My first Slackware installation was about 1994-1995. I can't remember what DE it had but I know it was ugly and not usable. So I switched to console for the next years. Some day I got a Suse-CD and tried it out. It came with KDE as the standard DE. Since this day I use KDE. I perfectly suits my needs. I don't break my head about licenses (QT is GPL) In my opinion GTK/GNOME is somehow ugly, sterile. Like hospital. I've tried GNOME several times but if you started with KDE there so many things you miss in GNOME. Probably it is on the other way around the same. Recently I've tried KDE4. I've needed a few attempts but with 4.2 it's usable and I switched all my desktops to KDE 4. I'm happy with it. I'm afraid that with this Ubuntu-Hype there will be coming heavy seas for KDE. And I hope that this developement will not impact the KDE-Developement

I used to use KDE religiously and I still use KDE apps but I just got sick of KWin being unsteady and bloated. I switched to fluxbox and loved it heartily but longed for a menu in the bottom left so switched to LXDE. Its snappy and light and runs well. I do miss the easy shortcut keys in fluxbox but I'm using the app bar and I'm fine with that. To all the nay sayers and the hailer of "best", I say what I always say. There is no single "best" ANYTHING in life! one mans best is the next man's worst and I think it is hugely immature to use such language. Best only applies when analyzing something with value to personal requirements.
Just avoid stupd compiz as it genuinely breaks things is my advice but someone said it well above, try a few, try them all, then retry some more. One will suit you. For some its gnome, for some, kde, whatever, just use what you use and let others get on with what they use. Other peoples DE choice does not affect your system running a different DE.
Welcome to Linux (and BSD), welcome to choice

I tried Gnome in the past but always felt limited and switched back to KDE.
We Linux fans can fight about GNOME or KDE, but this is irrelevant.
If Linux will ever conquer the desktop, we will have to give the end-user the desired look and feel.
Most non-geek users have used Windows XP and don't want to bother with a different user interface (Vista or whatever) and they are right.
The winner could probably be a XP-ish desktop with Linux under the hood.
KDE 3 is the best candidate to achieve this.
The problem is that some killer-apps (e.g. Firefox, Openoffice) are not KDE friendly.
The fragmentation in the Linux world will continue to stifle it's success on the desktop.
The solution could be a new distribution which focuses on the needs of ordinary users and not on the needs of the nerds.
UserLinux for Users, the nerds (including myself) can have fun with the ??? other distributions...

I have been using Linux for about 6 years, and originally started with KDE from a philosophical point of view - C++ (as an object oriented language) should have provided a faster developing and more consistent environment.

I have tried several times to switch to Gnome - but always ended up switching back - familiarity is a strong reason, when you get frustrated because you can't do something and you don't know whether its you or the environment. This was mostly around burning CD/DVDs (k3b I know) and using konqueror's KIO handling to ftp or sftp into other servers and carry on as though it was local.

I have argued with myself that its because I haven't found an e-mail program as friendly to handle high volumes of mail as kmail (If you have several hundred e-mails a day from mailing lists that you want to scan through, pressing space bar to get to the next unread mail in the current folder, and then the next folder with an unread message is essential - I am biased, because I added that piece of functionality to kmail several years ago). This is nonsense, because I regularly use Gimp, or OpenOffice, or Firefox or lots of other GTK apps and I could just as easily run another desktop with Kmail as the mail program.

I've tried KDE 4 twice, but the stability and functionality around useful things (seeing the dimensions of pictures in the file manager) has been missing and I have ended up going back to the familiar. But, this is begining to drive me away from KDE - Konqueror (3.5) regularly crashes on web sites - I have to assume all development is going on in KDE4. I think its just a question now of when to jump.

I like Gnome and really like the underlying license of gtk+ much better than qt. I want the freedom to be able to create an app that may not be OSS without paying licensing fees.

I've used Linux for twelve years, almost exclusively for the last seven years, having gone from RedHat to Caldera to SuSE to Ubuntu to Kubuntu to Mint (with Mandrake and Xandros and other distros mixed in), and I've used several desktop managers and window managers. For a long time I was a fan of Gnome because of the debate over Qt's "orthodoxy." But I have to admit, I much prefer KDE because of the apps, because of a greater sense of integration (even the kapp1, kapp2, kapp3 naming thing doesn't bother me as it does some), and contrary to the experience of some here, I find it less buggy, and I find a greater sense of aesthetic style to it. Yes, sometimes I'd like a clean break from anything resembling windoze (which is why I loved AfterStep at one time), but for now it's KDE.

Bug

For me KDE is just to complicated and messy. There are too many options and programs to choose from. Every menu item like Internet or Graphics contains a list of around 30 different programs on just a default install. kprogram this and kprogram that and kprogram the other. Help the k's are killing me :-}.

I guess I'm just a simple person and only need so many options and programs. Gnome fits the bill for me. When I go to Internet or Graphics on a fresh install, I've only got a handful of programs and only need a handful of programs. I can then simply add the programs I want and not be overwhelmed with dozens and dozens of kprograms.

