I recommend Ubuntu to beginning Linux users. I don't like Ubuntu.

I mostly use an obsolete version of Mepis at home and I use Centos at work. I don't recommend Mepis, because I don't want to recommend obsolete, but I also don't want to recommend KDE 4. I think KDE 4 is much worse than KDE 3. So when Mepis switched to KDE 4, I stopped advancing to the next version of Mepis.

I don't recommend Centos, because I don't think it is practical for beginner management nor for ordinary home use. It is by far the best distribution for the way Linux is used where I work. But despite being used to it at work I wouldn't consider for use in my home, much less recommend it for someone else. Centos is great for beginner use as long as someone else is managing it. When the user and system manager are the same person, Centos is much less likely to be a good choice.

I recommend Ubuntu, because it is easier to get help in forums (including here at LQ) for Ubuntu than for any other distribution.

Ubuntu is fairly beginner oriented. Maybe not quite as much as Mepis used to be, but more so than any other distribution I've tried. Combine that with being in such wide use that almost any problem has already been reported and diagnosed by someone else. That makes the winning choice for a beginner.

I think you should check out PCLOS. I think it is much more noob friendly than Ubuntu.

I even installed the "Fullmonty" version (fully packed and configured KDE). I, personally, would rather grow a beak and pick $hit with the chickens than use KDE but I do like to have an install on here to show people (it does blow some folks skirts up). From fooling with it for about 2 hours yesterday I would say that it is the best implementation of KDE4, particularly for noobs, around.

Their Xfce is very well done too, which is much more than you can say for Xubuntu.

As a long time tester of Ubuntu pre releases, I must say that Ubuntu is falling further behind in dealing with bugs, always a weak point of theirs, and having run off most testers with experience for having opinions, now have very few real testers (maybe a dozen) working with the new LTS (12.04-testing). This will cut down on the number of bugs found, let alone worked on.

If they do not do something pretty quick they are going to have some major problems. This LTS is to be supported on the desktop for 5 years (like the server edition). This means that when 16.04 comes out there will be 5 versions being supported where they can't keep up with bugs for 3 supported versions (assuming the release cycle stays the same).

All I can say is good luck.

Is KDE really all that bad? I mean I use it every day, but I suppose what I mean to ask is if there are other solutions out there which are (all bias and personal preference aside) actually that much better from a technical standpoint? I know about Gnome, but have never used it as from what I understand its quite an overhaul. My only predisposition to KDE is that it was the first environment I had ever used and I liked it well enough so I just stuck with it.

It is also my understanding that some programs are KDE- or Gnome-specific. Are there ways to circumvent this?

Not trying to get off on a tangent, but I would definitely be more open to a non-KDE world if there were greater compatibility / an easier way to try them out.

First, there is no such thing as a DE specific program. KDE is qt based while most others are gtk based. This does mean that to use programs that are default with another DE in KDE will pull in a lot of packages as depends. This is of course true going the other way too.

All Linux runs on the Linux kernel. All programs for Linux have to run on the Linux kernel. That is all they need to do to work, with what ever depends they have, to work in any Linux environment.

As to the DE's themselves. There are a LOT of really fine DE's available. Check your repo or run a search. There is a reason that there are so many. People like different things. This is one of the strengths of Linux. Choice.

The statement you quoted is putting rather mildly the way I feel about KDE. I would be really upset if it, in anyway, discourages you from using it. I am not compatible with KDE. The setting up of the system to my liking was silly, to me. Having several different configuration tools to do simple things just drives me batty (not that I have far to go). The bugger uses more resources than I like. Basically I don't like KDE.

Why did I install it. Because other people find it really neat. When I show off Linux I want to be able to show three or for DEs to people and let them play with them. If they want to install Linux I could care less what DE they want to use. I do not have to use what they are using.

That install will get Xfce4 installed for sure and probably Gnome when they get to the stable version of Gnome Shell. I don't think a lot of Gnome Shell either but can set it up to be usable. They are going the other direction in relation to KDE. They do not have a bunch of config tools. Don't think you want them. You want to configure something deal with the config files. Equally insane, or more so (I am a long time Gnome user, just switched to Xfce).

