Why do so many people think XFCE is lightweight?

[AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP!]

In my experience it's slower than gnome 2 and benchmarks put it at about the same level.

Comparing XFCE to MATE is tricky.

They idle at similar levels, but XFCE becomes slower once you start packing on Gnome 2 dependent packages, unlike MATE.

A bit off topic, but the usability is the same, since you can customize both to the same degree. And I have yet to hear a single valid reason why Linuxmint continued to do XFCE.

[realitykid]

And I have yet to hear a single valid reason why Linuxmint continued to do XFCE.

Because there are enough people who do not like Gnome 3, Cinnamon, or MATE. They want something like Gnome 2, but don't feel as if MATE is what they're looking for (probably partially due to the fact that it relies on older tech). Cinnamon isn't light enough to work every machine, and in a lot ways still needs to mature before it can become a truly suitable environment. And I, like many others, think Gnome 3 is a mess.

It really just comes down to personal preference.

[Habitual]

In my experience it's slower than gnome 2 and benchmarks

Get more experience. Any technical benchmarks to show us or all just mouth?
Lightweight as in "doesn't take up as much room as gnome" (Disk Space)

"but XFCE becomes slower once you start packing on Gnome 2 dependent packages"

- that's your issue, not the Xfce Desktop Environment.

[AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP!]

"but XFCE becomes slower once you start packing on Gnome 2 dependent packages"

- that's your issue, not the Xfce Desktop Environment.

Avoid all gnome 2 dependent apps? Quite a hopscotch game.


edit: also for you http://bit.ly/MEqe6t

[MALsPa]

And I have yet to hear a single valid reason why Linuxmint continued to do XFCE.

Why shouldn't Linux Mint continue "to do XFCE"?

[monkeyboy]

In my experience it's slower than gnome 2 and benchmarks put it at about the same level.

I guess it depends on your hardware, I don't see much of a difference in the performance of the two speed wise.

Comparing XFCE to MATE is tricky.

You bet, you have to factor in expectations. preferences, hardware and technical expertise of the user. Lots and lots of variables to account for.

They idle at similar levels, but XFCE becomes slower once you start packing on Gnome 2 dependent packages, unlike MATE.

Have not noticed that but then my standards are low.

A bit off topic, but the usability is the same, since you can customize both to the same degree. And I have yet to hear a single valid reason why Linuxmint continued to do XFCE.

From my point of view XFCE is a useable and stable DE that a significant number of Mint users prefer and the code Elves are accommodating their user base. Enjoy

[nunol]

If everything else is equal XFCE is usually lighter and faster than Gnome2/MATE. How much? It depends on the implementation and on the computer your are using.

Mint 13 XFCE it's made to be a full XFCE distro and not a light XFCE distro so the difference between the XFCE and the MATE desktop is smaller than it could be. Mint is about usability on all DE/WM, not performance, if you want to see a faster XFCE implementation take a look at Crunchbang XFCE or Debian XFCE.

XFCE only makes enough difference in performance from Gnome2/MATE if you have a slow CPU and/or not enough RAM. If you have 1-2GB of RAM it's not because Mint 13 XFCE uses less 50MB of RAM than the MATE edition that you are going to see a performance difference but if you only have 384-512MB of RAM then it will make a difference even if XFCE has some Gnome/MATE stuff installed.

XFCE is a compromise between Gnome2/MATE and LXDE and according to the DE/WM poll (viewtopic.php?f=90&t=100787) it's the third most used desktop after Cinnamon and MATE. If this isn't good enough reason to have a Mint XFCE edition consider that it's also a stable desktop that didn't had big changes in the last few years (Gnome, KDE) and wasn't invented in the last year (Cinnamon, MATE).

In the end it's all about choice, expectations and personal preference and a lot of Mint users use XFCE.

[altair4]

A bit off topic, but the usability is the same, since you can customize both to the same degree. And I have yet to hear a single valid reason why Linuxmint continued to do XFCE.

I have no idea why Mint continues to do XFCE but I can tell you why I use it:

From the blog post: http://blog.xfce.org/

Technically gtk3 is nothing different then gtk2 when it comes to programming. The hard parts are porting of some custom widgets (drawing and size allocation), replacements of some deprecated symbols and link to gtk3 libs. All things a user is not going to notice if we do it right.

Gtk3 is also not faster than gtk2, maybe there are some areas were it got a bit faster, but so there are areas where performance decreased a bit. Nothing shocking here.

An issue I’m aware of is theming issues in gtk3. From what I understand this changed back and forward in gtk 3.0, 3.2 and 3.4. So we need to decide which version we require to get this working consistently, because people will complain if only the Raleigh theme can be used .

From the Xfce point of view there is (again) the resource problem for porting all plugins, because if for example the panel is ported to gtk3, also the plugins need to be ported. Not all goodies are maintained, but usually they work and distros can compile them. If in 4.12 suddenly 50% of the external plugins are not working that will be another thing users will notice.

