[newbie] Gnome v. KDE in LM8

[Talonholco]

Hello and thank you for reviewing my post...

I recently installed LM8 as a companion o/s (dual-boot) on my machine. Once
the boot selection is made, Linux boots flawlessly and presents the X
terminal, where you identify the user and select your GUI.

Oddly enough, there are vast performance differences between my two preferred
GUI's...KDE starts and runs perfectly each time and has proven to be
perfectly stable; Gnome, on the other hand, starts off normally but only
lasts a short time before it freezes up the machine and requires the dreaded
"reset" reboot. (The keyboard locks up as well, so Cntrl-Alt-Bkspc doesn't
work either). My hunch is that it is related to the sound card, because if I
disable sounds, the problem never happens. So, this leads me to believe there
is a question of priority for the sound card...KDE seems to give the sound
card a higher priority and thus is not affected, but my question is, how do
you tell Gnome to give the sound card a higher priority, so that other
devices won't interfere and freeze up the machine? (If that is indeed the
problem)

Any suggestions???

Thanks again....

Mike
(THE new Linux Advocate)

As a side note...My overall Linux experience is outstanding and although
requiring more tweaking than Windows, I believe Linux is well on its way to
being the o/s underdog for the home user. It's about time!!!!