Artix (XFCE) personal use app list
Last updated : 4/3/2026 (incomplete, will require additions) (Pragha won over QuodLiber)
Introduction
This article is to list out the apps that I use in Artix, under the XFCE desktop environment.
General things that are considered important for the apps I use :
- Preferably available in Artix world/galaxy, though Arch extra is fine as long as it doesn't demand systemd (not that I can install systemd on Artix anyway).
- A balance of having lots of features & having some that work well; in addition of being as lightweight as possible. As much as I favor simplicity, there are times where an app can be too "simple" for my personal usage... such as terminal apps (which I never got the hang of at the time of writing).
- GTK3‐only as it is XFCE4's GUI toolkit. No EFL, GTK2/4, and/or Qt dependencies unless I am either in a desktop environment with either of those toolkits and/or forced to use those apps thanks to the lack of available GTK3 alternatives. If XFCE ever switches toolkits I'll re‐review everything.
- X11, not Wayland. Again, because XFCE still uses good old X11. I will have to re‐review if XFCE ever switches to Wayland.
- Native Linux ‐ no AppImage / Flatpak / Snap / WINE. This may change in the foreseeable future, depending on my needs.
- Having a consistent & reliable maintenance, both from upstream & repos' maintainers / packagers. That said, I will re‐review the app if major changes were to occur, (such as new dependencies and/or the developers) dropping GTK3 for anything else). If the app is deemed complete and/or mature, I guess I can skip this requirement.
- Libre software ‐ arguably the least important point, as most packages in Arch/Artix repositories are open source (but not necessarily libre) stuff aside from Discord & Steam (both of which are proprietary clients).
Some nice to haves for the apps I use :
- Does not access the internet without proper reason & documentation. This is not exactly easy to find out considering GTK3 has no decent network monitoring apps that I know.
Gallery
XFCE's default image viewer.
Video
Honorable mentions :
Parole
XFCE's default media player.
Music
More detailed notes available in the page where I sought a replacement for Quod Libet.
Pragha
A lightweight GTK3 music player. Despite its lightweight advertisement, Pragha still includes an inbuilt tag editor and the ability to create playlists using folders. Seems to be unmaintained (as it was last updated in extra in 29/1/2024 and the last Git commit was in 2022), but the more optimistic side of me would like to assume Pragha is complete.
Text / source code editor
Mentions :
- Gedit : GNOME's default text editor, before gnome-text-editor. Supports restoring tabs between sessions with Ex-Mortis (not included in gedit-plugins), but doesn't support tab scrolling & keyboard tab switching is ctrl-alt-(pgup/pgdn) without control-your-tabs plugin.
- Lapce : A code editor written in Rust. Supports restoring tabs between sessions & tab scrolling (where it browses through visible tabs instead of switching them, just like good ol' Notepad++)... though the oversized interface (which feels somewhat alien in materia-dark) & how it opens new tabs (it simply overwrites whatever's there - if you want multitab maybe open multiple screens & drag them?) ruined it for me.
- Mousepad : XFCE's text (and code) editor. Restores tabs between sessions (requires setting session restore to always in Preferences > File), but lacks tab scrolling. Mousepad also keeps unsaved buffers, which can be neat.
- Pantheon Code : Text / source code editor from elementary OS. Supports tab scrolling (where scrolling changes the active tab instead of browsing through visible tabs), automatically restores tabs between sessions (and automatically saves them after a single change), and also comes with a sidebar that eases workflow by displaying project folder contents (Geany comes with one as well, but only shows currently opened files). However, it is not available in world / galaxy yet, has limited customizability, and lacks support for some GTK keybindings.
- Pluma : MATE DE default text editor, available in galaxy. Similar to Gedit & xed, it supports tab scrolling (where scrolling changes the active tab instead of browsing through visible tabs) & lacks tab restoration.
