Desktop Experience Audit

Date: 2026-10-16. Reviewed XFCE (X11, XLibre, and Wayland), GNOME (X11 and Wayland), GNOME Flashback, Cinnamon (including XLibre), MATE (including XLibre), Budgie, KDE Plasma (X11 and Wayland), LXDE, and LXQt.

Fixes and Improvements

Desktop

Result

KDE Plasma

Menu, tasks, tray, and clock now belong to a real bottom panel; the wallpaper uses the desktop container. Accent color uses the native AccentColor key; files are explicitly opened with a double-click.

XFCE

Whisker Menu uses the Pepvoid logo/name and a valid Welcome favorite; Alt+F1 opens the menu that is actually on the panel. The panel is 36 px high and the clock shows date and time. Adwaita cursor replaces a nonexistent reference; terminal and applications that request it use a monospace font.

XFCE: files and sound

Thunar folder search uses Catfish; archive, volume, and Whisker dependencies are explicit. The audio plugin opens Pavucontrol. Updating XDG directories no longer resets user choices at every login.

XFCE: session

Startup through startx reuses the existing D-Bus bus; Live lock/DPMS exceptions are conditional on the Live marker and are not indiscriminately applied to installed systems.

XFCE Wayland

Wallpaper synchronizer uses a per-user/display lock, watches property notifications, and terminates only processes it started. Removes killall swaybg and global searches followed by kill -9.

Cinnamon

Removed a wallpaper key absent from the screensaver schema; Nemo lists folders first, shows the full path in its title, and provides terminal access. Thumbnails are limited to local files to avoid extra work on shares.

MATE

Cursor uses the correct mouse schema; removed ignored interface/screensaver keys. Caja lists folders first, uses double-click, and generates local thumbnails.

Budgie

Removed picture-uri-dark from screensaver sections that do not support it. Nemo receives the same functional improvements as Cinnamon.

GNOME / Flashback

Enabled link creation in Nautilus, double-click, and local thumbnails.

GTK

GTK3/GTK4 file choosers list folders before files in GSettings profiles.

LXDE

Sound mixer plugin opens Pavucontrol; clock shows weekday, date, and time. Native menu, tray, and volume management remain in place.

LXQt

Wallpaper uses zoom instead of stretching. PCManFM-Qt uses QTerminal and Xarchiver, Pepvoid icons, and a places sidebar. The session no longer forces GTK to read /etc/skel, allowing user appearance choices.

Variants use the same adjustments where they share files; all three XFCE configuration copies were updated. The existing light theme in XFCE X11 and +the dark themes in the other profiles were preserved.

Verification

  • GNOME, Flashback, Cinnamon, MATE, and Budgie overrides compiled with glib-compile-schemas --strict --dry-run against cached Void package schemas. The invalid-key errors found initially no longer occur.

  • Tested image composition, XFCE plugins and shortcuts, Plasma applet placement, and Thunar action commands.

  • Functionally tested the wallpaper synchronizer with wallpaper changes and an independent wallpaper process; the independent process stays running.

  • Full pytest suite and syntax/consistency checks.

Limits

No complete desktop sessions were started and no new ISOs were generated. Visual changes need screen inspection, including HiDPI scaling and multiple monitors. Audio, USB, suspend, and authentication still need testing on real hardware, as do the Plasma panel and XFCE Wayland wallpaper changes.

These settings apply to new images/users. Preferences already stored in dconf or ~/.config may take precedence; no routine was added to force-reset them at every login.