KDE or Gnome?

[srluxford]

Hi,
I am new to Linux.
I thought I would give it a go as I have heard about it for a while and have read various things about it on the web and in magazines. When I was given a CD containing Kubuntu, I decided it was now the time to dump Windows and move to Linux once and for all.
I like KDE, it is very graphical and colourful, it reminds me of Mac OS X a bit, what with superkaramba etc!! I like that! But what about Gnome? I don't really have any experience of Gnome.
How does it differ?
What is the best desktop? (I appreciate it if people think there is no BEST, just different, but I am trying to find out about it!)
What would be the best for a newbie to use?
Is Gnome better for more experienced Linux users or is KDE just as good?
Why is there more than one desktop? If Gnome and KDE combined, would not the combined knowledge and power make a better desktop than either?
What are you views? I assume everyone on here prefers KDE as this is Kubuntu's forums, but there may be people who have or do use both!
Thanks for your input!

[aysiu]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

Both are fine for new users, just different. Read more here:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/kdegnome.html

[claydoh]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

Well, the only real way to decide is to try both out and see, especially as you can have both at the same time.

There is a nice comparison here, which I find to be quite unbiased imo
And there are endless, endless, and (did I say?) endless discussions on this subject both on Ubuntu's forums and here. A little search time will dig up a huge amount of posts on this very subject, so I won't add too much on this subject myself.

http://www.psychocats.net is a good spot for some info and how-to's.

EDIT: lol beaten to the punch by the quick-fingered aysiu

[d3v1ant_0n3]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

Personally, i prefer the 'shininess' of KDE, but i use a couple of Gnome apps, like Synaptic. I'm not a fan of Konqueror in KDE as a web browser (but you can install Firefox, so meh), but I like it as a file browser...

To me, KDE seems more icon orientated, which I prefer, but I don't think there really is a 'best'....you best bet might be to install Kubuntu/Ubuntu, and then add the other display manager (I love that you can do that ), and try them both for a while, and see which you fell happiest with.

Basically, what they ^^ said while I was typing this :P

[Emerzen]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

I prefer KDE: most of my favorite app's are native to KDE, K3B k9copy ktorrent etc..., and though they work in GNOME there can be snags. From my experience, KDE also seems more logical and stable...but that's my experience and you should definately try both of them.

[empcrono]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

like every one said there is no better just differnt and depending on what kind of person you are one can be better then the other however this is to hard to tell. howevert i think that just saying that try both out is on fair if you wanted that then you would have just did that. so like i have read before in many differnt comparisions i will by my own exprience tell you what i think. first i love KDE its my favriot it has moe GUI functions witch in them selves make it more asy and more hard for newbies. i.e. gnome has less so its easier to not mess things up and easy to mess things up in kde. however that being said if there is a problem its easier to fix in KDE for noobs because there are more options in KDE ware in gnome you would have to use more command line in those things happen. KDE seems more bloated to me then gnome does. gnome runs faster to me. KDE on the other hand seems to support better aps over all then gnome. gnome seems more plain to me witch may or not be better. the strongist part for me is KDE offers way better aps in my appoin. sure you can run gnome aps in KDE and KDE aps in gnome but they always seem to run better ware they were ment to be. ubuntu uses KDE aps better in GNOME then any other distro ive seen however its still not 100% there. there i have tried to give you my 2 cents the best i could but over all i like KDE better but let that not be a deciedeing factor decied for your self through research and most important thought i dont like to say it by trying both.

[srluxford]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

Thanks for the feed back so far guys, it is proving most helpful. It is great to hear other people views and experience on using both KDE and Gnome!

[KStorm]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

I prefer KDE, but when I get rid of XP, I might replace it with Ubuntu.

I once had a Debian net-install with Gnome right out of the box and it looked very good. You could also install the Gnome desktop within the Kubster if you like both.

[srluxford]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

Hi KStorm,

Thanks for the reply.
Just out of curiousity, if you prefer KDE, why will you install Ubuntu instead which uses Gnome?
Just curious as I am trying to figure out why some people use Gnome and some use KDE!

[analyticalman]

Re: KDE or Gnome?

There might be a lot of reasons - for me its a combination of curiosity and boredom. I have Kubuntu for KDE (only) Fedora for Gnome and Enlightenment and Zenwalk for XFCE and Fluxbox. (that also gives me the 3 package systems, deb, rpm and tar) I boot into whatever I feel like exploring. Linux is about choice - thats what many people like vs Windows where you have less options (and I'm not a MS hater - I also have XP on my system)