First off, I don't want a flame war. I am perfectly happy with
Blackbox myself, so this is really for my wife, a Windows refugee. I
recognize that she would be much more comfortable with a desktop
environment, and want to make things comfortable.
   What I like about KDE is its rapid development cycle. Do these guys
ever take a break? However, perhaps someone more knowledgable could
tell me whether there is significant development, or if each new
release is more along the lines of "Oh, look, I added a paperclip
widget! Let's release a new version!"
   On the other hand, I like GNOME's look and feel. Furthermore, KDE
seems to be the Arkansas cousin in the Debian world; he's family, but
we prefer to keep him in the back of the house. (No offense intended
for anyone from Arkansas or having cousins from said fine state.)
   What I don't like about both is their bloat. I have run both on my
puny 200 MHz 32MB laptop, and let me tell you, they suffer from bloat.
True, my new system is an Athlon 1.2 with 256 MB, so that should help
matters significantly, but it is the principle of the thing.
   So, imagine yourself in my shoes: you have the opportunity to
introduce a newbie to the Linux world. What desktop environment would
you choose? Why? What futures do you see for them? Remember, while I
will be the primary administrator, I will have to be teaching her, or
at least leaving a list of instructions, of how to run the system in
case something ever happens to me. Like, "Oh, no, Peter was hit by a
low-flying penguin! Where's our tax information? And while I'm at it,
how do I change the font?"
   I will now wear my asbestos underwear...
   :Peter

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