hey bill, if you're reluctant to try and install gnome or kde, i'd recommend you download and burn yourself a knoppix CD. if you're not familiar with what knoppix is, it's a bootable linux on a cd, based off of debian, and comes with gnome, kde, and iirc even icewm as options from the boot prompt, as well as a nice collectoin of g* and k* software. it's a good way to get a feel for the different desktop environments, and from my own experience comes in very handy as a rescue cd as well, so it's good to have anyway.
sean
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