I am very new to Linux. I have tried the Knoppix 4.0 live cd and loved it. but i want something that i can install to hd drive. I have heard great deal about Ubuntu but not much about kubuntu. whats the difference? which one is more easier to use for a newbie like me? Also whats the difference between Gnome and KDE?
Thank You.

Hi and welcome.

Ubuntu comes with Gnome as GUI, Kubuntu comes with KDE as GUI. Thats it!

I would say go for KDE, which offers alot of user friendly interfaces for different settings on your PC. You can choose to let it behave like windows.

Only thing about KDE is that it eats alot of ressources, it's pretty demanding i think, but if your PC is fairly new this shouldn't be a problem.

Have fun

Kubuntu is newer than Ubuntu, and reputedly somewhat buggier. I must say that Ubuntu has made a good first impression on me, and I'm looking forward to trying out Kubuntu. Both should be similarly easy for newbs.

The differences between Gnome and KDE are less significant than getting used to a new operating system. I don't think you'll go wrong with either one. KDE and Gnome each have their way of doing things, and each has its own applications. Ubuntu and Kubuntu each have live versions you can download and burn to CD or DVD to try them out before installing them. (Keep in mind the live versions run more slowly than the installed versions.)

You can do some reading up:
Ubuntu
http://www.distroreviews.com/index.php?view=332
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntu

Kubuntu
http://www.distroreviews.com/index.php?view=333
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kubuntu

There is also the possiblity of installing Knoppix to your hard-drive and running it as your distro:
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Category...e_Installation
I've never tried it, but how hard could it be?

for KDE is P4 2.5Ghz proc and 1 gig ram ok.
I have 220gb of tottal hard drive of which i am planning on using 30 gigs for linux and 2gb for swap. is this ok. Let me know ASAP so i can install correctly. So i see that you are saying that go with Kubuntu right which is more user friendly right?
Thank You

I have just finished installing Ubuntu and its all good so far. look nice. i will give it some more try.
Thanks for you help guys.

With 220GB of space, you can easily install Kubuntu in addition to Ubuntu. You can read about it in their FAQ:
http://www.kubuntu.org/faq.php#installfromubuntu

For that matter, you could install plenty of other distros too, but let's not get overeager!

You might as well install KDE on Ubuntu, then you have Kubuntu (well sorta). I prefer GNOME these days because its less bloated than KDE. Both are working on becoming more interoperable (that is a word right?) using standard communcation protocols etc. so the programs on GNOME and on KDE are pretty much gonna be (if not already) the same just with slightly different look-and-feels (GTK or Qt) and behaviours. Theres also other window managers, XFCE looks cool, gonna download and try it out.