I’m glad to see I’m not alone. David Gerard of Pivot to AI fame recently shared this post he wrote in 2012:
The question of what is a minimal desktop is a fine line between as simple as possible and a little too simple. How much basic stuff do you have to add back in? 4.8 took it a little too far, 4.10 is almost perfect. XFCE is still a case study in not fucking it up; I hope they never go to version 5, and just update to version 4 forever.
It cannot be overstated that (a) longevity and (2) achieving the right balance. For example, this is my current Xfce desktop:
except, no, it’s not like thatThis is a screenshot of my FreeBSD desktop from 2008, with the bright and clear Tango iconset (talk about high-water marks), Remember when iconography could be recognized at a glance? Aka, functional as a symbol? but I digress,
Xfce in 2025 (no, 2026, damn it!) is as easy, light, and fast to understand as it was when I was in school, or booting up Cobind on my HP Brio for the first time when building it from source in a FreeBSD port. However, unlike barebones window managers or other “lite” DEs, Xfce feels usable, full-featured, and designed by someone who understands why people use desktop computers (cough GNOME).
I use KDE on my primary desktop. Version 4 was messed up, but they’ve made up on a large scale Improvement, especially within the last year. I’m not sure how much of this has to do with the Steam Deck, and a new generation of people realizing… wait… I can run stuff on this box besides games? There’s a desktop here!? But all my laptops run Xfce, and I’m eager to move it back to the desktop.
I’m here with David. I hope they never feel the need to equate “innovation” with “disruption” for the sake of “UX”. Switching to the Thunar file manager was the last major user-facing change that I remember, and it was great.
I’m not suggesting we’ve reached peak UI with Xfce, but no desktop since has made a compelling case (to me) for its replacement. I love, Love, Love Xfce has remained that way despite all the pressure from the industry to change it to something else.
Disclaimer
I put off writing posts like this for years, out of fear of how people from specific desktop environments would react. If you are going to write me a complaint in anger, know that I will immediately delete it and block you, just like I did last time. Both your time and mine are better spent.
I also know (sigh) this disclaimer will be ignored, so I’m questioning why I bother. Maybe I’m greedy for punishment.
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