XFCE

The "big two" are too bloated and slow.

I've no idea. I used fluxbox, but I was put off by the fact that I never seemed to have tine to learn "idesk" and the fact that all of the packages I enjoyed, had gnome dependencies.

I agree that many of the Compiz special effects are superfluous. However, Compiz rocks and I believe that you agree with me on this point. Using Compiz, one can organize music on one side of the cube via Nautilus or Pcmanfm. One can deal with students' homework or whatever on another side of the cube. Search for transmissions via Google and Firefox using just three windows and 28 tabs on the 3rd side of the cube. Drag information and or web pages between various sides of the cube. While one can do most of these things with the standard desktop panels, it just is not as cool, and I feel that the cube makes things more organized. Plus for all you Windows users, this all exemplifies yet another Linux point of superiority and efficiency all while using fewer resources than Vista or XP. Currently, I am running at 49 Celsius, while watching a DVD with multiple Firefox tabs open. This is 11 Celsius degrees cooler than Vista with no system load!

I'm with gnome now.

GSB?

I am curious to know the name of the country in which you use Linux. This is due to the fact that Alan Cox of Redhat stated that KDE was more popular in Europe while Gnome was more popular in the USA.

Also, how would you or anyone respond to the following question and statement?

I agree with you that XFCE boots noticeably faster than Gnome or KDE. However, I couldn't appreciate the inability to customize the appearance of the XFCE4 desktop. In example, one cannot manipulate the XFCE4 taskbar as one manipulates the Gnome desktop. The only advantage that I see XFCE4 having over Gnome is speed of booting, but one only boots at the beginning of a session, so my question to you Rkelson or anyone must be “Is your use of XFCE4 practical or a matter of preference?”

My Gnome desktop has a modern look that is comparable to MAC or Vista. No my Gnome is no clone of Mac, Vista, or Xp. Although there are those who contend that XFCE is no longer significantly faster than Gnome or KDE, I say that such individuals must be running an older cerca 2000 computer.

The name of the country in which I use Linux, and indeed live, is Australia.
My answer to this question is: Both. I have a preference for practicality. I don't know why you're having such difficulty customising the XFCE desktop. It is very manipulable, and the settings are actually easier to find than in KDE or GNOME. The panel (or taskbar) can be manipulated many ways. It can be any size, sit on any edge or corner of the screen, have applets added, icons changed, etc. There are many more options, too.

For me, the decision to switch to XFCE (version 4.6.1 I think) was not made lightly. Based upon my needs, it is a better proposition than either KDE or GNOME. It can do everything I need and want, which I think is the short answer to your question.
Based upon my experience, I would strongly disagree with those who contend that XFCE is not significantly faster than Gnome or KDE.

Note that I have only recently switched to XFCE after having used KDE for more than 10 years.

I use KDE, GNOME, and XFCE.....fluxbox too. On the server in my home when I use X I use XFCE or flux over XDMCP because it works at native speeds on the local machine where KDE and Gnome can lag. Gnome is great on my laptop because it has certain features, most notably NetworkManager, that are perfect for what I do at work, but at home on the box I run Gnome on, I still have KDE installed and Konqueror is the default file manager while amarok is the default music player.

The idea of which is best seems odd to me. I see it as which is best for what purpose.

Are they really trying to establish which is the "best" one, or simply soliciting opinions based upon use and experience?

idesk isn't the only one.

What difference does it make?

Umm... you can do that just as well without the cube.

One thing I really didn't like about the cube is the way you move things among faces. The way it starts moving before switching the desktop is very disorienting for me, and I don't like the way the window ends up on the other side of the next desktop and I have to drag it ALL the way across my two side-by-side monitors and do that all over again.

I really like Openbox's solution, where when you hold a window against the edge of the screen it cycles through your desktops, without the window moving relative to your screen.

Sure I know that.

When I first saw Vista it used 2GB memory IDLE!!!!!!

I don't know what they are trying to accomplish. I was merely stating my views which include the idea that there is no best, just best in individual cases.

There did not appear to be any obvious options for changing the color of taskbar, which was a killjoy for me. Second, in my opinion, the XFCE theme is only professional when compared to desktop themes from the year 2000 or before. By contrast, Gnome comes with several customizable themes, which are stable. I had this nightmare image of hours spent Googling for XFCE themes, wading through bash, only to install a theme that might prove to be unstable, so I went back to Gnome although XFCE is still installed and exist as a backup to Gnome.


Australia? Cool. Based on what you've said, I have to give XFCE4 another try. You say that XFCE4 is faster than Gnome. Either I use Gnome and XFCE4 differently or my computer is fast enough that there is no practical speed difference between Gnome and KDE. Maybe my cerebral clock is a few seconds behind... hope not

I agree that there is no way to determine which desktop is best. Even if one could objectively prove that one desktop is better than another, there is no getting around human subjectivity. There is no getting around human preference. Finally, the best desktop is the one with which the person is most proficient in a given or any given circumstance. For some, this means KDE is better on machine one while Gnome may be better on a lesser machine.
This was one of the first times that I've ever heard such a large group of people debate Gnome vs KDE without the converssation becoming a subjective passion based heated rant.
What I've taken from this is knowledge that I've learned something from all that have posted, and I believe that others might say the same.

The Cube really keeps me more organized than panels alone. With flat panels, I am more likely to forget which panel something is running. Yes, this is subjective, but it's just the way I am.

Too many Gnome dependencies will make me just want to install Gnome. 20 meg here and 100 meg there will make just say, “Forget it! I'll just install Gnome.”

And I guess that's just not the way I am.

So that means don't use the desktop you prefer because some of your apps use some GNOME libraries?

That's just silly.

The Xfce panel uses GTK+ widgets, just like your GNOME apps. So its look is determined by your GTK+ theme.

Personally I never cared for glossy or colored panels.

What do you mean "Xfce themes"?

Icon themes?

GTK+ themes? (Note that there is absolutely no reason to only use "Xfce" GTK+ themes with Xfce)

Xfwm (window border) themes?

If looks are that important to you, then Gnome is probably the better choice for you. Personally, I think XFCE looks professional enough, given that it enables the use of compositing with a point and click. Changing the taskbar colours & patterns independantly of other settings might require some manual editing of text files, but I don't know. So far, the only method I can find of changing taskbar colours is under Settings > Appearance, where you can choose a colour scheme for the whole desktop, and the taskbar changes with that.

To my way of thinking, function comes before form. I would sacrifice 'easy' configuration for a leaner and more efficient desktop if it were necessary. The options provided by the XFCE GUI configuration tools are sufficient, IMO.
Very cool... 7 degrees celsius right now.
If your hardware is fairly new, then there probably won't be a noticeable difference. The computer I'm currently using is a Hyperthreaded (single core) Pentium 4 purchased in Sep-2004, running at 3.2GHz. There is a noticeable difference between XFCE and KDE/Gnome on this machine.