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webman

Member

Registered: 2022-08-27

Posts: 56  

Looking for the "right way" to install xfce4

Hi!

Alter I installed xfce4 (apt install xfce4), I tried to start ist using
>startxfce4
got the message 'xinit' not found.
That is strange, because -- on debian's -- I never used another way.
Any hints would be great.

It doesn't change, after I discovered, that xfce4 does not come with
lightdm, I installed that. xfce4 starts, when I invoke lightdm.

So: How to start it?
- using startxfce4 --or--
- lightdm

Thanks,
Manfred

delgado

Member

Registered: 2022-07-14

Posts: 241  

Re: Looking for the "right way" to install xfce4

The way to start a "graphical desktop" is personal taste.

I remember being very annoyed years ago, when an installation defaulted to a graphical login screen - this is wrong !!11!
These days, I don't want to type in a text console start[x,lxde,kde,...].

sagemage

Member

Registered: 2025-05-21

Posts: 5  

Re: Looking for the "right way" to install xfce4

without lightdm i think you would startxfce4 like so inside the .xinitrc file in the home directory.

exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session startxfce4

You would need to make sure you have xinit and dbus-x11 installed also.

with lightdm you would need the lightdm greeter.

apt install lightdm-gtk-greeter

then reboot

Last edited by sagemage (2025-05-26 00:48:34)