Looking at LXQt in Lubuntu Cosmic

[chimak111]

I installed a recent daily image in a VM (kvm/qemu) and keep it updated.

Looks like the installer is Calamares, not Ubiquity (which is what Kubuntu Cosmic seems to be staying with).

The default login session is LXQt. No LXDE at all.

/usr/share/xsessions has

Lubuntu.desktop (Lubuntu session using LXQt)
Exec=env LXQT_DEFAULT_OPENBOX_CONFIG="/etc/xdg/xdg-Lubuntu/openbox/lxqt-rc.xml" /usr/bin/startlxqt

and

lxqt.desktop (Lightweight Qt Desktop) 
Exec=startlxqt
TryExec=lxqt-session

and

Openbox (Log in using the Openbox window manager (without a session manager))
Exec=/usr/bin/openbox-session

The "Lubuntu" session (Lubuntu session using LXQt) shows files/folders on the desktop by default.

Applications include compton with a nice GUI, falkon, featherpad (text editor), htop, libreoffice, lxqt-sudo, mpv, muon, neofetch, pcmanfm-qt, plasma-discovery, qlipper, qpdfview, quassel (IRC), qterminal, sddm, smplayer, transmission-qt, and zenity.

The last line in the following quote from This Week in Lubuntu Development #8 is intriguing!

Here are some major, Lubuntu-specific features you can expect before the release:

The beginnings of a welcome center (more details to come).
Calamares polish, including an additional module for more packages to be installed.
A plan for replacing Openbox, the current window manager used in Lubuntu.

Given that

You can stop expecting features on August 23, 2018 when Feature Freeze is put into effect

we'll know in a couple of weeks if not before that

[claydoh]

There is some cross-pollination between Lubuntu and Kubuntu teams, even before the official move to lxqt

I like that this merger of lxde and razor-qt into lxqt has rather kept the look of the original lxde, simple and fairly clean, for those who like such things.

[chimak111]

The latest Lubuntu Development Newsletter has something more on the window manager issue:

Lubuntu will be switching to Wayland by default for 20.10.

We are going to do this by porting Openbox to use the Mir display server, Drew DeVault’s QtLayerShell, and other associated bits.

[dibl]

A couple years ago an older Dell Inspiron laptop fell into my hands. The Windows 7 OS was painfully slow and suspected of being compromised with malware. I bought an Intel SSD to replace the hdd, and installed my favorite Debian unstable OS with an LXQt desktop that uses the sddm display manager.

It's not my favorite desktop environment, which remains KDE, but on this weak old hardware platform I have fast boots and a very satisfactory user experience -- good enough for live video chats with wire, web browsing, and light office work with Libreoffice.

root@n5110:/# inxi -Fz
System:
Host: n5110 Kernel: 4.18.4-towo.1-siduction-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 
Desktop: LXQt 0.13.0 
Distro: siduction 17.1.0 Patience - lxqt - (201703051830) 
Machine:
Type: Portable System: Dell product: Inspiron N5110 v: N/A serial: <filter> 
Mobo: Dell model: 034W60 v: A11 serial: <filter> BIOS: Dell v: A11 
date: 08/03/2012 
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 77.0 Wh condition: 85.0/81.3 Wh (104%) 
CPU:
Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-2330M bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
Speed: 798 MHz min/max: 800/2200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 797 2: 798 
3: 798 4: 798 
Graphics:
Card-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics 
driver: i915 v: kernel 
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.1 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile v: 3.3 Mesa 18.1.6 
Audio:
Card-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio 
driver: snd_hda_intel 
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.18.4-towo.1-siduction-amd64 
Network:
Card-1: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet 
driver: r8169 
IF: enp5s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Card-2: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 [Rainbow Peak] driver: iwlwifi 
IF: wlp9s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 74.53 GiB used: 13.43 GiB (18.0%) 
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Intel model: SSDSA2CW080G3 size: 74.53 GiB 
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 15.62 GiB used: 12.56 GiB (80.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: N/A 
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 
Info:
Processes: 183 Uptime: 10m Memory: 3.77 GiB used: 1.06 GiB (28.1%) 
Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.20 

root@n5110:/# apt policy lxqt sddm
lxqt:
Installed: 27
Candidate: 27
Version table:
*** 27 500
     500 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages
     100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
sddm:
Installed: 0.18.0-1
Candidate: 0.18.0-1
Version table:
*** 0.18.0-1 500
     500 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages
     100 /var/lib/dpkg/status