The LXQt team has announced LXQt 2.4.0, the latest release of the lightweight, modular Qt desktop environment. This update focuses on bug fixes and code cleanup, but also delivers several practical improvements across the panel, power management, file manager, terminal, and Wayland support.

The Qt version requirements are unchanged from the previous release, so building LXQt 2.4.0 on Debian “Trixie” and its derivatives remains straightforward. If you want a broader look at the project, check out the LXQt desktop reference page on OpenSourceFeed.

What’s New in LXQt 2.4.0

Panel and Audio

The volume plugin in LXQt Panel has a new horizontal layout. It can now show all available audio sinks, and you can adjust the default sink volume directly using the mouse wheel or touchpad scroll on the panel icon — no need to open a separate window.

Several improvements from point releases are also included. The Fancy Menu now prioritizes titles that start with the search string — searching “fir” will show Firefox first. On Wayland, shortcut selectors in panel menus are disabled, and a tooltip explains how to configure shortcuts through the compositor instead. A bug with auto-hiding on dragging windows over the Task Manager and Show Desktop has also been fixed.

Power Management

LXQt Powermanagement now supports a separate monitor blanking timeout for AC and battery modes. This is a welcome change for laptop users who want the screen to stay on longer while plugged in. Some redundant options have been removed from the combo boxes, and the overall UI layout has been improved.

File Manager (LibFM-Qt / PCManFM-Qt)

In the file save dialog, the base filename is now automatically highlighted, letting you rename the file immediately without a manual click. On Wayland with a multi-monitor setup, the “Hide Desktop Items” setting is now applied per monitor, giving each screen its own consistent state.

Sessions

X11 and Wayland session settings are now separated in LXQt Session configuration. The Wayland session settings only appear when lxqt-wayland-session is installed. The main menu can also be opened on Wayland by adding a shortcut for lxqt-qdbus openmenu in the compositor settings.

LXQt Runner

The built-in calculator now activates when you type a number first, not only when you start with an equals sign.

Notifications

Transient notifications — such as song titles from media players — are no longer saved to the notification history when “Do Not Disturb” mode is active.

QTerminal and QTermWidget

The terminal received a solid set of improvements. A new Nord color theme is included. Search now highlights all matching instances at once. A bug causing URLs with a closing bracket to produce 404 errors when opened has been fixed. The Open/Copy link actions that disappeared from the context menu have been restored. Custom tab name handling is improved, and bookmarks file creation for new profiles is fixed. You can also now assign a shortcut to the lock (keep open) button in dropdown mode.

Portal and Other Fixes

An Access portal (org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Access) has been added to xdg-desktop-portal-lxqt. The release also implements the $XDG_STATE_HOME directory, fixes NotShowIn=LXQt handling in .desktop files, and adds support for logout via the SystemdProvider.

Getting LXQt 2.4.0

LXQt 2.4.0 source tarballs are available on GitHub. Most users will receive the update through their distribution’s repositories. Rolling-release distributions like Arch Linux are likely to pick it up first.

For the full release notes for each component, visit the official LXQt 2.4.0 release announcement. You can also browse the history of LXQt releases we’ve covered, going back to the earlier 1.x series.