LXQt 1.0 Graphics Environment Released

After six months of development , the user environment LXQt 1.0 (Qt Lightweight Desktop Environment) was released, developed by the joint development team of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects. The LXQt interface continues to follow the classic desktop organization, bringing a modern look and feel to enhance the user experience. LXQt is positioned as a lightweight, modular, fast and convenient continuation of the development of the Razor-qt and LXDE desktops, incorporating the best features of both shells. The code is hosted on GitHub and licensed under GPL 2.0+ and LGPL 2.1+. builds are expected for Ubuntu Prebuilt (LXQt is offered by default in Lubuntu), Arch Linux , Fedora , openSUSE , Mageia , FreeBSD , ROSA and ALT Linux .

Initially, the release of 1.0 was intended to coincide with the implementation of support for Wayland, and then to provide support for Qt 6, but in the end they decided not to get attached to anything and formed the 1.0.0 release instead of 0.18 for no particular reason, as a sign of the project’s stability. The LXQt 1.0.0 release has not yet been adapted for Qt 6 and requires Qt 5.15 to work (official updates for this branch are released only under a commercial license, and unofficial free updates are generated by the KDE project). Wayland is officially not supported yet , but there have been successful attempts to run LXQt components using the Mutter and XWayland composite server.

Features of the release:

• In the panel (LXQt Panel), a new plugin ” implemented Custom Command ” is , which allows you to run arbitrary commands and show the result of their work on the panel. The main menu provides the ability to drag & drop search results. Improved handling of icons displaying system status (Status Notifier).
• The file manager (PCManFM-Qt) implements support for ” logos “, special graphic labels that can be linked via the context menu to arbitrary files or directories. In the dialog for working with files, added options for pinning an item on the desktop and showing hidden files. Implemented the ability to recursively apply customization settings to directories. Improved implementation of smooth scrolling with the mouse wheel. Added buttons for mounting, unmounting and ejecting a drive to the context menu for the “computer: ///” item. Fixed problems when searching using Cyrillic characters in regular expressions.
• Added options to the image viewer to control the display of the menu and toolbar, place deleted files in the “trash”, change the resolution of thumbnails, change the position of the panel with thumbnails and disable anti-aliasing when scaling. Added the ability to rename images in place without opening separate dialogs. Added command line option to run in full screen mode.
• Do not disturb mode has been added to the notification display system.
• The LXQt Appearance Configuration interface implements the ability to write and read the Qt palette.
• A new page “Other Settings” has been added to the configurator, which contains various secondary settings that do not fit into the existing categories.
• A switch has been added to the power management indicator to temporarily suspend the system activity check (to block power saving modes from being enabled when the system is idle) for a period of 30 minutes to 4 hours.
• The terminal emulator provides quotation marks for inserted file names transferred by the mouse in drag & drop mode. Fixed issues with displaying the menu when using the Wayland protocol.
• Added two new skins and fixed issues with previously suggested themes.
• In the program for working with archives (LXQt Archiver), a password request is implemented to access archives with encrypted file lists.