If you could create a simple .deb, I would love to try this!

(I know you're not really taking opinions here, but just for consideration) As far as interface goes, I would change the icon view by making the text display only when the icons are clicked and perhaps increasing the size of the icons until they are blurry/or moving them more closer together, maybe into a grid formation.

*random musings* I wonder how the memory consumption of this matches against the hildon desktop?

anyway, good job! I hope you are successful in getting this to a "working/final" stage.