Really interesting thread (at least to me) yesterday on the relative advantages of KDE versus GNOME, and other window managers/desktop environments; I'm fairly new to Linux, so I missed the whole vi against emacs debate, as well as this one. The inside baseball of that whole deal just flies right over my head.
Just as well, I suppose, to come into Linux without all that particular knowledge; especially when you consider that there is a whole new generation of window environments that is coming out, for example Beryl and Compiz (though they are supposed to have merged), that makes those flame wars seem quaint.
And in comparison to the wars that go on relative to the various political candidates the discussion here is rather civilized.
I was at one time a huge fan of KDE, but now can scarcely stand to use it; GNOME just feels a better fit for me, overall. The things I liked about KDE were the right click menu 'move to' and then choosing a folder, which is way more convenient than clicking the home menu and then dropping stuff into a folder. Also, at the time of first switching to Linux, the great similarity that KDE has to the Mac layout was kind of reassuring.
The thing that most bugs me about KDE is that when you want to drag and drop something, a little menu will pop asking to 'copy here', 'move here' and what not; although I'm sure that can be configured away (and it really is a minor complaint) it just rubbed me the wrong way after dragging and dropping something for the nth time.
If you are thinking about trying Linux for the first time, then the best distro that copies the look and feel of Mac OS X has to be DreamLinux, it's kind of scary how similar it is, especially the dock, with its magnify effect when you drag your mouse over various items in it.
GNOME is unquestionably the simpler of the two major desktop environments, and that is something that I really appreciate; no bouncing cutesy icons that gobble up the ram when you first start up.
I do have to say though, that since I've been using Fedora 7, and also Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04), that Beryl is really my personal favorite 3D add on to GNOME; the spinning cube is fun to play with, but the real use I get out of it is the expose effect that is identical to what Mac OS X has to offer. If you have the ram to burn, it's way worth installing it and enabling it. A big time-saver, and quite cool looking.
But that's mild in terms of today's flame wars; if I were to say something like 'Why haven't you given up Windows yet', then that would be pretty flammable material. Not that I am saying it, though a discussion at Fedora forums does just that, and in response, one commenter says that it's not about the OS, it just what works for you.
That pretty much sums up what I feel about the various 'My OS is the best' type deals; if it works for you, and you are the most comfortable with it, then that is what you have to stick with, whether it's for the gaming, the familiarity, the simplicity ( a big attraction of OS X), or just the investment of getting to know it, and not wanting to start over in a strange environment.
I realize that makes me about the lamest Linux advocate on the planet, but I never claimed to be that; Linux is just what works best for me, and in writing about it I want to show others that it's not this overly technical, scary system where you spend hours and hours using a command line to configure your system. Unless you use Slackware, that is. And I've not gotten in that deep, yet.
The thing that I like probably most about Linux is that it lets me forget what system I'm using, and lets me focus on just using my computer; if that fits your description of you and your computing environment, no matter what it is, then that is simply where you were meant to be. Kind of like Karma. Which has no hands.