I have always been interested in computers, and would find myself hanging out with the Computer Science students instead of the Aviation Management or Business Management students I was a part of. At home and at work I have been largely self-teaching myself using computers starting with Excel and Access with VBA through ASP and SQL at work. Thankfully my current employer values education, and so I have been taking classes and not only learning the technology, but un-learning what I have been doing wrong over the years. At home, though, I have been teaching myself Linux, system administration, networking and the overall method of migrating our system from Windows to Linux. I am involved in the Danbury Area Computer Society (DACS.org) I have the opportunity to take what I've learned the hard way and hopefully help others.. I have been enjoying Open Source for a while now, and I am hoping to get a better understanding of the entire model and application.
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I like, and keep going back to Xfce often. It's also one of my fallbacks in case anything goes wrong elsewhere. Like Linux is my fallback on any computer I get, Xfce is my fallback desktop environment if Gnome & KDE are a bit too heavy.
I was surprised, though, that KDE actually uses about or less RAM on my systems than Xfce, though the CPU is more.
Xfce is definitely lighter than Gnome and part of it I think is because Xfce doesn't include Evolution (and calendar et. al. components) or Online Accounts (which usually don't work for me). Xfce also doesn't include the integration like Gnome like clicking on the clock to get your calendar and notifications.
I find the Xfce desktop to be more flexible and configurable than KDE, and a lot easier to customize! It harkens back to the days of Gnome 2 for ease and capability to customize the desktop.
For example, trying to change the panel in Gnome or KDE to transparent for me so far requires downloading a theme, or extension, or roll up my sleeves and figure out the actual code.
In Xfce it is right-click on panel > panel properties and in there you can select the color, opacity or image for the background. Gnome hasn't had it this easy since they left Gnome 2!
I've even had Xfce set up for a while where there were NO panels. When the system was booted up (which is pretty quick regardless of the distro) all it showed was the wallpaper and that's it! Right- and Middle-click on the desktop brought up all the menus needed to open files, see everything that is open and on which desktop, etc. I also would keybind the keyboard's "Windows" and "Lists" keys to bring up the same 2 menus. Can't do this with any desktop environment I know of!
First thing I do with Xfce, if it isn't included already, is to install the Whiskers Menu.
Hmmm, sounds like a fun project! Will have to give it a try!