Gnome vs kde?
 

Is there any particular reason to go with one or the other?

The problem with choices is that you have to make decisions.

I've used both. I like both. I generally have no preference of one to the other. Either way, I wouldn't say you could go wrong.

You might notice that I'm using Kubuntu, but I also use Gnome under OpenSolaris and Xfce under FreeBSD.

No. Just download a livecd with each of them, test them, then choose. Also, there's no reason why you can't install both of them. You can have both installed and use whatever you want at a given moment.

In general, I would say that kde gives you LOTS of options, and Gnome gives you almost none. So, if you are the kind of user that can't be bothered to have options, you might like gnome better.

Yep, and no one can take that decisions for you.

This is mostly matter of taste. Try both, see which one you like more. If you still can't choose, then flip a coin.

It' a matter of taste. Yes, KDE has a million options - but for my purposes all the wrong ones.

Oh boy, here we go. Consider the above, or the original (purported) philosophies of light & fast vs. full-featured (seems like nothing more than preference though, mine being gnome), or the 18 octillion threads on the net where this war rages on.

Since I use Windows more than Linux, I find KDE to be crude and limiting. But Gnome (and various other Linux desktops) feel so much more crude and limiting than KDE that there is no contest. KDE is my clear choice.

There will be user preferences on this matter both on what you're used to and on how you want to work.

If you're used to Windows, you'll expect at least KDE, and even that may feel like too little.

If you want your interaction with the OS to be primarily GUI, I think you will prefer KDE. If you want a desktop just as a place to put GUI applications, rather than as a GUI application in itself, you will prefer some lighter desktop (maybe Gnome).

The Knoppix liveDVD I tested before selecting and installing Mepis had a bunch of different desktop choices (of course including KDE and Gnome). I tried them myself and found my reaction very different from much of what I had read online prior to doing that. I forget which, but some desktop had been described as more Windows-like than KDE, but that proved to be only superficial aspects of appearance before you try to DO anything. Once you try to do anything, all of them do less for you than a Windows desktop and all but KDE do far far less.

Which means you don't know it good enough. Windows desktop is one of the weakest desktops I know.

Advice:
In KDE, assign keyboard shortcuts for following actions:

• maximize/minimize/move/resize window
• move window to desktop N (My favorite are Win+1..Win+4)
• switch to desktop N (Win+F1..Win+F4)

Use at least 4 desktops, move windows from one to another (it is very useful when you have a lot of windows open at once), and after a month you will hate windows desktop because of lack of keyboard shortcuts, lack of configurability and because there is only one desktop instead of 4 you are used to.

I have 8 desk tops mmmmmm today i needed 8 tomorrow maybe 16. oh well gnome and kde are very configurable

I wonder, was that default Gnome or did you actually install any of the dozens of plug-ins and scripts that extend its functionality? I think this needs to be stressed as well (and it is implied in your comparison with windows): Gnome is definitely the one that is stricter in following the UNIX principle of assembling applications out of discrete units rather than providing one monolithic block.

With 16 desktops fastswitching and sending windows to desktop using shortcuts will become tricky (using scheme I mentioned, at least) because there is only 12 function keys.

Yes, your preference.

Go with the one that you prefer.

Gnome and KDE are both mature and good.
I believe that the choice depends on the applications that you are using.
If you are using GTK applications like the GIMP or Qt applications like K3B.

If the number of GTK apps is more, go with Gnome, if u use predominantly tools from the KDE suite then go with KDE. This is no limitation as u can run all GUI apps in both, but this gives a more uniform user experience.

If I wanted more keyboard shortcuts in Windows, I would install some program to provide them. It isn't hard.

I think right-click context menus are the single most important feature for making a GUI system powerful and flexible.

In Windows, I know how to create the registry settings to put exactly what I want on each different context menu.

Probably I should learn more about customizing context menus in KDE. Probably I could do a larger fraction in KDE of what I'm used to in Windows, if I put more effort into figuring out how. But I haven't had time yet. Meanwhile right-click and similar GUI features are crude and inflexible in KDE compared to Windows.

I never found much use for that feature, but I certainly understand why others would want it. In Linux, that feature is there by default. In Windows you would need some special program for it (I've seen a few).

BTW, I am not a fan of Windows. One of my sons recently downloaded something that was infected with a virus that rapidly installed itself on every Windows system on our home network despite Windows firewall and anti virus software. One Windows system was trashed to the level that we needed to erase everything and reinstall losing all our files. The others were major projects to clean up salvaging our files. My Linux system on that network, despite file sharing in both directions and despite my lack of attention to its security, was completely outside the whole problem. That is just one of many ways in which I find Linux far superior to Windows. But that doesn't make me ignore the various ways, including flexible right-click behavior, in which Windows is better.

BTW, if some other desktop has more configurable context menu support than KDE, please tell me. I haven't (yet) learned that any Linux desktop has significant configurable context menus and only KDE seems to have a half decent set of default context menus.

Huh? You don't care so the system is to blame? And at the same time you are fine with editing the windows registry - something nine out of ten windows users do not know how to do at all.

As I said in my previous post, my experience is that default is the barer of the two but it is also easier to customize. You can download scripts to add to Nautilus Actions, you can use Gconf-editor to tick off boxes to control options that are not directly accessible from the menus and Ubuntu has Ubuntu Tweak which makes accessible another ton of features, such as creating shortcuts, file type - application associations, permissions, ... (all of which, by the way, I can also do from the context menu).