- SciTE : SCIntilla-based text editor. With the same base component as Notepad++ & Geany; I expected tab restoration and/or tab scrolling, but unfortunately SciTE lacks both, which probably qualifies SciTE as the worst in this list.
- xed : A text editor made by Linux Mint developers, as the default for their Cinnamon DE. Supports tab scrolling (where scrolling changes the active tab instead of browsing through visible tabs), but does not restore open tabs between sessions.
A fast & lightweight integrated development environment. Restores tabs between sessions & supports tab scrolling (where scrolling changes the active tab instead of browsing through visible tabs - browsing through visible tab is better but at least here's better than nothing). Comes with its own themes, though you can always try to copy/paste alternate themes to /home/$username/.config/geany/colorschemes (or even make your own, making Geany's color customization essentially unlimited). Both geany & geany‐plugins are available in world, so you don't have to add Arch repos for this.
Nano
A text editor for the terminal. As someone who primarily uses the GUI, I won't be using this all that often (aside from some one-time configurations on installing Artix). But then again, I'm not the general audience for terminal-only apps... including Vim (but then again that one is a lifestyle).
Document reader
1st-party JS & XHR required to view site.
Depends on tesseract tessdata, which is available from 128 tesseract packages (from either extra or world, so combined it's 256). I selected tesseract‐data‐eng from extra (158) as the one from world (30) seems to be corrupted at the time of writing (8/3/2026).
Browser
Honorable mentions :
- Ungoogled Chromium : Chromium, without Google integration. Available in Artix galaxy in lieu of vanilla Chromium.
- Pale Moon : The one Goanna/XUL browser (aside from Basilisk, which I forgot to test at the time of writing (7/3/2026)). Available in either GTK2 or GTK3 in the AUR, but the GTK3 builds are currently orphaned so I'm stuck in 33.9.1 until I either switch to GTK2 or essentially be my own AUR maintainer (or switch to another browser, which is what I'm doing right now).
Well, fuckdamnit. With palemoon‐gtk3(‐bin) orphaned (and Icecat & Librewolf not justifying their added bloat (and need for AUR) over stock Firefox & user.js), I forced myself to use & debug Firefox ESR for my own uses. On the good side, it is available in Artix galaxy so I don't need to fuck around with AUR. However, it is Mozilla so I may probably switch again in the foreseeable future.
File manager
XFCE's default file manager. Requires gvfs to automatically deal with removeable storages (like USB).
Picture editing
Mentions :
- Pinta : Drawing program modeled after Paint.NET. Became AUR‐exclusive for some reason.
Started using after I found out GIMP moved from GTK2 to GTK3 (if only to keep added dependencies to a minimum).
Office suite
In an ideal world, Microsoft's office format is everyone's office format to play with. Alas, it remained Microsoft's.
Mentions :
- LibreOffice : Serviceable, but mixed (usually questionable) support for Microsoft Office formats.
An office suite with (allegedly) the least worst Microsoft Office format support compared to other non‐Microsoft office suites. Interface is a bit slow and ignores system themes. Only available in AUR.
Personal installation guide :
Other stuff
- Theme : adw‐gtk‐theme for now.
- Init system : OpenRC for now, mostly thanks to easier terminal inputs. Used to run runit as well.
- Sound server : PulseAudio. I would switch to either sndio / pipewire (the latter is now a dependency for mpv), but I am yet to figure either out.
- Firewall : (g)ufw - no experience on others for now (or any personal experience regarding ufw usage aside from defaults).
- Terminal emulator : XFCE Terminal or ctrl+alt+f2, depending on my need for root account.
- X11 : Currently running XLibre, fresh from Artix galaxy.
- Portable installations (AppImage / Flatpak) : Self-contained apps that should run on any Linux distros. Currently not using any of them.
- Attempts at tidying up home directory
- Bundle AUR files & folders in ~/aur/$packagename (such as ~/aur/$palemoon for Pale Moon)
Back to top
Index - computers
Main Page