LXQt

Emerge

Get the complete LXQt desktop environment by installing the lxqt-base/lxqt-meta package:

Keywords

LXQt has been stable for amd64 and x86 since version 0.13.0 so normally no keywords are needed.

However, if you use another architecture, it is necessary to add a few packages to package.accept_keywords:

lxqt-base/*
media-gfx/lximage-qt
x11-misc/obconf-qt
x11-misc/pcmanfm-qt

Additional packages may need keyworded; emerge will provide current package keywording information if it is the case.

Launching LXQt with startx

To launch LXQt using the startx command, without a display manager, the following file can be used with or without elogind (possibly works with systemd as well):

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">exec startlxqt</syntaxhighlight>

When using ConsoleKit, ck-launch-session is needed to be able to shutdown or reboot the system from the LXQt menu:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">exec ck-launch-session startlxqt</syntaxhighlight>

It may be desirable to start D-Bus manually, for example if notifications are not working or if there are several dbus-launch processes in the output from pstree:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session startlxqt</syntaxhighlight>

Alternatively, the dbus service can be started at boot time.

To disable energy saver that power off display after 10 minutes of inactivity (even when you watch YouTube) add this two lines:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">xset s off
xset -dpms</syntaxhighlight>

Changing the GTK themes

The LXQt appearance settings GUI has no support for changing GTK themes, so you may want to install lxde-base/lxappearance to take care of that.

Alternatively, you can change the themes manually, for example using the GTK2_RC_FILES variable:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">export GTK2_RC_FILES=/home/user/.themes/Drakfire\ Black/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
exec startlxqt</syntaxhighlight>

The GTK page of the Arch Linux wiki has more information for configuring GTK 2 and GTK 3 themes.

For Qt 5 applications you will need (since the update to Qt 5.7) to install x11-themes/qtstyleplugins from the abendbrot overlay to get the GTK style.

Automounting volumes

By default, LXQt tries to automount every attached disk at startup and when they are plugged in. It may result in unwanted popup windows asking for the root password to mount disks.

The automount options are located in the PCManFM file manager settings:

• In the applications menu, open Accessories → PCManFM File Manager.
• Select the Edit->Preferences menu item.
• Click on Volume.
• Disable or enable the desired features.

Adding custom actions to PCManFM-Qt

PCManFM-Qt supports the desktop file specification extension so it is possible to add custom actions to the contextual menu for files and directories.

x11-libs/libfm and x11-libs/libfm-extra v1.2.4 or above are required, and the vala USE flag must be enabled:

x11-libs/libfm vala

Rebuilding the package can be done with:

Once this is done, special .desktop files can be created in ~/.local/share/file-manager/actions/. For example here is a simple action that will pop up a notification with the path to the selected file or folder:

[Desktop Entry]
Name = Test action
Profiles = on_icon;

[X-Action-Profile on_icon]
Exec = notify-send "You selected %f"

PCManFM-Qt needs to be restarted to become aware of any change made to the custom actions. The safest and simplest way is to logout and login again (restart LXQt).

Alternatively it is possible to exit all instances of PCManFM-Qt with pcmanfm-qt -q before launching it again, but be aware that it will likely switch to a different set of settings (it can use two different config directories, one "default" and one "lxqt", as you can see in ~/.config/pcmanfm-qt/) and for example automount volumes which may cause issues if you are not careful.

Applications

Any Qt application can be used with LXQt, but if Qt applications that do not depend on any component of KDE are preferred please see the Qt Desktop applications article.

Wi-Fi

And add NetworkManager in the default runlevel:

In order to have GUI for Wi-Fi networks — install nm-applet:

nm-applet

If in your LXQt you set your panel to autohide and mouse hover on Wi-Fi ico hides your panel - you need:

1. Emerge gnome-extras/nm-applet with USE flag appindicator
2. Emerge lxqt-base/lxqt-panel with USE flag statusnotifier
3. Edit autostart in LXQt: change nm-applet to nm-applet --indicator.

See related bug.

Support

Gentoo support channels are #gentoo-qt on freenode, and lxqt@gentoo.org. Bugs should be reported at the Gentoo's Bugzilla.

Upstream IRC channels are #lxqt for user support, and #lxqt-dev for development, on OFTC.