by nomko » Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:42
Iĺl give it a shot... Mate was forked from the old Gnome2 desktop environment. With MATE the "standard" applications for the Gnome desktop are installed as default, with this LibreOffice which is a more heavier, full-riched office application. These "standard" applications do require more space. The MATE desktop can run on low memory/spec systems as well on more modern systems.
Xfce on the other hand, was designed to run on low-spec/low-memory systems. Keeping this fact in mind, the Xfce desktop provides low-spec/low-memory applications which doesn need as much system resources as "standard" applications, under Xfce the office application LibreOffice is not installed but replaced by Gnumeric and Abiword or, as mentioned by the topic starter, gOffice. By removing system resource consuming application and replace them with lesser memory and system resources consuming application, the Xfce desktop is much lighter than, let's say, the Gnome3 desktop or Cinnamon or KDE. This can result in lesser disc space.
ASUS P5KPL-AM SE*Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8200*4 GiB ram*nVidia GeForce 9500GT*Realtek RTL8101/8102E*Optiarc DVD-RW AD-7200A*HDD:Samsung HD501LJ/HD103SI*Sitecom X5-N600 Router