LXDE

LXDE

LXDE is the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. It is an excellent choice for older hardware or for users who wish for a complete window manager without all of the overhead required by KDE or GNOME. Since it is XDG-compliant, the PC-BSD Control Panel, AppCafe™, and Life Preserver will be available on the desktop and will integrate into LXDE's menus.

Figure 5.3a shows a screenshot of the default LXDE installation with the LXPanel open.

Figure 5.3a: LXDE Desktop on a PC-BSD System

In addition to PC-BSD's utilities, LXDE provides the following utilities:

• PCManFM: found in Utilities -> File Manager. A file manager with features like drag and drop, tabbed browsing, built-in file search, file association with default application, thumbnails for images, bookmarks, and support for non-UTF-8 encoded filenames.

• LXPanel: desktop panel which is launched by clicking on the PC-BSD icon in lower right corner of desktop. To configure the panel, right-click the PC-BSD icon and select "Panel Settings" or "Add/Remove Panel Items" from the right-click menu.

• GPicView: fast image viewer found in Graphics -> Image Viewer.

• LXTerminal: terminal emulator found in Utilities ->LXTerminal

• LXTask: task manager and system monitor found in System -> Task Manager.

• Openbox: the window manager used by LXDE. You can configure settings such as themes, appearance, mouse, and margins by going to Settings -> Openbox Configuration Manager.

• LXInput: a tool to configure your keyboard and mouse found in Settings -> Keyboard and Mouse.

• Vim: a text editor found in Utilities -> Vim.

• epdfview: a PDF viewer found in Office -> ePDFViewer.