KDE and GNOME

Snice you work with unix/linux creaky u must have must of used a fear few of distros lol

 

I have gone from Slackware (Slamd64) to openSUSE to Ubuntu to Kubuntu to Xubuntu and then back to Kubuntu, and now I use Gentoo on AMD64. Of course I used GNOME on Ubuntu and Xfce on Xubuntu (out of those 2 I prefer Xfce). On Slamd64 the default was KDE, and this was the same for openSUSE and Kubuntu (both specially made KDE versions for the distro).

After trying other window managers as well in Gentoo, including twm (sometimes known as the "last resort" wm, but it is very very very lightweight), icewm (also very lightweight, very fast, comparable to Windows 95 interface but much faster), and fluxbox (also very lightweight but it doesn't look pretty imo). I use KDE, and with Gentoo's USE flags, my KDE is very fast, much faster than the KDE that comes with Kubuntu, and a little faster than the one with openSUSE. Of course, it took 10 hours to build it from source, but it was worth every second.

I do not know if I can recommend Gentoo as a beginner Linux. It does not really really require you to know anything, just the ability to follow very detailed instructions when first getting it going. The best way to go is probably Ubuntu for anyone right now. It is a little bit bloated IMO but the community is huge and the forums are extremely helpful; everyone is willing to help each other. Gentoo has a pretty large community as well, and a channel with over 900 people in it at any given time, but it does not have a default installation (like something with KDE and apps). That would be against the point of Gentoo (complete customisation to the maximum possibilities).

After all this experience I think the only way to know what you want to is to install Ubuntu, try GNOME, customise it entirely, go through all settings in the GUI, and get all the apps you need from Synaptic or Adept. If you do not like GNOME, then get the KDE packages installed and try KDE (you choose your session type from the login screen). Make sure you customise whatever you try, and Google whatever you need help with or join #ubuntu on FreeNode. The leading window managers right now I believe are KDE, GNOME, Xfce, and Fluxbox. If you want absolutely light-weight, go with Fluxbox. If you want speed but some effects, go with Xfce. If you want a Windows-like interface, go with KDE. And GNOME would be about the same as Xfce, but a little slower in my experience.

 

Thats what I,ve been doing ever snice i got ubuntu on my computers but i havent really looked into kde though... i was told that the Gentoo fourm was rather grim... I like gnome might try enlighment next (eh, creaky)