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karma

Member

Registered: 2026-03-25

Posts: 3  

xfdashboard

I always like to use xfdashboard on Xfce, but unfortunately it is not in the repos. 
What's the best way to install xfdashboard on Devuan Xfce?
Thank you.

brocashelm

Member

Registered: 2020-06-29

Posts: 223  

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Re: xfdashboard

I don't think this was ever packaged for Debian, as there are no snapshot DEB files in existence. I do know that Ubuntu (and particularly Xubuntu) have it packaged up, but it's not a good idea to mix different repositories.

You're better off just compiling it from source using the same release version as the Xfce you use (which I assume is 4.20 if you are using Devuan Excalibur).

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karma

Member

Registered: 2026-03-25

Posts: 3  

Re: xfdashboard

Yes I'm on 4.20 and using Devuan Excalibur.
I will definitely look at installing from source.
Haven't done that for a while, but I'm up for the challenge.
Thanks for your reply brocashelm

Mercury

Member

Registered: 2024-11-14

Posts: 37  

Re: xfdashboard

Ubuntu packages are installable in Devuan, though dependency management can sometimes be tricky. You can download the DEBs here: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xf … d/31059741

Download and simulate an install with apt:
apt --simulate install "./xfdashboard_1.0.0-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb" "./libxfdashboard0_1.0.0-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb"

And let apt tell you what dependencies it's missing.

golinux

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 3,675  

Re: xfdashboard

Please note that installing Ubuntu packages is NOT an "official" recommendation. In fact, we advise to avoid installing non-Devuan/Debian packages into the mix.

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Mercury

Member

Registered: 2024-11-14

Posts: 37  

Re: xfdashboard

For crying out loud. We're not talking about adding Ubuntu repositories - that is a bad idea. A controlled, manual installation of a small set of packages from DEB is not going to torch the system. I did it many times in the past. Sometimes, a package wanted a long chain of Ubuntu-specific dependencies that quickly got unwieldy. I just didn't install it in that case. Most of the time, it was a manageable handful of packages.

There's nothing "official" about my advice. Just stuff that works to achieve a goal.

Last edited by Mercury (2026-03-26 03:54:35)

mweishaar

Member

Registered: 2018-11-11

Posts: 58  

Re: xfdashboard

@karma I have been using xfce since around 2006 and have never heard of this. Looked it up, and while it's not something I am interested in I thought I would share a helpful page I found (that you may have already seen).

https://docs.xfce.org/apps/xfdashboard/start

Mercury

Member

Registered: 2024-11-14

Posts: 37  

Re: xfdashboard

I downloaded the three main DEB packages from the page I linked earlier, then simulated an installation:

apt --simulate install "/tmp/xfdashboard_1.0.0-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb" "/tmp/libxfdashboard0_1.0.0-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb" "/tmp/xfdashboard-plugins_1.0.0-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb"

The only dependencies required were all satisfied through the regular Devuan repositories. They are:
libclutter-1.0-0
libclutter-1.0-common
libcogl-common
libcogl-pango20
libcogl-path20
libcogl20

I.e. this is easy to install on Devuan.

karma

Member

Registered: 2026-03-25

Posts: 3  

Re: xfdashboard

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I tried the method suggested by Mercury, but it did not work for me. I was getting to many errors about unsolvable dependencies.

What I did in the end was to install from source:

version 1.1.0 (2025-08-21) from
https://archive.xfce.org/src/apps/xfdashboard/1.1/

Dependencies required depend on what's already installed.
I installed these.

cmake meson libgarcon-1-dev libxfce4ui-2-dev libcogl-dev libclutter-1.0-0 libclutter-1.0-dev libwnck-3-dev gettext

Then:

# tar xf xfdashboard-<version>.tar.bz2
# cd xfdashboard-<version>
# meson setup build
# meson compile -C build
# meson install -C build

Installed without problem.

But when I tried $ xfdasboard in terminal I got this error:

xfdashboard: error while loading shared libraries: libxfdashboard.so.0.10100.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

To test if it works I did:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/neo/Downloads/Devuan/.bin/xfdashboard-1.1.0/build/libxfdashboard/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

then

$ xfdashboard

It worked great

So, I placed my build directory in to my PATH. That's where the offending libxfdashboard.so.0.10100.0 is.

Rebooted, Works great

Added xfdashboard to a hot-corner. Happy now.