Xfce Forum

Speartip

Member

Registered: 2017-10-14

Posts: 17

What does Xubuntu do Differently?

I've been using XFCE for several years, & am a bit of a distro hopper, however one thing I have noticed about XFCE, is that the graphics are much smoother on Xubuntu, than other XFCE distros.
What I mean by that, is that from the Login Screen to Desktop, then opening menus & windows are graphically silky smooth on Xubuntu, but on the other distros I've tried, (Manjaro, Fedora, SolydX, MX-16) the graphics look decidedly rougher with glitches.
What does Xubuntu do differently to the others?

MountainDewManiac

Member

From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez

Registered: 2013-03-24

Posts: 1,115

Re: What does Xubuntu do Differently?

Which window manager does Xubuntu use? Xfce's own Xfwm, Compiz, or Compton (et cetera)?

And I'm assuming you are referring to animation, lack of screen-tearing, and that sort of thing. If, OTOH, you're just discussing the various theming elements, you should be able to install the same ones (that are used in Xubuntu) on any distro that uses Xfce for its DE, I should think.

Regards,
MDM

---

Mountain Dew Maniac

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Speartip

Member

Registered: 2017-10-14

Posts: 17

Re: What does Xubuntu do Differently?

Hi MountainDewManiac,
I always use Xfwm as the window manager, Numix Themes, tick "sync to vblank" & add the tearfree option in "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf".
Yet regardless of what I do every Distro I use other than Xubuntu has graphics glitches. eg. When logging in after entering password, I get a grey screen for a couple of seconds, before the Desktop appears. When installing using gdebi, the screen flickers while the package installer window opens. Then when opening applications, or menus, they just don't open smoothly. None of this happens in Xubuntu, which is making me wonder whether either the Ubuntu Devs or the Xubuntu team are implementing something that the rest aren't.

marko

Member

Registered: 2017-10-20

Posts: 21

Re: What does Xubuntu do Differently?

Hi Speartip,

- Could you please provide the distro name that's having the reported issue?

- What's your graphics card? NVIDIA or Radeon?

- Have you tired running it in a VM to see if it has the same issue? If when running through a VM you do not experience the issue then it is most likely graphics card driver related. I am happy to try it if you can provide the distro name (if I can get it to start that is -- I have an NVIDIA GTX 1060 and nouveau doesn't play with it too well at the time of writing)

Speartip

Member

Registered: 2017-10-14

Posts: 17

Re: What does Xubuntu do Differently?

Hi Marko,
I wouldn't call this an issue, just an observation. My graphics card is an integrated Intel card.
I have installed numerous xfce distros, Manjaro, SolydX, Debian, Fedora. (NOT in VM). In fact for the past 10 years I have been a bit of a Distro hopper, but love XFCE. And even though all of the above Distros install & work with no issue, none of them are as graphically smooth as Xubuntu or Mint XFCE, which is obviously an Ubuntu spin.
It seems to me that the Ubuntu devs must be doing something different to the rest.