Razor-qt developers have recently announced the release of its latest version, the Razor-qt 0.4, after several months in development. Razor-qt is a desktop environment developed on the Qt technology platform and as the name suggest is razor-quick and very simple to use. Its lightweight features drive its speed.
Not being an entire desktop environment, that is to say like GNOME or KDE, it works with an existing window manager, preferably Openbox (what Razor-qt developers are using) but is supposedly wonderful on Kwin to Fvwm as well. Consisting of several modules, you can use all of them or a few of them to create your personalized lightweight desktop environment.
It offers an intuitive interface and is most successful because it can work on even minimum/standard hardware machines.
New entrant but strong DE features
Though by development standards, Razor-qt is a start-up, it already has several key DE components in place like the Desktop, Panel, Application Launcher, Settings Center and Sessions. All of these can be used or just a few of them because, as we noted earlier, Razor works wonderfully with various WMs as well.
New features on Razor-qt 0.4
The latest version of this lightweight comes with several fixes for bugs and highlights some small improvements as well. The main menu receives greater support, and translation features (Polish is added).
The upgrades increases several new components, offers a new theme and several new plug-ins as well.
The desktop components included here are a razor-runner program (for launching applications) – a menu and panel plug-ins, including those for mounting or un-mounting of media those are removable. There is a plug-in for screensaver (or a lock screen) as well as plug-in to show the desktop.
An official list of all third party applications is also included in the qt desktop here.
What makes Razor-qt remarkable is that it works form native KDE theme on your desktop, has plasma-like feature and is available entirely on just 5.6MB.
Lack of size does not limit this in any way. It supports widgets (only 3 are available), while some of these applications will have to installed by yourself. Some recommendations include the QtFM, Andromeda.
Pinguy developers are highly impressed with Razor Qt and it is in the offing that Linux distribution running on Razor Qt will be available as default soon.
Installing Razor-qt 0.4
Open Terminal by Pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and type-
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:razor-qt sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install razorqt
