Dev1 Galaxy Forum / XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (chomwitt) — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 11:24:03 +0000

I wonder if the Devuan installer could mirror our concerns and offer more options during install.
Also when a fork is done , like MATE->CAFE it would help to know the reason and the projects intention. Was it license issues , roadmap differences etc.
I use a personally curated desktop : StumpWM + xfe + emacs + qutebrowser + weechat and xfce in my kid's computer.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (brocashelm) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 21:45:04 +0000

Tumblerd can be optimized for sure, but what I also meant was that browsing such a large directory using Thunar can take its sweet time. Using SpaceFM, it's immediately functional.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (greenjeans) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 21:40:37 +0000

Thunar also takes centuries to load up thumbnails in a directory (such as Downloads). Older versions did not have this issue, and it didn't matter if you only had five files or five hundred -- everything loaded blinking fast.

Interesting, must not be caching thumbnails I guess? I have a script for that.....

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (brocashelm) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 21:25:56 +0000

It's the GTK3 adoption that had made it a pretty sluggish DE in my experience. Thunar also takes centuries to load up thumbnails in a directory (such as Downloads). Older versions did not have this issue, and it didn't matter if you only had five files or five hundred -- everything loaded blinking fast.

With RAM prices getting ridiculous, it's not really an option to have to use a lighter WM or DE to cope with the resource hogging.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (Mercury) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 20:51:44 +0000

Aside from utterly messing up the scroll bars by default (disappearing, without up/down buttons, and warping the slider on click, each of which requires a completely different file to fix) I haven't seen much in recent Xfce that stood out as bad. It looks mostly as I remember it from years ago. What are people complaining about, exactly?

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (pcalvert) — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 19:33:21 +0000

With Xfce, you are not required to use their window manager (xfwm4); you can replace it with a different one. For a couple of ideas, consider using Openbox or IceWM (with the taskbar hidden) instead.

FYI:

Using another Window Manager
https://wiki.xfce.org/howto/other_window_manager

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (JayneCobb) — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 16:58:03 +0000

@Calamity @greenjeans I was LONG time XFCE user until their latest announcement. I have the same feeling that greenjeans mentioned above, so I moved to LXQt and Openbox. So far I am happy with LXQt, but what a shame the way XFCE went. It was going down hill for a while but this was the last straw.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (Devarch) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 19:20:35 +0000

But if my assessment is wrong then please enlighten me.

You are right. But if they will adopt wayland and KDE will fall down with systemd cancer, then I'll be able to switch back to xfce

Wayland is not ready and will never be, but it has no problem with scalling and control when multiple displays set up is in place.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (Calamity) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 10:36:51 +0000

To me, XFCE still has a few saving graces - it can look good and be unobtrusive, but I realize it's pretty much a sinking ship by now.
Will probably switch to IceWM or LXQt at some point given the circumstances.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (brocashelm) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 23:26:34 +0000

I plan on trying it soon on a VM. CTK would at least mitigate much of the GN*ME stupidity along the way. I hope more GUI software will switch to it if they are hesitant on GTK4 or Qt.

greenjeans wrote:

They need to roll back some Mate goofiness, particularly in Caja. And dump the damn mixer.

There was an attempt to fork MATE as OpenMATE, but the author suddenly vanished (along with his GitHub repository). Totally not suspicious at all... 🤔

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (greenjeans) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 22:59:18 +0000

CAFE (fork of MATE) is doing, particularly CTK

Oh yeah, I have the strangest b.......never mind, i'm just excited.

They need to roll back some Mate goofiness, particularly in Caja. And dump the damn mixer.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (greenjeans) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 22:56:07 +0000

Yeah, from recent experience it seems to go like this:

1. Hey we're adding support for wayland but we're still shipping X11.
2. Hey we're still shipping X11 but wayland is now the default.
3. Hey we're all in on wayland, but you can still use X11 if you jump through these 30 hoops and re-compile some stuff.
4. Hey we are discontinuing support for X11 for (your own) good.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (brocashelm) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 21:55:02 +0000

Thankfully, if we follow what CAFE (fork of MATE) is doing, particularly CTK (fork of GTK3), we just may be able to avoid GN*ME's further enshittification for the foreseeable future. You can also download the official DEB files here if you don't want to or can't compile for some reason.

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (Altoid) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 21:27:07 +0000

Hello:

bracashelm wrote:

Xfce went downhill after 4.12.

Yes, a huge screw-up.

bracashelm wrote:

... it's going to get worse as GTK3 gets phased out ...

Based on what we have seen, I think we can expect exactly that.

Pity ...

Best,

Re: XFCE is building a new WM and compositor for Wayland

dummy@example.com (brocashelm) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 20:17:50 +0000

Why they are drinking the Wayland Kool-Aid is beyond me. Wayland has been in development for nearly two decades, yet it still can't do a couple of really essential things that X11 had already been doing since the 1990s.

Xfce went downhill after 4.12. It's no longer "lightweight" or "fast". They should've combined forces with MATE devs to fork and maintain GTK2, instead of just sucking up to GN*ME. Just watch, it's going to get worse as GTK3 gets phased out for GTK4, which will obliterate what few "options" users had then.