I use i3-wm, with no desktop environment, and with a custom status bar I wrote myself; I otherwise start all programs from xterm. I have xterm for the terminal

I use i3-wm, with no desktop environment, and with a custom status bar I wrote myself; I otherwise start all programs from xterm. I have xterm for the terminal emulator. For text editing I use vim, and for email I use Heirloom-mailx, and for Usenet/Unusenet I use bystand, and for IRC I use my own IRC client (which even has syntax highlighting). 4GB RAM, 500GB hard disk (although I only use 5% of the available disk space so far), DVD writer drive.