Vlogcanic

Xfce is a desktop graphical environment for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD or Solaris.

Roughly around the same time in which KDE’s founder was going about the development of a substitute for the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) with another more usable and homegeneous one there was another guy, Olivier Fourdan, thinking about a free Linux clone for CDE.

The project started in 1996 and was initially based upon XForms –hence the name, XForms Common Environment or XFce. Nowadays the name is anachronistic because Xfce is no longer based on XForms but on GTK, the Gnome development platform, so the old capital F is now commonly demoted to a humble minuscule.

Xfce is peculiar in some ways: all of the configuration is point and click, and the corresponding text files are not easily accesible to the less experienced users. The best known feature in Xfce is probably the low amount of resources it needs to run –less RAM memory and disk space than Gnome or KDE, but more than Fluxbox.This also means it’s not as rich in features, and maybe that is why it’s never been as popular as some other, heavier, desktop environments, but Xfce is nevertheless very appreciated by users looking for a very efficient desktop environment or for one that can be used in more limited or older hardware.
Because of its leaness is the GUI of choice for some distros aimed to high portability or high efficiency such as Zenwalk
Linux, Xubuntu, Vector Linux, SLAX or Saxen.