LXQt 2.4 Desktop Environment Released with Better Wayland Support

LXQt 2.4 has been released as the newest version of this lightweight Qt-based desktop environment, bringing several usability improvements, particularly for Wayland users. One of the key updates is better multi-monitor support in LibFM-Qt and PCManFM-Qt, where desktop item visibility can now be managed independently for each screen. Additionally, session settings are now split between X11 and Wayland, with Wayland-specific options only appearing when the lxqt-wayland-session package is installed.

The session component also improves Wayland usability by allowing users to open the main menu via a shortcut configured with lxqt-qdbus openmenu, addressing a previous limitation in non-X11 environments. Power management has been enhanced with separate screen blanking timeouts for AC and battery modes, along with a cleaner and more streamlined settings interface.

A notable user-facing update comes to the panel, where the volume plugin now adopts a horizontal layout, displays all available audio outputs, and allows volume adjustment by scrolling over the panel icon. Bug fixes include improved handling of alternative icon themes with Qt 6.11, better search result sorting in the Fancy Menu, and fixes for auto-hide behavior when dragging windows over certain panel components. On Wayland, shortcut selectors in panel menus have been disabled, with guidance provided via tooltips.

Finally, the notifications system has been refined so that in “Do Not Disturb” mode, temporary alerts—such as music track popups—are no longer stored, reducing unnecessary clutter.

Finally, terminal-related components also receive several updates in this release. In QTerminal and QTermWidget, the changes include:

• Improved search highlighting, with all matches now highlighted
• Improved custom tab name behavior
• Support for assigning a shortcut to the dropdown mode’s lock button
• A fix for creating bookmark files with new profiles
• A new Nord theme
• Restored Open/Copy link actions in the context menu
• A corrected URL pattern for links ending with a closing bracket

Refer to the release announcement for more information about all changes in the new version.

If you are eager to try the new release, it’s currently available only as source code. However, as always, in the coming days and weeks, users of rolling-release distros, such as Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Void, Gentoo, etc., are expected to be among the first to receive the new LXQt 2.4 desktop environment.