I've been using vanilla Debian w/XFCE as my development desktop for years now, and it has been great. I am especially fond of the Guake terminal (http://guake-

I've been using vanilla Debian w/XFCE as my development desktop for years now, and it has been great. I am especially fond of the Guake terminal (http://guake-project.org http://guake-project.org). It is just a translucent terminal that swoops up/down from the top with a keypress.