I use some machines for professional reasons that run Gnome (not Slackware-based).
I don't dislike it, as I have used Gnome before on Slackware (when it was still included).

As always, I say that Linux has this advantage of freedom: I can use whatever DE/WM I like. But if I had to choose only one for all the machines I use, my preferences would be:
1) Blackbox (because it's light and works on all of them)
2) Xfce (more complete / DE, but still not too heavy)
3) KDE (used it since Slackware 4.0)
4) Gnome (complete, and I like the Gnome-based software in general, but somehow Gnome never appealed to me)

Any caveats for compiling E17 on Slack?

No, not really - I grabbed all sources with wget from the snapshots directory. You just have to obey a certain build order, that's all.

E17 from CVS build instructions (I think, I googled some E17 on Solaris build guide which was fine either... )

Was really just "configure, make, make install".

I loaded KDE4 for about 30 minutes and looked around. The Menu system was different and seemed good Vs. the windows 95+ system. However, it seemed slow and too flashy for me... I loaded fluxbox back up and am much happier.

HAHA! Yep - KDE4 converted me to a full time Fluxer last fall and now I wonder why I never did more than play with it before that! I love my Fluxbox - thanks KDE4!

I resemble that remark. On my laptop nothing but Flux. I had "gotten
used to KDE" when I migrated from Windows in 2003. Now they decided
to change it all so that I'd need to read poorly written documentation
and learn it all over again. Thanks, but I have work to do. Why should
one have to "get used" to a wm/de? One should configure it with one's
personal settings, then use it to launch and display GUI apps. Anything
else calls for a terminal, eh? Not to mention the fact that KDE4 still
does not run all the apps that KDE3 ran.

I installed Slackware64 on that laptop and within a few minutes the
box locked up. It would not even respond to SysReq key using RSEIUB.
After testing the memory, motherboard, controller, and hard drive and
finding them all okay, it was obviously a software problem.

Since it previously had Kubuntu 64-bit, Slackware-12.2, and two versions
of Windows, I decided to repartition and get rid of all but Windows, then
install Slackware64. I'm determined to run Slackware64 on all my 64-bit
CPUs, and the laptop needs little software so it's a good test box.

With the previous install I'd chosen JFS as my / filesystem. Since there are
some Slackers who help me and prefer Ext3 to JFS, I used Ext3 for / when doing
the fresh install.

When asked to choose a window manager, I selected Fluxbox; simply because the
laptop had been running Flux with Slack-12.2 and it worked perfectly fine. The
box ran great for a couple of days, and I had most new packages built and/or
installed, and the system configured to my likings. Then came the problem...

I logged out of X and ran "xwmconfig" and choose KDE, to look it over. After
about 45 seconds the desktop launched, giving me some messages on the screen
from some program I'd never heard of. However, before I could use the desktop
and investigate them, the dialog boxes were gone. And no less than a couple of
minutes after I started using KDE4, the box locked up again.

I rebooted, using the Slackware64 -current CD1, and ran "fsck" on the ext3 / just
as I'd done on the JFS /. This fixed the problem temporarily, but not more than
15 minutes later it happened again.

So, rather than ruin my hardware or other software, I ran "xwmconfig" again and
went back to Fluxbox.

I have no need for a desktop environment such as KDE. Software launches and runs
faster with Flux than KDE anyway. Now I've got to read some docs about Fluxbox and
learn how to configure it for my tastes. I've found ~/.fluxbox/keys, which allows me to
launch an app using key bindings with the otherwise useless Windows logo key. This is
the replacement, pretty much, for a DE in my opinion. And it's much more efficient on
my hands, mind, and the computer's resources to press the Windows logo key + T and have
Thunderbird launch, than to use the KDE menu, or that KDE panel menu.

When Slackware64-13.0 is released, I'll convert the other 64-bit boxen on our LAN to
it, and to Fluxbox. Goodbye KDE (krummy desktop excuse)!

I use KDE4 on all my systems, meaning a 2GHz Opteron with 2,5GB or RAM, a 1.6Ghz Turion laptop with 512MB of RAM, and my two daughters have it on their dual-core sempron 1.8Ghz with 1GB of RAM.
I use the regular Slack KDE4 for my daughters computers and compile SVN on mine.
Works perfectly well for me, including Amarok with about 2000 songs.
Not bloated, nor slow, just well. It includes many things I find very usefull and many other I haven't really started looking into (like Nepomuk) but will someday.
Migration to 64bits went like a charm.

As far as I could see (and that seems confirmed by many threads in Phoronix's forums), KDE4 performance can be very impacted by the performance of the X11 drivers : it certainly works quite well with OpenGL compositing but AIGLX has to be very well supported by the graphic driver, which is not always the case.
I had to recompile xorg-server, mesa and the xf86-video-ati driver to get proper compositing on my laptop, as Slack versions are a bit old.
And no compositing is not just "bling", I find it improving overall readability of the screen (with shadows and highlightings of windows) and things like the expose-like feature or showing all the virtual screens at once can be very usefull.

