I've heard that Xfce is lighter and faster, but have you really checked whether it is still so? I performed some superficial testing when I needed to install a simple system that could run a browser on an old computer and I didn't find any noticeable advantage myself. And I have read that lightness is no more a focus of development.
I installed several Linux systems consequentially on a USB flash drive, booted my laptop and measured memory consumption at system startup and when running a single instance of Firefox browser pointed to a certain website. Here's what I measured:
OS | RAM | RAM (w/FF)
xubuntu 8.04.1 183 (didn't run FF on this)
xubuntu 10.04.-RC 157 187
ubuntu 10.04-RC desktop 160 228
ubuntu 10.04-RC netbook 162 219
Tiny Core Linux 2.10 43 (failed to permanently install FF here)
I wanted to try NetBSD and other systems, but I failed to install them on a USB stick.
Tiny Core is a special Linux distribution in a way that it doesn't have much of anything installed by default, but you can "mount" applications and drivers as you need. I very much appreciate the fact that you are getting "clean slate" each time you boot, but in my case I needed to install Firefox permanently, which is doable, but not a default way of doing things. I haven't figured out how to do it, or Tiny Core would be ideal for me.
As far as differences between Ubuntu and Xubuntu go, I didn't see any significant advantage of Xfce here. Both systems could run on a 256 MB system, hardly on 128 MB. On the other hand, I didn't see any disadvantage either. To my eyes, xubuntu system looked very much like ubuntu I use.
Forget about the memory usage - most computers have at least 1 GB of memory these days. What about things that matter, like load time on login, lag when interacting with the UI, etc.?
That's the thing, I didn't see any difference (granted, that was on my quite recent laptop, but that's what I had for testing). Memory constraint was real in my case: I was going to use this on a computer that had either 256 MB or less.
I guess as a rule of thumb if you don't care about memory usage, you don't need to care about 2D graphics performance either.
I don't think that's true - I have a machine with 4 GB RAM & a 2.x Core 2 Quad. I have no memory problems, but I do have lag when using KDE or GNOME that's not present with Openbox. I haven't tried Xfce so I can't comment on it, but I'm guessing it's at least a little better than KDE/GNOME.
I don't use Xubuntu; on Xubuntu a lot of other crap runs along with Xfce so it is not fair to compare it to just a system running Xfce and no extra dependencies that are there for added functionality they thought was needed.
Yes, compared to gnome XFCE on my 700 Mhz, 192 MB ram laptop starts extremely fast and is ready for use, along with Epiphany (browser) it is a stable little machine that boots faster than my Mac OS X laptop which I have for daily use, but it off course has more limitations, no having 5 pages of documentation open (PDF's, and HTML) and a chat client, couple of gvim's and compiling massive projects. But it works well enough for development with Python when I am on the road and don't want to have to worry about the US border patrol going through my laptop and files.
I'd love to replace that old laptop with another ultra-portable (old Toshiba Portege, thinest laptop of its time), but I don't have the money, so until that time Xfce does everything I need it, and more with a lot less bloat than KDE or Gnome.
I always thought that the "lightweight" part of Xfce was about it not being inextricably wound around all the dbus and HAL stuff that gets pulled in with Gnome, and it not running an entire parallel configuration and system management system. (When I do use Ubuntu I regularly end up disembowelling ignoring or uninstalling NetworkManager and other pesky under-documented black magic GUI only tools)
xubuntu became very bloated very fast. From v8 onwards I never saw any advantage over vanilla ubuntu. I think at one point they even announced that they weren't aiming to be "light ubuntu" any more.
Lubuntu, however, is the best thing since sliced bread. I've got a 7 year old 1.2Ghz, 256Mb ultra-laptop that starts faster than my workstation.
I installed several Linux systems consequentially on a USB flash drive, booted my laptop and measured memory consumption at system startup and when running a single instance of Firefox browser pointed to a certain website. Here's what I measured:
I wanted to try NetBSD and other systems, but I failed to install them on a USB stick.Tiny Core is a special Linux distribution in a way that it doesn't have much of anything installed by default, but you can "mount" applications and drivers as you need. I very much appreciate the fact that you are getting "clean slate" each time you boot, but in my case I needed to install Firefox permanently, which is doable, but not a default way of doing things. I haven't figured out how to do it, or Tiny Core would be ideal for me.
As far as differences between Ubuntu and Xubuntu go, I didn't see any significant advantage of Xfce here. Both systems could run on a 256 MB system, hardly on 128 MB. On the other hand, I didn't see any disadvantage either. To my eyes, xubuntu system looked very much like ubuntu I use.