A lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems.
Xfce (each letter pronounced separately) is a lightweight desktop environment for unix-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use.
Xfce 4 embodies the goal of the traditional unix philosophy of modularity and reusability. It consists of a number of components that together provide the full functionality of the desktop environment. Many are packaged separately and you can pick and choose from the available packages to create the best personal working environment. Another priority of Xfce 4 is adherence to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop.org.
Xfce 4 can be installed on several UNIX platforms. It is known to compile on linux, netbsd, freebsd, openbsd, solaris, cygwin and macosx, on x86, ppc, sparc, and more.
History
Olivier Fourdan started the project in 1996. The name Xfce originally stood for XForms Common Environment, but since then Xfce has been rewritten twice and doesn't use the XForms toolkit anymore. The name survived, but the F is no longer capitalized.
Sources and more information
