Penguin
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This is a topic that you can start a ReligiousWar over.

It should not be taken lightly, and unfortunately it has split the Linux community somewhat. Google gives 50,000+ hits for GNOME vs KDE.

With the recent (last 6 months) release of a new generation of both Gnome and KDE, there are some choices to make. Basically, evaluate both and decide which one you want.

If you like KDE, you might want to look into Mandrake, a distribution that was started because RedHat refused to support KDE in their distribution. If you like GNOME, you have to look at FedoraCore, who tend to stagger their releases around GNOME's. There is no simple answer, for better or for worse.

RedHat have recently tried to unify the two for the first time with their BlueCurve theme which basically is a theme/theming engine for both platforms that makes them look the same. This is a truly excellent idea.

It would seem that if you're American, you tend GNOME and if you're European, you tend toward KDE. If you're RichardStallman you definitely don't tend toward KDE.

It should be pointed out that you do not need to choose either of these, you can always use programs from the other desktop under the one you're running. And while it may be a good idea to use one or the other for many users, there is also a third choice here: ignore these two warring desktop environments and use something else. Have you seen XFce?