[dkhenry]

That ~400M of ram comes with other penalities then just thw space it takes up. This is the problem firefox got into. they just kept getting bigger continually saying ram is cheap and desktops have tons of ram. Just because I have 8Gb of ram doesn't mean I want my WM taking up all of it. What do I get for all that ram anyway. I get to have my desktop composed using javascript. This is why people left for XFCE this isn't a small subset of XMonad users, there are actually lots of people in between who want a windowed desktop, but don't want a huge heavy enviroment. GNOME can be that desktop.

[jiggy2011]

I guess I wouldn't consider Gnome a "heavy" desktop, at least not any heavier than Windows 7 or Mac OS desktops.

I don't think ~400MB for a window manager on a dekstop is a big deal in 2012 and being able to compose your desktop using javascript is a breath of fresh air vs using old arcane APIs. When you have as much excess horsepower as you do in a modern PC (for most tasks) it seems wasteful not to use some of it to make your life easier.