Xfce

Xfce is an especially fast, stable, and lightweight desktop environment which, though old-fashioned in some ways, is highly customizable and offers most (though not quite all) of the features a typical modern user expects. As such, it's particularly well-suited for experienced Linux users hoping to breathe new life into a lower-end PC or get every ounce of performance out of a higher-end machine!

Customizations

• Red-and-black theme (Matcha Dark Aliz), neon icons (BeautyLine), and a golden cursor (Breeze Amber).
• Thanks to xfce-superkey-git, the Super key (a.k.a., Windows key) opens the Whisker Menu without any undesirable side effects (only for Xorg, however, not Wayland). In addition, several keyboard shortcuts are set up to use the Super key:

Shortcut	Effect
Super+↑	Maximize window.
Super+↓	Minimize window.
Super+←/→	Tile window to the left/right (Super can also be used with numpad keys for tiling to the corners and top/bottom of the screen).
Super+D	Show desktop.
Super+W	Launch default web browser.
Super+F	Launch default file manager (thunar).
Super+T	Launch default terminal (terminator).
Shift+Super+T	Launch a fun alternative terminal (cool-retro-term).
Super+E	Launch text editor (mousepad).
Super+C	Launch calculator (galculator).
Shift+Super+C	Launch GNOME character map to access emojis and other special characters (gnome-characters).
Super+S	Launch settings manager (xfce4-settings-manager).
Super+K	Kill selected window (Xorg only).
Super+L	Lock screen (xflock4).

• Screenshot shortcuts are also expanded and improved, bypassing the GUI:

Shortcut	Effect
PrtScr	Save fullscreen screenshot to Pictures folder.
Ctrl+PrtScr	Copy fullscreen screenshot to clipboard.
Alt+PrtScr	Save active window screenshot to Pictures folder.
Ctrl+Alt+PrtScr	Copy active window screenshot to clipboard.
Shift+PrtScr	Save selected region screenshot to Pictures folder.
Ctrl+Shift+PrtScr	Copy selected region screenshot to clipboard.

• If a game exhibits screen-tearing or other issues that might be caused by the window compositor, disable/enable compositing via this keyboard shortcut (chosen to match KDE Plasma and avoid anything likely to be typed by accident): Alt+Shift+F12.
• With compositing enabled, the opacity of (some) windows can be decreased/increased by holding Alt while scrolling the mouse wheel on the window's title bar.
• Terminator is set as the default terminal emulator to take advantage of its ability to split vertically (Ctrl+Shift+E) and horizontally (Ctrl+Shift+O). The Xfce Terminal is still available as a backup and, of course, you can easily install your own favorite terminal.
• To avoid annoyance, the standard "alert bell/beep" is disabled and the behavior of highlighting text by holding Shift while using numpad keys is adjusted to suit most modern users' expectations. These settings occur at login courtesy of the .xprofile file, which can be modified if desired. Settings for IBus keyboard input are also added to .xprofile if any IBus software is selected during installation (e.g., for typing in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean).

Software

In addition to all the default GDL software, the following packages are installed:

• Most of the xfce4-goodies group, including Ristretto for viewing images.
• Cheese for taking webcam pictures/video with various filters.
• A few casual GNOME games:
  • Mines
  • Nibbles
  • Sudoku
  • Iagno (Reversi/Othello)
  • Quadrapassel (Tetris clone)
• Gcolor3 for selecting on-screen colors.

Notes

• To update your system, type yayup in a terminal.
• Though there is a GUI for adjusting the time zone of the desktop clock, there is no GUI for changing the actual system time zone. If you need to change it, open a terminal and run timedatectl set-timezone [Region/City] (use tab-completion to see available options).
• There is no GUI for creating additional user accounts. For advice on how to add a new user via the terminal, please refer to this ArchWiki article.