I am using RedHat 8.0 with Gnome as by default desktop. I preferred Gnome over KDE because the Gnome looks much better than KDE with the default settings. But now I have some issues with Gnome.

When ever I run CPU intesnsive application ( like a compiling a big project ) Gnome becomes extremely slow and and it takes long time to respond more events like mouse press. Eventually I ahve to kill my X-server. But this doesn't happen in KDE. I can do other operation in KDE during compilation. But I don't want to use KDE because the default icons and fonts ( I am using microsoft TTF fonts also) looks ugly in KDE.

I have two questions.

1) Why the Gnome hangs eventually hangs for CPU intesnsive applications?

2) Or, How can make KDE looks better, like that Gnome?. If this is possible I prefer to use KDE instead of Gnome.

Any help is apprecaited.

Come on guys.. I am looking for an answer!

as of question #1, someone with more experience and knowledge should answer. but for #2 i got some thoughts:

- at least in my red hat 9.0 i can use the gnome bluecurve interface in kde (some kde features are missing then)... there are several ways to start some tool that configures kde, one of them is Control Center, and if i remember right, another is accessible by just right-clicking an empty space on the desktop.

- remember that looks don't count for much... ;-) to me what works well looks good.

I am using red hat 8. I tried to configure the KDE via the control centre, but no visible difference. The icons that appear in KDE windows ( like in konqueror) looks blurred always. Font is OK, not good. And the default terminal font is nearly unreadable. I changed to make it readble. Gnome looks much better even with default settings. But the issue with Gnome is it hangs as I mentioned earlier.

How do you work if you can't see anything -):

IMHO KDE is much more customizable than GNOME. You can change the size of the taskbar, make shortcuts, change the icons, and do a variety of things that is impossible to do in GNOME.

Now, in order to change the icons, do the following

1. Start the KDE control centre.

2. Click on Apperance and Themes.

3. Click on Icons.

Now you have a good variety to choose from and I love all of them.

Post any more questions as I am a KDE fan and has played with it a lot.

I am basically interested in two things.

1) How to improve the font quality in KDE? Gnome looks better in font by default.

2) How do you improve the quality of icons in KDE?. The default icons looks blurred in KDE compared to Gnome.

Cosmetic/eye-candy features seem to be improving by leaps and bounds on both Gnome and KDE, so if you don't have the latest version you may not be getting the best look. I installed KDE 3.1.2 and XFree 4.3.0 and was just blown away by the visual quality and font clarity.

See also http://www.kde-look.org for alternative themes/icon sets. I'm using the Crystal icons, which look good to me.