What is the "goodness of XFCE on an Ubuntu base"?
To me it sounds like a step down, since XFCE is a bit less polished and functional. I suppose a minority of users might prefer its layout, but in general XFCE is mimicking the streamlined look and feel of Gnome only using lighter weight options (not just apps, stuff like thunar file manager).
When you put XFCE on a gnome base you reduce it to being a cosmetic shell, and as a cosmetic shell its really nothing special when you already have Gnome.
Then you end up with a bunch of confused individuals who think that XFCE is not a lite weight contender because its nearly as slow as Gnome/KDE and lacking functionality (whats the point?), and in exchange for virtually no performance boost you also sacrifice a bit of functionality.....not as much as if you switched to LXDE, but still..Then you have people trying to argue that its just a different approach and that it can compete with Gnome and KDE on its own....Maybe it can if you pile on the features. With all the gnome eye candy enabled it gives Gnome a run for its money actually, but its not lite weight on ANY base at that point. In general I think its a tough sell. XFCE deserves its place among lightning fast operating systems like XFCE, being only slightly heavier and a lot more functional and a lot more upgradeable and customizable.
I hope that moving XFCE to a debian base (hopefully not a Gnome base on debian
...) will help people realize that XFCE really is a contender for ultra fast desktop environments, but we will probably get more of the same foolishness and people just assume that 100% of the benefits is from moving to Debian rather than recognizing that part of being that its not piled ontop of a Gnome base.
XFCE is lightning fast on a good computer, potentially faster than LXDE since it stores more in ram if you got it while LXDE requires more communication with the hard drive......Maybe its not QUITE as lite on legacy hardware, but its not any slower. People still think that XFCE isnt fast or good for their needs if they want speed, at least compared to LXDE....On moderate hardware, p4/Athlon or better, 512mb ram, I would say that XFCE can be faster than LXDE simply because apps get loaded into ram while LXDE has to reload everything each time even during the same session as a ram saving approach on outdated hardware.......Also, its NOT just a matter of not loading all the features and eye candy either. Its really about the additional gnome libraries, and while I am no expert I believe that XFCEs compatibility with gnome might mean that its even more greatly slowed down by adding too many gnome libraries than another distro like LXDE might be. There just isnt any point unless you absolutely love the layout, and I think its a tough sell to most users.....which explains the strong preference for LXDE.....Not that LXDE isnt a great distro and good on hardware even too outdated for XFCE, but XFCE isnt getting the appreciation it deserves.
Thats what you get from "adding the goodness of XFCE on a Gnome base".