by lproven | 2026-01-23 10:57:29+00:00
This is quite interesting. As before, what you find is the reverse of what I find.

> I've used Xfce quite a lot in the past and quite honestly most of the "customisation" in it is confusing to use and poorly thought out.

In places, it can be. For instance, the virtual-desktop switcher: you can choose how many in 1 place, how many rows to show in the panel in another place, and how to switch in a 3rd place. This shows it evolved over time. It's not ideal but it it works.

But the big point is, it's there. I'd rather have confusing customisation (as Xfce can be) than no customisation like GNOME.

> I've also found these "light DEs" to be less snappy than Gnome.

I find the reverse.

> I believe this is because it takes advantage of the GPU acceleration better

Some do, yes. But I avoid dedicated GPUs for my hardware, and most of the time, I run in VMs where GPU acceleration is flakey. So I'd rather tools that don't need hardware for performance to tools that require it.

Here's some stuff I wrote about that thirteen years ago.

https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/33987.html

I really have been working with this for a while now. I am not some kid who just strolled in and has Opinions.

> The extra memory usage I don't really care about.

You should. More code = more to go wrong.

When I compared Xfce and GNOME for an article a few years ago I compared their bug trackers.

GNOME: about 45,000 open bugs.

Xfce: about 15,000 open bugs.

This stuff matters. It is not just about convenience or performance.

> But realistically you can't do much with that anyway.

News: yeah you can. Billions have little choice.

The best-selling single model range of computers since the Commodore 64 is the Raspberry Pi range, and the bulk of the tens of millions of them they've sold have 1GB RAM -- or less. There is no way to upgrade.

> Also Gnome (with Wayland) does a lot of stuff that Xfce can't do properly.

I always hear this. I had to sit down with a colleague pumping this BS when I worked for SUSE and step by step, function by function, prove to him that Xfce could do every single function he could come up with in KDE and GNOME put together.

> This is normally to do with HiDPI scaling,

Don't care. I am 58. I can't see the difference. So I do not own any HiDPI monitors. Features that only young people with excellent eyesight can even see is is ageist junk.

> different refreshrates.

Can't see them either. I haven't cared since LCDs replaced CRTs. It does not matter. I can't see any flicker so I don't care. See above comment.

> I just tried the workspace switcher. I can switch virtual desktops with Super + Scroll on any desktop. I can also choose virtual desktops on both screens by using the Super + A and then there is virtual desktop switcher on each screen.

You're missing the point and you are reinforcing the GNOME team's taking away my choices. I told you that I can't arrange things where I want -- even with extensions. Your reply is "it works anyway".

I didn't say it didn't work. I said I hate the arrangement and it is forced on me and I have no choice.

> I just tried it on Gnome 48 on Debian 13 right now. It is pretty close to what you are describing.

It is not even similar.

> I think people just want to complain about Gnome because it is opinionated. I also don't like KDE.

I complain about GNOME because I have been studying GUI design and operation and human-computer interaction for 38 years and GNOME took decades of accumulated wisdom and experience and threw it out because they don't understand it.

> I install two extensions on desktop. Dash to Dock and Appindicators plugins. On the light DEs and Window Managers, I was always messing about with settings and thing always felt off.

So you are happy with it. Good for you. Can you at least understand that others hate it and have strong valid reasons for hating it and that it cripples us?