Kubuntu Adivce

[whabang]

Debian Squeeze + Gnome with Openbox as WM. My netbook is now a lean mean surfing machine compared to when I had it struggling with Ubuntu.

Kubuntu is decent if you're a KDE man.

[whabang]

Gnome

The thing about Gnome is that it's not that slow as a Desktop environment. It's Window manager, on the other hand, is a big crappy piece of bloat.

It's perfectly possible to make a Gnome install run very fast; just replace Metacity with Openbox, and use the Mist GTK theme. If you want compositing, use Xcompmgr.

[whabang]

Meh - you want speed?  replace all of that with a clean install of Arch or ubuntu server and DWM :lol:

Why would I install Ubuntu server, when I can install a Debian base system and apt-get the rest?

Arch linux is awesome, though.

[whabang]

With a base Debian system you could conceivably install a non-lobotomised version of KDE....

Absolutely! One could also do what I did with Gnome, and simply run the KDE environment with Openbox as window manager.

[whabang]

Or just install Slackware.

Indeed. It's a matter of personal taste, really.