XFCE lost "lightweight" title

Everything relative.

Xfce is still lightweight; the proprietary DEs take what, 2-3 Gb. < 700Mb for a fully operational DE is still light as heck.
Xfce is also noticeable snappier than both Gnome and Plasma. It responds quicker.

I don’t know Deepin’s numbers but as far as I know the heaviest DE at the moment is Cinnamon, being built on a version of Mutter that isn’t the latest. So for Mint users Xfce is definitely a more lightweight option than Cinnamon.

Also, of course, there is the truth that “Unused RAM is wasted RAM” and a very low footprint at boot looks cool on screenshots, but unless you actually have any issues what matters is how the system behaves after hours of uptime and proper usage.

11 Likes