You can test your KDE programs easily to see if you can find a DE on which they will not run. Install another DE. You can choose what "session" you are going to use at the login screen. All your KDE programs will work. All the default programs that are different with the DE you just installed will work under KDE.

K3b is one of the most popular burners around. I have it installed here along with Brasero (Gnome) and Xfburn (Xfce). I like and use all three. Some disks just do not want to work easily. Very few can escape use with three burners which use different backends.

A lot of Gnome users like Amorak (however you spell it). I don't like it and installed Rhythmbox and the gnome-alsamixer last night. A lot of folks can't stand Rhythmbox, my son for instance. Fine with me.

Use KDE if that is what you like. Don't limit yourself with out giving some of the others a whack.

Don't know what they do now but the last time I used Mandriva it came on a Live DVD with 3 DEs on it. You could boot to which ever you wanted and install any one or any combination of the three you wanted. I would like to see more of that. I think more folks would use Linux if they had that option. Installing all three DE's (Gnome, KDE, Lxde) took up less space and was a lot faster than install of Windows and gave you an awful lot of really good programs.

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I was not expecting such a detailed response, that was awesome. It cleared up a few things I have been wondering about.

I will look into Mandriva/other DEs. I was not sure how the programs, environments, and kernel all interfaced in terms of dependency; it will be neat to tinker with them all on a single boot like that. Thanks widget!

You can get several other DE's right out of your Ubuntu repos. Obviously the Gnome, Xfce and Lxde (Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu) but also OpenBox and FluxBox I think are in there. There are several anyway.

The only problem would be if you are using auto login. You loose a lot of options doing that.

Next time you log in look at the bottom panel after you activate the box to put in your password. There is a "session" box. It already has a couple options in it. Should be your KDE and some kind of "failsafe" or something like that (useful if need to fix something).

If you install Xfce4 (default Xfce desktop) or the Xubuntu desktop (slightly different mainly in packages) you can simply use the log out option and when you log back in (with out having the long restart process) just select the Xfce or Xubuntu "session". It will boot right up to the default for that DE and you can then customize it. This is the same with any DE you choose.

I would recommend using synaptic and making sure that the preferences are set to display the column "size". Check that against the remaining space on your / (root) partition before installing. If you are installed on 2 partitions /home should not be a problem. All you will get there is some extra "hidden" files in your /home/<user name> directory. These are the user configuration files for the desktop and playlists for music player and font preferences and so forth. Don't take up much space. The DE itself and associated packages do.

I just checked and it is only the download size that is given for a package. You only get the size after it is installed. Makes sense. Adding Xfce to a Gnome installation is going to take less space than Xfce to a KDE installation because much of the gkt stuff is going to already be there.

Just make sure you have room.

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Auto login? I'm not sure what that is but I don't log in as any user via a gui. My startup process is (after booting and selecting Ubuntu at Grub) to type my username/pass at a terminal screen and then startx to load the desktop. The only time I see a login box of any sort is when my screen locks and requires password on resume, but I assume that's not what you're talking about.

Perhaps you could tell me If I am using auto-login or how to switch (if thats possible)?
If I type the cmd logout I am returned to a cli login prompt (the same one as when I boot up); if I choose "End Session" from the K menu, I am returned to a cli, but still logged in as that same user.

I have a 20G partition for Ubuntu with about 15 free so I'm thinking that'll do? Or if not could I save the other DEs to my Windows partition?
At the risk of sounding really ridiculous I would also like to ask about users and desktop environments (perhaps it is the autologin that confuses me here): Is each user associated with a specific DE? Since my root and standard user both have their own customized KDE desktops, if I were to install other DEs and log in to either, could I then select any DE I want giving each user its own customized Destop for each DE? Sorry, Im just a little cloudy on that.

Anyways, I feel like I'm missing that whole part where I choose my DE, any help would be much appreciated.

How did you install your OS?

If it was a standard install you should have a DM (display manager) of some sort installed. In KDE it would be, I think as I am not sure about Kubuntu, KDM. In Gnome (Ubuntu) or Xfce (Xubuntu) it would be GDM.

