lpDesktop

lpDesktop is a lightweight desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It aims to provide a fast, low-memory, and simple user experience on machines with limited resources, while preserving the familiar desktop metaphor.

Originating as an open-source project in 2017 by a small team of developers, lpDesktop is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later.

The environment consists of a minimal window manager, a panel, a launcher, and a settings daemon. Its core is modular and can load optional components, enabling functionality with a small footprint. The core is designed to be agnostic to a particular widget toolkit, and most builds ship with a lightweight user interface by default. It supports starting on X11, with newer builds offering backends for Wayland-based compositors.

Key features include desktop icons, a dock or panel, keyboard shortcuts, theming, and basic accessibility options. The design emphasizes deterministic performance, predictable resource usage, and straightforward configuration, typically via a plain text file in the user's home directory alongside a settings dialog.

lpDesktop is packaged for several distributions and is available as source tarballs and prebuilt binaries. Configuration is stored in ~/.lpdesktop, and the environment can be extended with small plugins for session management, wallpaper handling, and power management.

Reception within the open-source community is positive but limited to a niche audience; development proceeds at a steady pace. It is commonly compared to other lightweight environments such as LXQt, XFCE, and Enlightenment in discussions about low-resource desktop solutions.