[Osiris]

Source: Get to know Linux: Xfce 4

In this most recent series of articles I have been higlighting various Linux window managers and desktops. Most of them are old school and still very relevant. We’ve examined Fluxbox and Window Maker so far. Both of these are very lightweight and fast. Some of them are more modern than others. This time around we are going to examine a desktop that is more integrated than the others, therefore garnering the title “Desktop Environment” instead of “Window Manger” (Read up on the difference between the two in my article “Get to know Linux: Desktop Environment vs Window Manager“.
Xfce 4 is a fine example of how a full-blown Desktop Environment can be both feature rich as well as light weight. Xfce 4 is based on the GTK+ toolkit which immediately puts in in the same category as GNOME. Xfce started in 1996 and stands for XForms Common Environment (because of the original toolkit it used.) Most users will find Xfce surprisingly on par with most modern PC desktops. Let’s take a look.

[Brinson]

You should look into LXDE. I'm not a huge fan of it but it is most certainly the most polished lightweight WM/DE.