Install XFCE 4.10 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin via PPA

There are many alternative desktop environments we can try, recently, I wrote a post about MATE Desktop Environment. Today, I'd like to write another alternative desktop environment for Ubuntu that's XFCE.

Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.

The latest version of XFCE is 4.10 which brings a lot of changes and improvements:

• Online Documentation: When you click a Help button Xfce will ask you to go to an online wiki page
• Collapsed and expanded view of the Application Finder
• New panel behavior "Deskbar Mode" introduced
• Session plugin has been merged with a rewritten actions plugin
• The window buttons plugin no longer expands, which makes the plugin positioning more flexible.
• Applications, which are not a part of Xfce, are listed using an italic font
• The settings manager with icons grouped by category and a search filter applied
• Settings editor with an open channel monitor, while editing a property in-place
• MIME types matching a pattern and a menu for selecting a default application
• Synaptics touchpad settings in the mouse and touchpad dialog
• Desktop with image thumbnails and support for single-click operation
• And more!

For details, please refer to XFCE 4.10 tour.

Install XFCE 4.10 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin
Well, if you want to try the latest version of XFCE on Ubuntu Precise, simply run the following commands:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xubuntu-dev/xfce-4.10 -y
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

Enjoy :)