If you did a minimal install I am pretty sure the meta package for all Ubuntu family members DEs pull in the DM.

This should, no matter how installed give you a login screen.

Check in synaptic for a display manager (use the search function and just enter "display manager" NOT the "quick search"). If one is not installed you should do that.

If one is I would check, first, your /etc/default/grub and see if the line;
looks similar to the above or just says "text". If it says "text" change it to "quiet" adding "splash" gives you the boot splash screen, in Ubuntu supplied by Plymouth.

Mine just reads "quite".

Auto login skips the login page and takes you directly to the desktop. Very popular particularly with folks that use no password with MS. As in MS this is not a very secure way to run things. Your way certainly works and is more secure than that.

Another thought, are you booting to recovery mode by any chance? That requires a text login.

When you get your screen menu up hit e . This will show you the menu entry so that you can edit it. See if the line that has the "quiet splash" entry and see if it says, instead, "single". If so replace that with "quiet" and hit Ctrl + x to boot to the edited version.

I am assuming you are booting with grub.

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Thank you!
I was booting with grub, I installed Ubuntu on its own partition after installing win7 64 pro on my machine (was the way recommended to me).

I found the line in the config file and changed text to quiet, now we are in business. Found a basic black linux login theme, downloaded lxde via synaptic, and I now see how it works when using different accounts with different DEs, this is awesome! it really makes it user friendly, the text prompts scare everyone i know away from linux so I may be able to turn a few people on to it now that I know how to do this. lxde lives up to its name, it is very fast and lightweight; i like it.

Didnt install Gnome because it wanted to remove a tool, of mine; that's OK, there are many others on there (as you said, however still many more than I would have thought).
Thanks again for being awesome and taking the time to help me out!

A couple concerns I had along the way..
When using KDM under the convenience tab in the upper left corner appears bold red text that reads "Attention: Read Help" but when I click help nothing happens..
Under the same tab, there is a user completely unknown to me listed! Its called 'postgres', and unless its some linux equivalent of guest account Im afraid that means bad things for my system security.
Also, in my cfg file the line I changed reads:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash vga=791"

Im not sure if I should change/remove "vga=791" but I get some interesting (very brief) screen fuzz both when the login is about to come up and when returning from screensaver/sleep and the password prompt is about to come up.

Then again I didnt know if it was crucial to my display working properly, and me not tech savvy enough to fix this config file via CLI. I could probably navigate to it and use cat to open it and that's about when I'd get stuck lol.

http://www.postgresql.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostgreSQL

I do not, as you may guess, know much about the ins and outs of KDE. SQL is another thing I don't know much about but doubt it is a security risk.

That line in your /etc/default/grub file may have to do with the login but surely not the screen saver. I doubt the effect on the login screen too as the display manager has taken over then too. Must have something to do with your video settings for your video card or controller.

I think you will find a lot of things are pretty much just a fun learning experience with Linux.

You would have a lot more room to play if you deleted the MS partition or at east shrank it down to a minimum. 20Gb is not enough room, for me, for an install with just one DE and I am installed, always, on / and /home, so only system files on my / partition.

On this install / is 30Gb with 2 DEs and just over 4Gb free. Should have gone with 40Gb that I thought about.

To edit your system files you need to use whatever Kubuntu uses for sudo and a text editor (kate?) as in;
edit to use in your KDE.
should work under the Lxde session. Or with kate for that matter if that is what is installed on your system.

I know that some time back you used something other than sudo in KDE. Could be all wet about that now.

Glad you are having FUN.

Yes, I could sum up why I like Ubuntu by saying that it is definitely always a fun, learning experience.

I could sum up my dislike for the direction Ubuntu has taken by saying that they want to make it harder to learn anything, thus their "no configuration experience" policy in Ubuntu. The other members of the family have not been infected with this too much. Yet.

I now recommend PCLOS for noobs.

For those that like KDE the PCLOS FullMonty version should be a real treat. I think it may be the best default implementation of KDE anywhere. Very well thought out and executed.

Only problem I have with PCLOS is their continuing to use grub-legacy.