Linux Mint Forums

Just a dumb newbie question,....
I just installed the Xfce desktop environment on Linux Mint 5,...and am very happy with the results! But I've also heard that it's better all the way around, just to use a distro that's already made with the Xfce environment (rather than downloading it,...and adding it on). The result is supposed to be a faster,..less "bloated" distro. I can't tell the difference. (But then,...I'm just a year into using linux in general,..so what do I know?)

Linux Mint 5 (Gnome) seems to be running quite "snappy" with Xfce, on this old machine ( PIII 1Ghz 512ram 160G hd).
I thought about using Xubuntu,...(and spending all that time downloading the codecs with my slow dialup)...or just using the great Mint I already have....(and adding the Xfce on).

Would switching to the Xfce edition of Linux Mint work any better (than this downloading Xfce to Mint5)?
Seems to be working quite well. I must say it's the best of all worlds for me (having the codecs already in the distro,...and a "light" desktop,..and a nice large repository).

This won't answer your question, but it's the best I can muster at this time..

If you're happy with how your system is running, why bother switching

To attempt a better answer I'd say this. I think (but am not sure) you'd get close to the same effect. X is still running I think and you just an Xfce window manager on top of it instead of the gnome desktop environment when it starts. To be sure there are libraries, etc installed on your system that come from Gnome that take up space, but I don't believe they would be loaded when Xfce starts, just when Gnome does.

I don't think you'd see a noticeable difference.

I guess it depends on what you want. You are running XFCE on top of Mint but not the complete XFCE Mint. If you like what you see so far you'd probably like the fully tweaked version even better as it includes several performance improvements. It might worth going over the release notes to see whether it's for you or not.

Thanks for all the good replys,...(and so sorry to have been away from my computer for awhile,..and not seen them until now).
I did install Xfce onto the regular Gnome Mint,...and I must say it's a LOT better than Xubuntu for sure! IMO
I had been toying with the idea of using Zenwalk,..(because of it's Xfce interface and symplicity)...but I am actually liking Mint (Xfce)..and don't think I'll switch .....(except maybe to get the official Linux Mint Xfce edition.). It works so well,...and has the all that great Deb and Ubuntu repositories too.