LXQt 1.3 Desktop Environment Released, Here’s What’s New

LXQt is a highly lightweight, modular, fast desktop environment designed to be user-friendly and easy to use. It relies on the Qt toolkit and provides a highly customizable interface that allows users to tweak the look and feel of their desktop environment to their liking.

One of the main advantages of LXQt is its meager system requirements. Because of this, it is suitable for older or low-specification computers, so it is an excellent choice for users looking to bring new life to their old machines.

Just over five months after its previous LXQt 1.2 release, this lightweight desktop environment has pleased its users with the release of the brand-new LXQt 1.3. So, let’s see what’s new.

LXQt 1.3 Desktop Environment Highlights

First, LXQt 1.3 is still based on Qt 5.15, the last Qt5 LTS version. However, the developers mention that the addition of Qt6 support has already started but has not yet been integrated into the desktop environment due to the lack of a stable KDE Frameworks 6 version.

Moving to the LXQt Panel, where the new version comes by default with the DOM plugin compiled. Moreover, the issues with the seconds displayed by the clock widget are also resolved, and a Panel’s code has been optimized.

Next stop – PCManFM-Qt, the LXQt’s file manager. It is an essential component of the working environment and has received the attention it deserves in the new LXQt 1.3.

Several changes are here, so we’ll list them below for your convenience.

• The opening of non-executable files with executable extensions has been fixed.
• Prevent desktop elements from moving when the configuration changes.
• Keep dragged and dropped items together on the Desktop as far as possible.
• When leaving the Desktop, remove the drop indicator.
• The Desktop now has a title (for configuring WM rules in some Wayland compositors).
• Smooth scrolling can be turned off in all view modes.

The LXQt Session has received procps-ng support for v4.0, a set of utilities for browsing a “pseudo” file system dynamically generated by the Linux kernel. But more importantly, in LXQt Session 1.3, the automatic detection of the window manager and system tray has been improved.

Furthermore, all crashing calls on Wayland have been disabled, and some typos have also been fixed.

We’ll wrap off our look at what’s new in the LXQt 1.3 desktop environment by noting that QTerminal’s issue when switching between light and dark mode has been fixed, and menu positioning is now as expected while working with LXQt under Wayland.

Of course, additional minor improvements and bug fixes exist across the entire LXQt 1.3, so you can find more information about them in the official announcement.

At the time of writing, LXQt 1.3 is only available as source code, and no precompiled packages are available for the various Linux distros. In this light, those interested can download the code from the project’s GitHub page.

However, as usual, in the coming weeks, users of rolling-release distros like Arch Linux, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Gentoo, Void Linux, and others will be the first to get the new LXQt 1.3 desktop environment in the form of ready-to-install packages in their software repos.