As many know, LXDE and RazorQT have joined forces and the fruit of that relationship is LXQT , a Desktop Environment that I am sure will be much talked about in the not too distant future for being light and modern enough to be used on any computer.
LXQT Installation
In ArchLinux we can install LXQT from GIT using an AUR script, or the way I did it, using an unofficial repository. To do this we add the lines to the /etc/pacman.conf file:
[lxqt-git] Server = http://repo.stobbstechnical.com/$arch
Then we update and install:
$ sudo pacman -Syu $ sudo pacman -S lxqt-desktop-git pcmanfm-qt-git
The result will be to be able to access a desktop like this:
PacmanQT looks quite good and works in an acceptable way, although for some reason it does not show the devices that we have mounted via USB.
I have been in awe of the LXQT System Preferences which, as you can see, is very similar to its older brother, KDE SC, and has a lot of new options. In other words, it makes LXDE + RazorQT much more customizable now.
One of those options is the possibility of choosing several themes for the desktop, among them, an imitation of what the next KDE Next will be, which is really nice.
As you can see in the screenshots, LXQT can use the window manager we have installed (in my case, KWin), or we can choose any other one in System Preferences. We can change the icons, the cursor theme, the default applications, file associations, configure our screen... and so on.
But beware, although it feels very fluid from the beginning, it is not exactly the lightest we can find.
While it's true I tested it on my laptop with 6GB of RAM, LXQT starts using almost 400MB of RAM and its consumption increases over time. KWin might be the biggest culprit in this case, so using Openbox as the window manager could save us a few MB.
Another detail is that it lacks certain native Applets, such as one managed by Network Manager, because I couldn't find a way to do it without using a terminal.
But the truth is that although it still lacks a bit to be 100%, the work that the LXQT developers are doing is very, very good. As I said at the beginning, I think that in the not too distant future it will be one of the most popular Desktop Environments, as it is on the way to being very complete and light enough compared to KDE or GNOME.
Perhaps I have been other interesting details to highlight, but for now this is the impression that I have taken. It is not 100%, but it can be used.