[ Thanks to Kevin
Reichard for this link. ]
“…it is just possible that KDE is not for everyone.
There are computers in the world that have all the juice necessary
to run Linux and the X Window System but just not quite enough
memory or drive space to run a bells-and-whistles desktop such as
KDE or Gnome. There are people in the world- my friend David A.
Bandel is among them–who want something slick and quick and who
would rather pick and choose from the galaxy of Linux and X
applications to create a full-featured desktop comprising
applications that are their favorites. It’s entirely possible, too,
that businesses employing Linux don’t need the whole selection of
features offered by a KDE or Gnome, and would just as soon limit
desktop choices to business-related applications.”
“For these users there is XFce, just about the niftiest
little desktop around. Unlike the big guys, which are the work
of scores of programmers, XFce is the work of just one fellow,
Olivier Fourdan. A couple of years ago, seeking a fast, friendly,
and efficient Linux desktop and finding none to his liking, he
scratched the itch by writing his own which, if memory serves, was
written at first against the XForms libraries. It quickly developed
a devout following. In March 1999 he moved the project to GTK+.
Others have contributed a few patches, and its window manager
(xfwm), pager (xfpager), and file manager (XFTree) as well as a
Gnome module are based on the work of earlier programmers, but this
little masterpiece is a Fourdan original.”
“The more I play around with XFce, the more I see how it could
be viewed as the ideal desktop by Linux veterans and serious
newbies alike. The veterans could, not without justification, see
the big, elaborate desktops as eyecandy and insulation from ever
having to learn much about Linux. New users will find nothing here
beyond their abilities, but will in the course of things get a good
sense of the underlying system. Those who absolutely despise
Windows will find nothing in XFce that reminds them of the hated
product possessed by those who are computer owners, not computer
users. OS/2 refugees will find a certain familiarity in the
application drawers. There are really few Linux users who could not
be comfortable with XFce–it might not be their first choice, but
they would certainly learn to live with it and perhaps in time to
love it.”