Speaking of Gnome's speed. Version 2.8 is the first version of Gnome where I've actually started to use Nautilus. Up until this point it was just too god damn slow. While it isn't fantastically fast it is however fast enough to be quite usable. And I actually kinda like the "spatial" mode that everyone bitched about when it first came out. I like the fact that it remembers what size and where you put windows. I would however quite like it to resolve symlinks to absolute paths for remembering folder/file emblems etc. It also seems to forget thumbnails too quickly. (Me glares at GStreamer which seems to have stopped creating AVI thumbs for no apparent reason). I would also quite like it to have some sort of configurable trail of windows. I'm not too happy about all the windows that appear when you borrow deep into a directory tree. Shift Double Click closes windows behind you but there needs to be some sort of middle ground.
The main issue with XFCE, in my opinion, is that it is meant to look more or less like Gnome, but has far less functionality--so unlike with WMs like Flux, you feel a bit cheated. Yes, the functionality of Gnome comes at the price of a little speed, but let's be fair: the functionality, now, is *good*; Gnome is a very solid gui in my opinion. And the speed tradeoff is not significant--Gnome runs fine on my P3 500 with 256 MB RAM. Not as snappily as it could, but not slowly enough that I ever find myself getting annoyed (although I do use the console a lot as well to be fair). With window managers like Flux or even Enlightenment and its kin, they're used very differently, so you can't really compare them with Gnome/KDE. Unfortunately for XFCE, it seems to target the same users as those of Gnome/KDE, relying basically on its speed to make up for lack of features--and in my opinion, it doesn't really stack up.
-- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com