LXQt

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LXQt is a lightweight desktop environment based on the Qt toolkit. It is the result of the merge between the LXDE-Qt and the Razor-qt projects.

Installation

Emerge

Get the complete LXQt desktop environment by installing the lxqt-base/lxqt-meta package:

root #emerge --ask lxqt-base/lxqt-meta

Keywords

Since LXQt has not yet been marked stable on Gentoo, it is necessary to add a few packages to package.accept_keywords:

FILE /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/lxqt

lxqt-base/*
media-gfx/lximage-qt
x11-misc/obconf-qt
x11-misc/pcmanfm-qt

Additional packages may need keyworded; emerge will provide current package keywording information if it is the case.

Configuration

Launching LXQt with startx

The startlxqt command launches LXQt.

FILE ~/.xinitrc

exec ck-launch-session startlxqt

ck-launch-session is needed to be able to shutdown or reboot the system from the LXQt menu.

You may also need to start D-Bus manually, for example if notifications are not working or if there are several dbus-launch processes in the output from pstree:

FILE ~/.xinitrc

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session startlxqt

Alternatively, the dbus service can be started at boot time.

Note
Script execution will stop after the first line starting with exec, so put any other command you want to run above it.

Changing the GTK+ themes

The LXQt appearance settings GUI has no support for changing GTK+ themes, so you may want to install lxde-base/lxappearance to take care of that.

Alternatively, you can change the themes manually, for example using the GTK2_RC_FILES variable:

FILE ~/.xinitrc

export GTK2_RC_FILES=/home/user/.themes/Drakfire\ Black/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
exec startlxqt

The GTK+ page of the Arch Linux wiki has more information for configuring GTK+2 and GTK+3 themes.

If you want Qt 4 applications to use your GTK+2 theme, make sure that dev-qt/qtgui is installed with the gtkstyle USE flag, and select the GTK+ widget style in the LXQt appearance settings. For Qt 5 applications you will need (since the update to Qt 5.7) to install x11-themes/qtstyleplugins from the abendbrot overlay to get the GTK+ style.

Automounting volumes

By default, LXQt tries to automount every attached disk at startup and when they are plugged in. It may result in unwanted popup windows asking for the root password to mount disks.

The automount options are located in the PCManFM file manager settings:

• In the applications menu, open Accessories → PCManFM File Manager.
• Select the Edit->Preferences menu item.
• Click on Volume.
• Disable or enable the desired features.

Adding custom actions to PCManFM-Qt

PCManFM-Qt supports the desktop file specification extension so it is possible to add custom actions to the contextual menu for files and directories.

x11-libs/libfm and x11-libs/libfm-extra v1.2.4 or above are required, and the vala USE flag must be enabled:

FILE /etc/portage/package.use/lxqt

x11-libs/libfm vala

Rebuilding the package can be done with:

root #emerge -1a libfm

Once this is done, special .desktop files can be created in ~/.local/share/file-manager/actions/. For example here is a simple action that will pop up a notification with the path to the selected file or folder:

FILE ~/.local/share/file-manager/actions/test.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name = Test action
Profiles = on_icon;

[X-Action-Profile on_icon]
Exec = notify-send "You selected %f"

PCManFM-Qt needs to be restarted to become aware of any change made to the custom actions. The safest and simplest way is to logout and login again (restart LXQt).

Alternatively it is possible to exit all instances of PCManFM-Qt with pcmanfm-qt -q before launching it again, but be aware that it will likely switch to a different set of settings (it can use two different config directories, one "default" and one "lxqt", as you can see in ~/.config/pcmanfm-qt/) and for example automount volumes which may cause issues if you are not careful.

Usage

Applications

Any Qt application can be used with LXQt, but if Qt applications that do not depend on any component of KDE are preferred please see the Qt Desktop applications article.

Troubleshooting

Support

Support for LXQt on Gentoo can be found in the #gentoo-qt Freenode IRC channel. Bugs should be reported at the Gentoo's Bugzilla.

The official IRC channel for LXQt is #lxde on Freenode.

See also

• Xfce — a lightweight desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems.