Hmm, it seems that updating Xfce4 has borked the install—in so much as none of the panel plugins work. Xfce4 itself seems to be O.K. but I can’t even get the Xfce Menu to appear in the panel, after using the option to migrate my panel settings almost nothing works o/. Guess whoever it was on the Zenwalk mailing list was right about the new Xfce not being ready for the lime light.
Giving KDE 4.5.4 a clean shot, results in an almost two minute wait to load, before it finally crashes back out to my XDM screen. To be fair on a second run (after rm -rf ~/.kde && sudo reboot) it is closer to 1 minute >_>.
Next up, using GNOME. Less than 30 seconds for the *first* run and I had a usable desktop. At least, something in this world works. After rebooting, going from log in to a usable desktop was approximately the same time frame. That’s cool.
I have never been a big fan of the old GNOME but I will usually be the first to admit, it gets the fuck out of your way and lets you get shit done. But Xfce4 is faster!!!
So I guess for right now, the old GNOME is my defacto-standard desktop :-/. Hey, if it works. Hell, all I really use the “Desktop” for amounts to a system tray, wall paper, and a way to switch between windows. 90% of what I do, is done in an X Terminal anyway.
The thing that I do care about, is that It Just Works and Doesn’t Annoy Me Constantly.