Pixel, the new desktop of the Raspberry Pi Foundation will compete with Lxde

Joaquin García

2 minutes

pixel

This week we have seen a new desktop for Gnu / Linux systems, a lightweight desktop for teams with few or limited resources. This desk is called Pixel and has been created not for a Gnu / Linux distribution as is typical but for a platform, a free platform, Raspberry Pi.

Thus, Pixel is based on Lxde, the lightweight desktop that I used before but they have changed it to such an extent that Pixel is a fork of this desktop that will continue with the GTK libraries but optimized for this type of platform.

In essence we can say that Pixel is a facelift of Lxde, a facelift where new windows, icons, fonts and even new panels are added to function. What's more A series of applets has been incorporated that allows the connection of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections as currently it has more complex desktops like KDE or Gnome. This function makes work much easier for users of the new Raspberry Pi 3, which has the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections inserted.

Pixel is based on LXDE but with a new aesthetic and look

Pixel was born in the Raspberry Pi Foundation and is made by the Foundation itself, to the point that the name refers to it, since Pixel is the abbreviated name of «Pi Improved Xwindows Environment, Lightweight«.

Another change that is made in Pixel is the use of certain software. Not only RealVNC is included but Chromium is also used instead of Epiphany. The famous browser of the Gnome project is quite old so the creators have opted for Chromium, a heavier but more complete browser that works well on current versions of Raspberry Pi.

Pixel is currently available in the latest versions of Raspbian, the Gnu / Linux distribution for Raspberry Pi that is based on Debian 8. In previous versions, to have Pixel and all its content we have to execute the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install -y rpi-chromium-mods
sudo apt-get install -y python-sense-emu python3-sense-emu
sudo apt-get install -y python-sense-emu-doc realvnc-vnc-viewer

Unfortunately, Pixel is not yet available for other Gnu / Linux distributions, but doing so will be an interesting desktop that is not only functional but also beautiful, something that always draws the attention of many users Do not you think?


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  1.   edwin aguiar said
    ago 8 years

    Yesterday I updated the raspberry to this version of Pixel without any inconvenience, however what I liked the most was that I was able to turn off the wifi easily, before it gave me problems and it was activated by default, competing with eth0.
    What I did not update was the realvnc so that it did not conflict with the one I currently have and which came by default. The rest great

    Reply to edwin aguiar