A preview of the Xfce 4.4 Desktop environment

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Xfce is a light and flexible desktop alternative. We took a look at what’s coming with the latest version.

If you want a user friendly and GUI-configurable desktop without the glut of Gnome and KDE applications, you may wonder if you have any choices. You can build Fluxbox into a nicely functional desktop once you add components such as a icon manager and pager, but it is still has some limitations. If you have slightly older hardware that cannot run KDE and GNOME at a usable speed, and if you’re looking for an alternative that provides this middle ground between the big desktops and the lightweight window managers, try Xfce. Xfce is designed to be lightweight but still easy to use and configure – without the need for manual editing of configuration files. The Xfce developers have created a desktop that is fast but still visually appealing. Xfce embodies the traditional UNIX philosophy of modularity and re-usability. The Xfce environment consists of a number of components that together provide a desktop with full functionality.