As an ex-Gnome and ex-KDE user, I decided a while ago that I didn't need the excessive packaging that came with these desktop environments (DEs). Instead, I wanted a completely personalized setup, with vim-inspired replacements. This would not only improve my productivity (by giving me an exciting work-space), but also improve my understanding of the underlying system and the myraid interconnections put in place by the main DEs. It also gave me an excuse to learn and implement Lua and BASH scripting. So far, my setup involves several console/text based programs, many of which are lovely in appearance and elegance(noted by (t)). The list follows:
Archlinux 64-bit
Awesome Window Manager (which is aptly named :-)
GIMP (no way around using this great program)
Eclipse (for Java and android development)
(t)Irssi (text-based IRC chat client)
(t)Rxvt-Unicode (to provide 256 color support for w3m )
OpenOffice
Firefox
Chrome
ATI Radeon open-source driver
feh
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(the following programs were chosen for their vim-based keybindings)
(t)w3m (small, efficient, graphics capable text web-browser)
Apvlv PDF Viewer
(t)Ranger File Manager
Vimperator firefox-plugin
(t)vim & gVim
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The main problem with using text-based programs is that they lack the polish and interconnectivity of GTK/qt/GUI-based programs. However, they're lighter, faster, and largely keyboard-dependent (thus less likely to slow you down by requiring you to reach over to the mouse :-).
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