<!-- DOCTYPE preface PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN" -->

<preface id="intro">

  <title>Introduction</title>
  <subtitle><emphasis>By Olivier Fourdan</emphasis></subtitle>

  <para>
  The XFce project was first started because I needed a simple, light 
  and efficient environment for my Linux System.
  </para>
   
  <para>
  There are now a lot of good environments and interfaces for Unix based 
  systems, but most are either too heavy,  too expensive or even both !
  </para>
   
  <para>
  I wanted something easy to use and configure, stable, fast, and  last 
  but not least, visually appealing...
  </para>
   
  <para>
  I believe that the desktop environment should increase user productivity. 
  Therefore, the goal is to keep most system resources for the applications 
  and not to consume all memory and CPU usage for what is used to display 
  them.
  </para>
   
  <para>
  From version to version, XFce has become more and more user configurable. 
  As XFce is made for the user, it has to be very simple to configure. 
  That's why everything is driven by the mouse, using buttons, drag and 
  drop, etc., and the configuration files are hidden from the user, 
  although they are plain text.
  </para>
  
  <figure>
    <title>Typical XFce desktop</title>
    <screenshot>
      <screeninfo>Desktop screenshot</screeninfo>
      <graphic fileref="../images/xfce_snap">
    </screenshot>
  </figure>

</preface>

