This quick guide gives a practical, no‑frills walkthrough for installing the lightweight XFCE desktop on Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04. It walks you through preparing your system, pulling in the core `xfce4` package, adding optional goodies, and configuring GDM to offer XFCE as a session choice. The author also lists common troubleshooting tips—missing sessions, driver glitches, and missing panel icons—to help you resolve hiccups along the way. In case XFCE isn’t for you, the guide reminds you that switching back to the default GNOME session is just a logout and menu selection away.

Install Xfce on Ubuntu 22.04 (or 20.04) – Quick Guide to a Lightweight Desktop

If your Ubuntu machine is feeling sluggish or you just want a more traditional desktop feel, Install Xfce on Ubuntu is a no‑frills way to breathe new life into it.

Below I’ll walk you through the exact steps—no fluff, just what you need to get up and running in minutes.

Why Switch to XFCE?

I’ve seen this happen after a bad driver update that broke Unity on an older laptop: the UI froze, battery drain spiked, and the only sane remedy was to drop down to XFCE.

XFCE is lightweight, highly configurable, and still packs enough polish for everyday use.

Prepare Your System

1. Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T).

All of the commands live here; you’ll be doing everything from the command line.

2. Update package lists:

   sudo apt update

Guarantees you’re pulling the latest stable versions, preventing install errors.

Installing the Core Packages

The heart of XFCE is in the xfce4 meta‑package. Install it with:

sudo apt install xfce4

Why this matters: The meta‑package pulls in all the core components (panel, window manager, session manager). Skipping it leaves you with a broken desktop that will crash on login.

Optional Extra Components

If you want the full experience—icons, settings, and everything else—add:

sudo apt install xfce4-goodies

xfce4-goodies adds handy plugins (like the weather widget) and a nicer icon theme. Without it, your panel will look bare.

Setting XFCE as Default Session

After installation, you need to tell GDM to offer XFCE:

1. Edit the session file:

   sudo nano /usr/share/xsessions/xfce.desktop

2. Ensure the [Desktop Entry] section looks like this:

   Name=XFCE Desktop
   Comment=Lightweight desktop environment
   Exec=xfce4-session
   Icon=
   Type=XSession

3. Log out, then on the login screen click the gear icon and select “XFCE Desktop.”

GDM uses this file to populate the session list. Without it, you can’t pick XFCE from the login screen.

Troubleshooting Common Pitfalls

• Missing xfce4-session: If you get “Session not found” after selecting XFCE, double‑check that /usr/share/xsessions/xfce.desktop exists and points to xfce4-session.
• Broken session after kernel upgrade: I’ve seen a few cases where the default NVIDIA driver caused crashes. Reinstalling the driver with sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall usually fixes it.
• No sound or network icons in panel: The xfce4-goodies package includes those plugins. If you skipped that step, install it now.

Switching Back to GNOME

If XFCE isn’t your thing after all, just log out, pick “Ubuntu” from the session list on the login screen, and you’re back where you started.

Give it a go and let me know if anything stinks.