GNOME or KDE?

[John Olson]

> Nearly all my Linux use has been using bash on boxes used as servers
> or for machine control.  I used X ages ago on solaris and rs6000
> boxes.  Now I have a Celeron 433 box available with 512 RAM that I
> want to set up as a Linux desktop to really and truly begin my walk
> down the yellow brick road away from the M$ desktop.  My questions
> are: 1) does this 433 celeron have enough horsepower for GNOME or KDE?
> and 2) which of the two is better suited for a new Linux GUI user?   I
> have RH 7.2.
> 
> Also, 3) are there any good open source development environments
> available (replacement for visual studio or codewrite)?  (yes, vi is
> an option, but I've become addicted to the color-coded keywords)
> 
> Thanks.