I use XFCE 'all the features, none of the bloat' and Fuxbox about equally. I can't really decide which one I prefer. I'm a bit worried that XFCE 4.4 looks a bit bloated, though.

very true, I use openbox and XFCE.
XFCE is a good one to keep for when the Girlfriend/Flatmates need the computer...For this purpose it's "just enough bloat".
It's a bit rough trying to tell a Windows user to type, for example "alsamixer", just to turn up the volume

Great posts, folks, thanks.

I have XFCE set up so that the panel is on the left side of the screen and the taskbar is on the bottom. This seems to be a more efficient layout for 1024x768 than squeezing the top and bottom of a window.

A few impressions so far: XFCE is noticably faster than KDE on my computer but it's not a huge difference. Still, I'm glad that Slackware comes with a choice of windows managers. The panel reminds me of the OS/2 toolbar.

Does anyone know if there's some sort of an XFCE keyboard profile for my MS Natural Keyboard? I'd like to set it up so that the windows key, right-click menu key, calculator key and volume keys work.

Regards,

-Drew

I believe you can go to the system settings and you should see keyboard config.

As far as XFCE goes it is my second choice next to fluxbox. Both are very good at keeping a nice and tidey workspace. (Great for a clean freak like me). Both are extremely fast also. I also think (check I could be wrong) that they have a smaller install size than say gnome or kde.

I like it because it's different. KDE/GNOME both feel a lot like Windows. It also adheres more to UNIX philosophy of one tool=one job. That way I can mix and match my favorite apps and desktop enhancements without getting in the way of the Window manager. It's also really easy to configure. (especially keybindings)

Not really; it actually feels faster than the 4.2.x series. The look is different - quite a bit more polished - but don't let an improved appearance necessarily make you think in terms of bloat.

Hang in there; the 4.4 release should happen in later December or early January. They had hoped for a release before Christmas, but time slipped up on them - the code was ready, but the developers weren't... :-)

Thinking about it, the bloated feeling was probably more of a Xubuntu/Ubuntu problem then XFCE. I just hope by default its as streamlined as now. I still don't like the idea of desktop icons though, to me that is the start of the slippery slope to bloat.

I agree with that, 4.2 menus were slow on my system, possibly because of some gtk or png issues, and I was fearing that 4.4 would be worse, but on the contrary it is very fast. My primary WM is fluxbox but I probably will spend more time with XFCE 4.4 when the stable version is released. It has many nice features, yet is simple and clean enough. I like Gnome too (for having relatively little bloat) but the speed of XFCE beats while retaining all the essential functionality.

Also, I'm not a compositor/glx fan but I must say XFCE with compositor on looks really nice .

I have fluxbox on FreeBSD and Gnome and XFCE on Slackware. I use XFCE on Slackware from time to time, but I still do not like, that I am not able to stretch panels to 100% and some other stuff. It's still a great DE and really fast.

This is possible in 4.2 if you use the taskbar plugin in the panel (it has this streching option) and in 4.4 it is configurable in the panel settings.

thanks, nice news.

I once used gnome-panel with XFCE and that was also pretty OK.

My main desktop on slackware is xfce. I like it because it loads 10 times faster than kde on p3 500. In the past, I also tried fluxbox but not for very long, it's quite nice and fast too and I might move again to to fluxbox if it uses less memory than xfce since I'm going to do digital image manipulation....

I use XFCE on my slackware current for the last 3 years. The reason is simple: very fast for my old pc (PIII 933) and convenient.