I took the same approach initially, and I'm also using xfce now. That being said, a lot of the programs I use fall under the GNOME umbrella at some level, and I'm slowly starting to see more "new GNOME" leak into my desktop than I would like. I'm specifically referring to the style, arrangement, and (lack of) configurability in the upper region of the window.

Here's an example of an archive manager today (xfce on debian unstable): http://ugcs.caltech.edu/~ohazi/misc/file-roller-gnome.png

What it used to look like: http://repo.openpandora.org/files/pnd/fileroller/previews/fi...

This is slowly happening with a lot of applications that I use regularly.

> What is it that GNOME devs do that is so valuable and unique?

In my opinion the biggest problem is that they still control mainline GTK. Many of the high quality Linux desktop apps "automatically" fall under the GNOME umbrella because of this, and it's going to take a lot more than just switching to xfce to get them back out. It's become pretty clear to me that GNOME is trying to become a mobile first platform, and that they'd like to take many of my desktop applications with them. I'm not really sure what a good long term solution to this problem is.

There is no mobile agenda. Maybe when GTK4 comes out.

It's a political thing, at least in part. GNOME was created because some Linux folks liked the KDE environment, but didn't like the license parts of it were under at the time. KDE later changed its license, but by then, GNOME had its own community that didn't want to go back. And of course, it has the word "GNU" in the name, which gets some folks misty-eyed.

Red Hat is probably the biggest sugar daddy GNOME has. They've always shipped a GNOME desktop as their default desktop in RHEL, and they employ a lot of the GNOME developers.

Xfce is, in my opinion, a better and more focused desktop, but it was "not invented there" and so doesn't get very much PR from Red Hat. Ubuntu, of course, is pushing their own crappy desktop and doesn't have any incentive to make people aware of alternatives. Most of the Xfce devs are in Europe, I think.

Arguably, what happened here is that Microsoft Windows jumped off a cliff, and GNOME and Unity said, "wow! let's do that." The idea of having the same interface on a tablet as on a desktop is an old one with Microsoft (it's why Windows CE was such a flop) but it just keeps coming up again at that company. Now I think some people are starting to see the pavement approaching at terminal velocity. Hopefully we'll get our start menus and windows back in the next year or two (from Redmond and GNOME).

Have you used GNOME 3.10 or any recent one for at elast a couple of days?

I run GNOME 3 because it underpins Debian and Debian is the least fragmented developer-friendly Linux desktop. It's got the reliability I need for a work environment and the shininess that makes me happy and is as usable out-of-the-box as OSX, Windows 7, or Ubuntu. Also I appreciate Abiword and Gnumeric, GNOME's word processor and spreadsheet respectively, for sucking the least among their FOSS alternatives. I donate.

Debian shipped Xfce for a while as the default (I'm not sure what the latest default is).

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/11/debian-8-0-switches-xfce-...

In general, most of the GNOME devs work for Red Hat. Debian is not really that closely associated with GNOME, and a lot of the Debian devs have gotten annoyed by GNOME decisions in the past. I think the latest example was when GNOME started to depend on systemd, some Debian developers were annoyed.

Thanks for the info. I trust Debian to make good decisions about the new init system and the default desktop environment. If they go with Xfce I will not complain (and it'll be a nice boon for Xfce development; potentially a win-win).

I like Debian as well. I wish they were more popular than "that other distro" that copies their work without contributing much back. I think the move to systemd is a good idea.

Oh, I forgot about applications. It's probably because they've very loosely coupled to the rest of GNOME (unlike KDE applications and KDE). By the way, if you like Abiword, you might also like LyX.

How does Gnome "underpin" Debian?

Poor word choice. Nevertheless the default desktop environment is a key characteristic of a distribution.

Have a serious look at KDE.

Individual GNOME utilities are fine, but the GNOME 3 environment as a whole was a flop for me. The tight coupling (try removing separate GNOME tools on Debian, it forces you to get rid of a ton of other libraries and then suggest to autoremove the entire set, including the display manager) and finally mandatory systemd integration were the last straws.

I haven't used a DE in a while, though. A basic composite/tiling WM is enough. Anything else is superfluous, although I do enjoy Xfce.