Installed XFCE, no taskbar

I have a machine that had Manjaro MATE installed. I installed XFCE following instructions at Install Desktop Environments - Manjaro. (The instructions are a bit out of date, you have to remove the “-gtk3” bits from the package list since those packages apparently don’t exist anymore.)

Anyway when I login to XFCE there is no taskbar. It is usually at the bottom of the display and includes the whisker menu, clock, etc, but XFCE is just booting to an empty desktop. (The desktop icons are there and it otherwise seems functional – I can right click on the background and it does the expected thing.)

How can I make the taskbar show up? I am guessing this has to do with xfce4-panel, but it is installed. Is there some additional configuration I need to do?

Hi @maharvey ,
I wonder whether you could either open a terminal CtrlAltT or using AltF2 and run xfce4-panel.

Maybe you need to edit the xfce4 session setting add the xfce4-panel to run when you log in.

Hope it help, regards

I suppose you are at the default Xfce installation - with the mouse background and the small panel bottom middle of the screen?

Did you do the optional steps (theming and shuch) and created a new user?

Especially when you use your already existing user account, you have to copy some files yourself.
Look in /etc/skel - there are the default settings that should give you the Manjaro theme with panel and whisker menu and all that.
When you create a new user, these settings get copied (if they exist).
If you don’t create a new user, you’ll have to copy that yourself - preferrably without the session running (from TTY for example).

You can also just configure it all to your liking yourself from scratch.

Hello @maharvey,

did you also install optional part mentioned in the instruction? These 2 packages: manjaro-xfce-settings and manjaro-settings-manager?

If yes then you have to go further with @Nachlese’s post. :slightly_smiling_face:

…only manjaro-xfce-settings is necessary for Manjaro theme.