[UM-LINUX] A lighter weight (but still friendly) desktop

[Nick Cummings]

I really like having a nice Desktop environment where things can be done 
with a minimum of hassle.  While I generally feel I'm up to the task of 
figuring out most software, it's not how I prefer to spend my little free 
time.  As a result, I've been using Gnome and KDE desktops for the last 
few years and have generally been pretty happy with both.  However, one of 
my machines is older (Celeron 800 w/ 256 MB RAM) and both of these 
desktops are a bit sluggish there, so I'd like to take a look at switching 
to a lighter weight desktop.

I realize that features take system resources.  I'm willing to do with a 
few less features (and I'm completely willing to get rid of most of the 
eye-candy features), but I'd like to still have a fairly user friendly 
desktop, perhaps "the next step down" from Gnome and KDE.  What 
suggestions do people have for desktop environments I should check out?

In the past I've heard people suggest desktops built around Xfce, IceWM, 
Blackbox, and Fluxbox.  Are any of these good candidates?  Will I really 
see any significant difference in responsiveness?  Given how happy I've 
been with Ubuntu, I'm tempted to try Xubuntu, the Ubuntu spinoff based 
around Xfce4.

Thanks,

Nick