Just my 0.02$

Gnome for the time being
I've recently moved to Gnome after I've been using K.D.E for 2 years (ever since I've used Linux). Gnome seems to be faster than K.D.E on my ~5 years PC (using ubuntu).
I liked K.D.E and especially the built-in photos viewers and video players into konqueror. However, it was slow and a little bit buggy and less compatible with compiz than Gnome.
I'm waiting to kde4 to be more mature in order to try it and then we'll see...

KDE has been my display manager of choice for about 6 years. let me list a few favorites and the gnome addicts can respond. Konqueror does multiple split screens (in the same window), makes FTP access to websites easy, allows you to change the browser identification and allows you to add service menus to your right-click context menus (nautilus does not seem to implement this as well). Amarok is an excellent music player. K3B burns CDs and DVDs easier and better than any other burning software I know.

Hi friends,

when my life with Linux started from that time I am using the Gnome desktop environment.It has very intresting and eye candy look and contains more features that we can use easily even for new user for linux environment.I some times used the KDE it is also very fine at look and working but some times it becomes hangs
and shows the bug error.But I never faced the problems when I used Gnome.Both are best but some improvements needed in KDE.I hope that in KDE 4 the problems ware rectified and more improved.

Thanks

I started with KDE (and SuSE 7.3), found it was too similar to windows, then went xfce 3.x, which i like because it reminded me of CDE, but i developed an aversion to icons, and switched on a whim to fluxbox ( was on gentoo by this time), which I use with the console gaining favor as far as being most productive

I have used GNOME, KDE, Xfce, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, and Openbox. I prefer Gnome, but Xfce comes in at a close second. I plan on switching to KDE 4.1 once its available. I really enjoy KDE 4, but its not stable in its current state. I believe that once KDE 4 becomes more mature and stable, this pole might change drastically.

We used to use KDE for our office implementation but changed to Gnome when we switched to using Ubuntu - why, its simpler than KDE and does everything we need. KDE was good for tinkering around but at work when you just need to get stuff done Gnome seems the smoother option.

GNOME has made some really great improvements from 2.0.x -> 2.22+

I was a long-time KDE user during the 2.x era. I also used fluxbox, XFCE and Windowmaker. I abandoned GNOME in the 1.9.x -2.0.x series because it felt clunky and unusable for the amount of resources it used, it seems a lot better now; improvements in Nautilus and the overall UI have brought me back. Thanks GNOME team!

Well, I still go for KDE, at least functionality wise, everything is there. GNOME has a lot of eyecandy, but if you consider the applications made for Linux, KDE still outnumbers GNOME. What I would love though is a common graphical platform for linux, so that every application can run irregardless if you run GNOME or KDE, without pulling in the associated libraries needed to run one application in a different environment. This would greatly enhance linux as a choice of OS not just for techies and hobbyist, but for the general microsoft windows users as well.

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Oh ... the line "KDE is far superior to Brasero." should've said k3b is far superior to Brasero. My typo bad.

I used to be a KDE user when I had openSUSE v.9 / v.10.. on my computer. But in my univercity where I work, most of linux pcs had distros with GNOME on them. And that was my first time I'd tried GNOME. After that, when I went home, I'd uninstalled KDE snd I'd installed GNOME.
I think that is much more easy, more beautiful and better for compiling.

I like KDE mainly because of Konqueror and its kio slaves. Now that KDE has ditched Konqueror as its standard file manager and started the so-far gruesome KDE 4, I may switch if things get too bad, especially as Konqueror will run under any other WM. I don't like Gnome because I can't seem to get rid of the double clicking.

I use both Gnome at work and KDE at home. It really depends who's
using it. If I have a basic user Gnome is good because most couldn't
figure out where things are configured mainly because the configuration
is buried using a syntax that most can't understand. I personally
prefer KDE because it doesn't hide the configuration. I usually use
the command line and vi and find most GUIs only allow simple configuration changes whereby the command line all options are available.

I've used Gnome, both when I used Ubuntu and even after I went back to SuSE (which still is better than Ubuntu, esp with sysadmin). But every time I find myself wanting to do things that Gnome doesn't support, except perhaps by getting deep inside its guts. Gnome is great for the Ubuntu targeted first-time user, because of its simplicity. But if you want granular control of the desktop, the ability to bolt-on your own via dcop, the extraordinary power of Konqueror, etc., you have to go with KDE. I think it's noteworthy that KDE is more popular in Europe, where users have more history with Linux and are more hands-on proficient - broad generality, but true - than their U.S. counterparts.

I was devoted to KDE and its apps until I switched to Mint and really gave Gnome a try. I could switch back and not worry -the quality of the distro seems more important. There are some KDE apps I really like, kate and amarok being most noticable. I have installed these and had no adverse affects and that seems the best of both for me. I want to try a 'lighter' environment on an old laptop though. (Don't you just love the choices...)

KDE 4.0 looks disgusting. So I choose Gnome.

It's clean and quick. And I write code in C.

I have been using KDE because I liked the way preferences was controlled so far. I'm am tempted to try Gnome 2.22 and see how things have changed as I haven't used Gnome for quite some time. I also used Enlightenment for a brief period, but found that it wouldn't add new applications to the menu, and was harder to configure.