GNOME vs KDE Which should i choose?

[novaiceblaze]

Hey guys I'm a newbie at linux and am not particularly good with computers. I have a 4 year old DELL computer with 512 gb of RAM. Here's my dillema: I want to choose between Kubuntu and Ubuntu, yeah i know they are essentially the same thing, but what is the difference between KDE and GNOME? I just want an OS that is organized fast and is able to run many and a wide variaty of programs. Any help at all would be great :) At the moment i am kind of leaning towards Ubuntu

[rsambuca]

Best thing is to try them both and see for yourself.

[Zill]

novaiceblaze: You don't really want to start a holy war do you? ;-)

Both Desktop Environments plus others you haven't even mentioned such as XFCE should do what you want. It really is a matter of personal taste.

The great thing about most Linux distros is that you can just download a disk and then run the CD directly without needing to install to your hdd. This is a great way to test distros before installing.

Give Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu a try and see which you prefer.

Just remember that running a distro directly from a CD is much slower than an installed version, and you may not have all the "bells & whistles" - these can be added later to the final installed system.

[aysiu]

There is no objective way to choose based on relative merits when you're picking Gnome v. KDE.

If you want opinions, you'll get KDE fans saying you should use KDE and Gnome fans saying you should use Gnome.

The bottom line is you have two choices:
1. Arbitrarily pick one and just stick with it
2. Try both and see which one you like better

[rsambuca]

The bottom line is you have two choices:
1. Arbitrarily pick one and just stick with it
2. Try both and see which one you like better
or 3. Do some research on the differences and pick one (not necessarily an arbitrary choice)

[aysiu]

or 3. Do some research on the differences and pick one (not necessarily an arbitrary choice)
It's pretty arbitrary. Without having tried the two environments yourself, it's hard to get any kind of objective information on them in order to make an informed decision based on research.

[snova]

There is no objective way to choose based on relative merits when you're picking Gnome v. KDE.

If you want opinions, you'll get KDE fans saying you should use KDE and Gnome fans saying you should use Gnome.

Yep, that's pretty much how it goes. Try to guess where I stand from my post. :)

The difference is mostly on the platforms they base themselves on. Gnome is written on top of the GTK+ toolkit, and KDE uses Qt 3 (more recently they have migrated to Qt 4 in the form of KDE 4). I don't know what Xfce is built on, but I think it might be GTK+.

Since both toolkits do their own drawing, programs from one DE will generally look slightly out of place when run from the other.

If you have a fast internet connection, try both. Download live CD's for Ubuntu and Kubuntu and decide which you like more. But try not to judge them on superficial things that can be changed easily.

Now for the (probably) biased part...

As a general rule, KDE programs are fantasically configurable. The settings dialogs are tabbed, sometimes both horizontally and vertically (in the form of icons). Kmail, for example, even allows you to set MIME headers to custom values.

The focus of Gnome, to the best of my knowledge, is for an uncomplicated user experience that tries to do The Right Thing automatically. If you come from Windows (who doesn't?) you'll also notice that the interface is rather different in that there is a bar on the bottom and also on the top, which I think is a neat idea.

(You can do this with KDE but it interacts badly with panel transparency. Of course, you can also make it work the way it does on Mac OS X, and contain the window's menu bar.)

KDE is closer to Windows in this regard, but again- "fantastically configurable". My equivalent to the taskbar is somewhat taller than in Windows, and has: eleven buttons, a list of windows, another button, an audio mixer, followed by nine icons in the systray. Then there's a clock with the time, day of the week, and day/month/year on it. Lastly is a graphic of the current phase of the moon. The whole thing is transparent to the desktop background.

Most KDE programs are prefixed with K, as in Kicker, Korganizer, Kalzium, and so on. Gnome programs are similarly afflicted, but with the G.

Hopefully I've given you a taste. Unfortunately, you've probably gotten a bigger taste of KDE than Gnome, since I use that one.

[cardinals_fan]

I would recommend Xfce. It's much lighter, but will still do everything the big boys can.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I would say Gnome might be a bit better to start off with right now as KDE3 is on the way out and KDE4 is on the way in and currently in my opinion KDE4 has too many issues to make it a option.
Granted its gotten better since its first release but I feel KDE4 still has a lot of progress to go before I consider it as my main DE.

[irrdev]

Right now, KDE is undergoing a huge developement process with the new KDE 4.x desktop. As a result, it isn't nearly as stable as Gnome. I think that KDE 4 will outshine Gnome in the near future (ie. 1 year from now), but for a new user, you probably don't want to experience any ruff edges at the beginning. Therefore, go with Ubuntu for now, but I would definitely recommend that you check out Kubuntu releases down the road. ;)

[fballem]

I'm a relative newbie, coming from a Windows world. I think that KDE will be really good when their large migration is complete. For now, it is definitely a work in progress.

It is highly configurable, but it is also complex. Finding out what you need to do to make it work for you can be a challenge.

For this reason, I use ubuntu (GNOME). There was a learning curve - it's not Windows - but that learning curve was not too steep.

In about a year (probably for 9.10), I'll look at kubuntu, but for now, I am quite happy with ubuntu. I have also converted a client from Windows to ubuntu and she has found the learning curve to be relatively simple.

Strangely enough, if you are coming from a Windows XP/Office 2003 world, the ubuntu learning curve is easier than the one to Windows Vista/Office 2007. I had been a long term user of Windows XP/Office 2003 and I could never get comfortable with Vista/Office 2007 - the interface had changed so much that things I used to be able to do easily were now really hard.

Hope this helps,

[doorknob60]

KDE 4 :) (NOT Hardy's KDE4 Remix, that's like 6 months outdated). If you wanna try KDE 4 (My favorite DE of all time so far), the best way would be install Kubuntu Intrepid Beta (It's pretty stable now). It's quite a bit better than Kubuntu 8.04 IMO.

[frankleeee]

I would recommend Xfce. It's much lighter, but will still do everything the big boys can.

Agreed, and a lighter distribution, also called Xubuntu.

[cardinals_fan]

Agreed, and a lighter distribution, also called Xubuntu.
Xubuntu is as close as Xfce can come to being bloated. The GNOME contamination revolts me, but I'm sure it's useful for some.