LXQt announced version 2.5.0 on November 5, 2026, with updates to its file manager, terminal, panel and audio controls. The release requires Qt 6.10.0 or later and removes menu-cache, LXQt’s final dependency on LXDE. The project also reported an X11 problem in Monitor Settings and outlined a planned fix. Read the LXQt Project’s release announcement.

Changes across the desktop

In PCManFM-Qt, incremental search is optional and off by default. You can stop a search from the status bar and keep the results already found. Desktop Preferences adds an option to bypass wallpaper caching and display the original image quality. The release also fixes a rare ghost item in the directory tree and makes the detailed-list header immovable.

QTerminal and QTermWidget add background-image modes, an optional visual bell, Shift-click range selection and an action to maximize the current sub-terminal. Other changes include options for OSC-8 hyperlinks, enhanced D-Bus support, and a “silence notification” when output stops in a minimized window. If a process fails, QTerminal can warn you and offer the option to save the terminal history.

The panel’s Network Monitor now respects the panel’s icon-size setting and can prefer system icons. The Custom Command plugin gains a minimum-width option; the backlight tooltip shows current brightness; and a D-Bus task command works with auto-hiding panels. Relevant plugin configuration dialogs also use Close as their default button. Elsewhere, LibLXQt fixes brightness reading with an AMD GPU, while pavucontrol-qt adds Bluetooth codec selection and its user-interface integration.

Why incremental listing is limited to search

The LXQt Project says general incremental file listing would use additional CPU time without a useful benefit, so LibFM-Qt uses it for searches instead. That explains why the search feature is optional and disabled by default; the project did not present the rationale as a performance benchmark.

Qt requirement and the LXDE dependency

LXQt 2.5.0 requires Qt 6.10.0 at minimum. It also removes menu-cache, which the project identified as LXQt’s final LXDE dependency. LibFM-Qt now handles the desktop-menu work internally.

If you use LXQt 2.5.0, check the Qt requirement and the X11 monitor-settings caveat before choosing when to move to this release.

The reported X11 monitor-settings issue

The LXQt Project said libkscreen 6.8 had dropped X11 support, breaking LXQt Monitor Settings when used with that library. In its November 5 announcement, the project said it planned to restore support by calling X11 functions directly and to issue a point release when the code was ready.