In this tutorial, we will show you how to install XFCE Desktop on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, XFCE is one of the most popular desktop environments for Linux desktops. XFCE is a free lightweight, fast, and easy-to-use software desktop environment for Unix/Linux-like operating systems. It is designed for productivity and aims to be fast and low on system resources. Unlike GNOME and KDE desktops which are heavier, XFCE uses fewer system resources. Furthermore, it offers better modularity and fewer dependencies to install and takes less time and low disk space on your hard drive.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the XFCE lightweight desktop environment on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
- It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
- SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
- A
non-root sudo useror access to theroot user. We recommend acting as anon-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.
Install XFCE Desktop on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa
Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Step 2. Installing XFCE desktop environment on Ubuntu 20.04.
Now we add the staging PPA and update your system:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xubuntu-dev/staging sudo apt update
Then, install the Xubuntu-desktop using the below command:
sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop
Step 3. Accessing XFCE desktop.
Once installation, there is no need to restart the system you can get the XFCE desktop. Now log off from the current user and login back in once again. On the login screen, you can choose the Xfce Desktop or XUbuntu session. And you should be seeing a nice Xubuntu desktop with Xfce 4.16.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed XFCE. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing XFCE Desktop on your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official XFCE website.
