[ Thanks to James
Maguire for this link. ]
“A few times each month, I tire of the complexities of
GNOME and KDE. Then I turn to a simpler, faster desktop for a
couple of days or a week — and that desktop, more often than not,
is Xfce. No other desktop I’m aware of balances convenience and
speed half so well.“The only drawback has been that, until this week, the current
version of Xfce has been a couple of years old and looking blocky
and a little limited in what it can do. Consequently, the release
of Xfce 4.8 is both welcome and overdue. The new release gives Xfce
a facelift and some new enhancements to general functionality,
settings, and — most of all — the panel, while not compromising
previous releases’ functionality and lightweight.“This approach makes 4.8 seem a minor release by GNOME or KDE
standards, but I suspect that I’m not the only one who wouldn’t
have things any other way. Unlike the other major desktops, Xfce is
a niche environment, and its success should be judged by how well
it fills that niche — not on how many new features and
applications can be crammed into it. It’s an attitude that may be
timely, considering some of the changes due to arrive on the Linux
desktop during 2011.”