The difference in my mind is:
(1) A peculiar focus on the end user.

(2) They do not appear to have the Gnome-intes' obsession with equating every Gnome2 feature ( really any feature ) as a bug that needs to be eradicated.

(3) They did not spend valuable resources creating a user interface that is a Proof of Concept project to convince parters that it is the perfect UI for a TV: http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/tv

(4) A level of adult supervision that looks upon the whole of XFCE rather that it's constituent parts in isolation that is severely lacking with Gnome.

(5) Doesn't say silly thing like "gksu leafpad" is unsupported because you shouldn't be using a GUI application as root.

Now it appears that there's only 3 people working on XFCE - The blog author, his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl - which no doubt forces them to think this way but I think that this has turned out to be a benefit.

[linuxviolin]

For several versions now, XFCE is no more "light". But GNOME 3 and its shell and Unity are still heavier, especially Unity, I guess.

If you really want a "light" desktop, you should turn to LXDE...

[aes2011]

...
(5) Doesn't say silly thing like "gksu leafpad" is unsupported because you shouldn't be using a GUI application as root.
...

Some one said something like that about nautilus

[AAAAH!ERMAGAWD!HELP!]

For several versions now, XFCE is no more "light". But GNOME 3 and its shell and Unity are still heavier, especially Unity, I guess.

If you really want a "light" desktop, you should turn to LXDE...

I use Mate for speed and compatibility.

[AllGamer]

you should try Cinnamon on the same machine, instead of Mate or Xfce

from personal experience on low end linux boxes where i had Gnome lagging as hell, but are able to run Xfce just fine, those same boxes can run Cinnamon very nicely

as soon as i realized that installed and made Cinnamon the default desktop on all my low end linux boxes

just an idea, some as old as ATI Rage 128 runs Cinnamon way nicely than it does with Gnome/MATE



.... which brings me back to your original Question why most people think Xfce is light

simply because it works well on low end graphic cards, where Gnome becomes a big hog

[realitykid]

just an idea, some as old as ATI Rage 128 runs Cinnamon way nicely than it does with Gnome/MATE

I wish I could get Cinnamon to work on my ATI Rage 128 Pro. But, it won't work with it. Just gives me a desktop without the bottom bar. So now I just run Arch on that old machine with XFCE. It pretty much just serves to host my backups.

[3fRI]

you should try Cinnamon on the same machine, instead of Mate or Xfce

from personal experience on low end linux boxes where i had Gnome lagging as hell, but are able to run Xfce just fine, those same boxes can run Cinnamon very nicely

as soon as i realized that installed and made Cinnamon the default desktop on all my low end linux boxes

just an idea, some as old as ATI Rage 128 runs Cinnamon way nicely than it does with Gnome/MATE



.... which brings me back to your original Question why most people think Xfce is light

simply because it works well on low end graphic cards, where Gnome becomes a big hog

FWIW, I love LXDE and was disappointed when Mint decided to no longer update it. Currently, I'm running Mint 13 Cinnamon on my iMac, but Mint 13 Xfce on my former (and aging) MacBook (now LinuxBook), which is still pretty nimble. Indeed, Cinnamon is very fast on the iMac and it performed well on my laptop, too, but Mint 13 Xfce is just as fast on the laptop--amazingly fast--and without using a stopwatch, I suspect it's just as fast--if not faster--than when I ran Mint 12 LXDE. Just my 2 cents.

[Wouter_db]

My 2 cts.

Xfce felt just a tad bit more snappier then Mate, and I really, really liked the clean interface. Mem usage was a lower then Mate (less startup progs), and the CPU temp was just a bit lower then Mate. No 'ask before running scripts' bs, and overall more intuitive for me personally.

I switched to Mate because most of the FN keys were not working in Xfce. However after using Mate for some time I really long back to Xfce, it felt much better on my netbook. Right now I'm considering switching back and take the missing FN keys for granted, or wait for the Mint 14 release and hope it's fixed. If not, I probably still switch back.

[Morgan Krieg]

I wish there would be some Windows 98-lightweight desktop environment with the same level of functionality. It's so funny to see all these sluggish desktop environments being called lightweight when Windows 98 still had better performance on a 75mhz processor than they have on a 2400mhz one.

[caerolle]

Morgan, how do you feel about LXDE or e17?

[nunol]

It's so funny to see all these sluggish desktop environments being called lightweight when Windows 98 still had better performance on a 75mhz processor than they have on a 2400mhz one.

Ubuntu without any GUI already is heavier than Windows 98.

[animaguy]

Maybe it depends on your hardware?

That maybe true.

But with the hardware that I have and via my experience...

XFCE wins without debate.

I tried a lot of LinuxMint 13 desktops and XFCE wins on speed alone.

EDIT:

If the other desktops were faster on my hardware then I would drop XCFE.

hardware:

gigabyte ps35 motherboard w/custom desktop

compaq pressario cq60 laptop