Today, Xfce is one of the most popular desktop environments for operating systems . In addition to its beauty, this environment impresses users with its incredible performance, as well as its low system requirements. For the same reasons, many distributions such as MX Linux, Kali Linux, Xubuntu, Fedora spin and manjaro, choose Xfce as the default desktop environment.
Currently, the latest stable version is 4.14, which was released a few months ago. However, recently, André Miranda announced the first test version of the upcoming Xfce 4.16. According to Miranda, Xfce 4.16pre1 is the next stable version of the environment, which may officially replace 4.14.
Xfce 4.16: Changes and improvements:
Perhaps the most significant improvement in Xfce 4.16 is the removal of the GTK2 UI toolkit support code. Of course, the new release comes with full support for the latest GTK3. In addition to improvements to GTK support, the desktop environment now also includes some refreshed icons.
Additionally, the new version contains an improved “About Xfce” window, which displays more information about the operating system and computer.
Another major improvement in version 4.16 is the ability to configure “fractional scaling” via XRandR config. Thanks to the new feature, users can configure “fractional scaling”, choosing one of three basic options 1x, 1.5x or 2x. In addition, users have the option to select another number, if none of the default options meet their needs.
In addition to the above changes, the new Xfce contains improvements to some of applications , as well as a new dark theme.
How to use the new version 4.16?
Currently, the only way to use the new version is by using the Xfce-test environment. However, according to the development team, version 4.16pre1, as well as versions 4.16pre2 and 4.16pre3, will be released soon.
When asked when the official stable version 4.16 would arrive, the development team responded in early November.
