Features Coming For The Imminent Xfce 4.12 Release

Written by Michael Larabel in Desktop on 27 February 2015 at 09:32 AM EST. 24 Comments
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If all goes according to plan, Xfce 4.12 will be officially released this weekend. Here's a look at some of the most prominent changes for this long overdue update to Xfce.

Going back earlier in the Xfce 4.12 development cycle was a hope of transitioning Xfce to GTK3, but unfortunately that isn't a full transition for the v4.12 release. With Xfce 4.12 there is partial support for GTK3 but by default it's still using the obsolete GTK2. While the tool-kit is outdated, there's still many changes to modernize this lightweight desktop environment.

Xfce 4.12 has support for Client-Side Decorations out-of-the-box when using compositing with the Xfwm4 window manager, the alt-tab switcher has seen numerous improvements, monitor configuration has improved along with other Xfce4 settings, support for "intelligently" hiding the Xfce panel, power management enhancements, other panel changes, and other refinements throughout the numerous Xfce modules over the past few years. Once the Xfce 4.12 release has happened, we'll analyze it in closer detail.


Xfce 4.12 is scheduled to be released as soon as tomorrow but there's still a number of open critical blogs that could block the release. Other basic Xfce 4.12 details can be found from the Xfce.org Wiki.

Those wishing to try out Xfce 4.12 can find some recent development package uploads for the Arch-based Manjaro Linux and an Xfce 4.12 PPA for (X)Ubuntu.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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