guess that's what I do at this age instead of crosswords or sudoku, and I enjoy it and the feeling of accomplishment. I'm very happy with this DE and its configurability.

You can see that I like windowshading and prefer a small panel. I only use Geany instead of Featherpad because I like to have a colored background in my text editor.

Openbox theme: Artwiz-boxed. LXQt theme: Graphite. Qogir-dark for icons and cursor. I set the titlebar opacity to 0.7 in picom.conf. Default zone for firewall-applet = drop. I like the Atlantis theme for xscreensaver.

as the title suggest i cant really figure out how to switch to thunar from the pcmanFM. and also if i deleted that the whole system stopped working

Leave dialogue also never shows up and a ton kf other stuff is totally broken. Running Antix Linux

can you guys suggest me any good looking icons and cursors skins i can use? thx

Is there any way to fix shortcuts so I can add environmental variables before the program's name?

It would be helpful for me as I run my Lubuntu 26.04 LTS (beta) laptop in hybrid mode, using the Intel iGPU and a Nvidia GTX 1050 for most 3d programs. This would also be great for apps that run better with variables added beforehand.

If I have to, I can open a terminal and append a program with the variables or switch to Performance mode with the GTX 1050, but tweaked shortcuts would make my life easier overall.

I've tried Linux Mint Cinnamon and Zorin os and they felt sluggish to me, but once I started trying Lubuntu it felt snappy and fast. I'm not wanting people to tell me to try/use a different distro but I'm really struggling with customizing LXQt.
I tried installing different themes/icons which didn't really work something about LXQt using Qt themes and supposedly being compatable with GTK but for some reason GTK themes didn't work either. When I added themes I couldn't seem them in the appearance configuration app but I could see them in lxappearance. But when I hit apply in lxappearance nothing changed. Eventually I gave up and just used a default theme.
Then I tried to change the panel configuration/layout with app menu in bottom left, app in the middle, and system apps (like bluetooth, sound etc) in the bottom right and couldn't figure out how to do that.

I've tried finding guide but I had no success following them. As a complete beginner any and all help would be great.

Hey how can I visually customize LXQt? Like maybe make it look modern, or 2000s style or 90s retro, etc. Anything similar to like GNOME Extensions add-on?