LXDE
I discovered LXDE a few hours ago, and I’ve already made it my default desktop environment. I have got yet everything the way I like it, but I’m getting there… Here are some notes:
- the clock format I like for my digital clock is %d.%m.%Y %T
- startup apps for all users are inside /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
- user-specific startup apps are separate .desktop files under ~/.config/autostart
- add keyboard shortcuts to the main configuration file ~/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml like this (inside the <keyboard> element:
<!-- Azimout's launchers -->
<keybind key="A-C-1">
<action name="Execute">
<command>firefox</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="A-C-2">
<action name="Execute">
<command>thunderbird</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="A-C-T">
<action name="Execute">
<command>terminator</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="A-C-C">
<action name="Execute">
<command>gcalctool</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="A-C-E">
<action name="Execute">
<command>pcmanfm</command>
</action>
</keybind>
- to re-enable keyboard layout switching, add this to your startup:
@setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,lv3:ralt,eurosign:e us,el
UPDATE:
One week later, 17.02.2009, I’m switching back to Gnome. The speed was nice, but I missed some things, like Nautilus, or some panel applets. However, the version in Intrepid is old (0.3.2.1) while at lxde.org there’s 0.4.8.6, so I might give it a try again in the future…

I’m always a bit sceptical about these ‘faster’ environments. Isn’t exactly what XFCE promised? It wasn’t that much faster and all advantages were gone, when you started some Gnome-app, because it loaded the whole Gnome subsystem .. I will try it nonetheless.
Hi Mattis, thanx for stopping by.
I’m using all the normal Gnome apps (e.g. Evince) but they still load much much faster (don’t ask me why). Anyway, I would be interested if you post your opinion here after you’ve tried it…
Right now I’m trying to find a way to put the gnome-system-monitor panel applet (multiload) on the lxpanel :-/
Good luck
nice tips on the autostart and clock applet. thx for posting!
Btw, r u still sticking to lxde? I’ve been using it myself for sometime but I find it’s hacky nature a bit annoying and non pratical. By this mean having to edit text files to achieve simple things, after of course the obligatory googling…
That’s how I landed here btw. lol
As you can see from the last paragraph of the post, I have now switched back to Gnome…
Since you mentioned lxde in your “.desktop” post, I thought maybe you’d changed your mind. No harm done : -p