I have tried kde several times over the years and dismissed it for the same reasons I gave windows the boot - Too many smoke screen fluffy applications and wizards that take control, then leave you with a pretty screen when they do not work (A terminal talks to you when something is wrong). I use slackware12.2 xfce+gnome as a desktop workstation.

I am now testing slackware64 and although kde4 to me is still full of extras that clutter my
system, it has excellent flexibility to customize it so you only see what you want to use in Favorites, or you can uninstall the bloat. I uninstall kdePIM as I have no need for Kmail and an executive personal organizer. Thunderbird works great for me and the terrific flexibility of slackware allows me to customize my download to make an iso to include only what I want.

I have slackware12.2+xfce on a toshiba netbook and it works great, however xfce is limited on its own for a desktop workstation, and to me gnome is not as flexible as kde4.

All this in under 4GB, while vista takes 25GB to do no more!!!

God, I miss my KDE3. I "up"graded to KDE4 less than a week ago. Had a few issues with the upgrade, but took it in stride. Was pleased with the new look and looked forward to getting to know and like KDE4.

It seems minor, but having 4 desktops with 4 different wallpapers is something I've come to take for granted: I even used the same 4 wallpapers on different machines and used the same applications per desktop. That's gone.

The main menu sucks: too many clicks to find what I want to run (yeah, I suppose I could use the command line, but crap, I've got a GUI, right?) and the menu setup is much less natural than KDE3 or Gnome.

I found out I had missed some emails that were sent to me: they were in my mailbox on the web, but they weren't in my computer! Turns out, they were way down in a thread that was started back in May. How do you turn off the threading??

And the latentcy!

Look, Linux has taken me a long long way: I have big ideas to get things done and Linux has helped me get the tools to do them: but now, KDE4 is getting in my way! I don't want to do more configuring, I want to get back to work! Has MS infiltrated the KDE camp??

If anyone needs me, I'll be in Gnome, for now.

I tried KDE 4.2 from Slackware current. It worked pretty well except for Amarok. Amarok hung every time I tried to scan my music collection. I don't have that problem with the Amarok and KDE 3 from Slackware 12.2.

After playing with KDE 4.2 I had a few system hangs as well. I concluded that KDE 4 was close but not quite ready yet. I'm wondering if it ever will be ready since it seems that KDE 4.3 has now completely changed the look again and added even more special effects.

Part of the reason why I like Slackware is that the releases are usually very reliable. I hope that KDE 4 isn't included in the next Slackware release unless KDE 4 is really ready. I won't mind if Slackware uses KDE 4.2 instead of 4.3 and just includes bug fixes that make it work well. I'm less interested in having the bleeding edge versions and more interested in having versions that work.

I miss that too. It'planned, AFAIK. I also think that you can manage to something similar with Activities but I haven't taken the time to check how it works.

Easily solved : there is the equivalent of the KDE3 menu available as a plamoid. Just remove the current menu from your task bar and add the old style menu. I even think there is a simple way to change to the old style by just right clicking on the K icon.

It's in the options of kmail. You also have many different ways of sorting the mails now. I find it very practical myself.

Generally caused by a poor compositing support.
I have several machines with KDE4. The ones with proper OpenGL compositing are very responsive. The one with XRender are a lot less so. Depending on the quality of XRender support, I use compositing or disable it. Generally, in the later case, I get good latencies again but miss some compositing stuff (Show grid, for instance).
Slack-12.2 has an old mesa and X drivers : compositing usually doesn't work well with them. The recent upgrade of X in -current make things a lot better.

Now this is really a weird reaction to me. Do you really think that, as a former KDE3 user, you'll be more at ease with Gnome than with KDE4?
I doubt it very much.

I agree that there are still some rough corner here and there in KDE4, but they are fewer and fewer in each version and the whole experience seems to me now a lot better than KDE3 has ever been.
Many problems of KDE4 are actually related to X being right now still a bit flaky. The more X advances, the better KDE4 experience becomes.

Many problems experienced by people running KDE4 (not talking about missing applications or changes in functionality) are actually caused by not having removed the ~/.kde directory that was used by KDE3.

When you make the switch to KDE4 you should get rid of that ~/.kde directory in your home before starting KDE4 for the first time. It will prevent a lot of annoyance, and mysterious application misbehaviour.

Eric

If KDE development follows the current direction, I probably won't be using KDE much longer. I don't mean to say that KDE 4 is bad nor that KDE 5 will be bad, but it probably just won't be for me anymore. It's probably going to be very good, but I actually liked all the configuration options and all those little (even though they may appear useless to many people) programs KDE 3 has.

The KDE 4 eyecandy is definitely better than it was before, but in terms of functionability and configurability, KDE 4 has definitely suffered. We'll see what KDE 4.5 looks like, but I just feel I won't like it too much. I never bought an Apple computer for a reason, and that not only being the price

I'm highly interested in that "Let's do KDE 3.5 on Slackware(64)-current/13.0" thing because of that. I'd be willing to participate here. I guess I should post to a more appropriate thread about this... But not tonight.

Two threads exist if want to thelp:

Using KDE 3.5.10 With the Next Official Slackware Release

Patching KDE 3.5.10 Ark to Support the New Package Formats