Okay, I found the little 'hidden' icon during boot-up that allows me to
switch to/from KDE/Gnome...

Meanwhile Fyi re. display resolutions:  I just found that simply entering

into menu "Applications, System, Display", then tab "Hardware" for "Video

Cards" and specifying  the "vesa - Generic VESA-compliant video cards" gi
ves
us all the fine resolution levels we could ask for, even with a ATI-Radeo
n 9000.
i.e.: I'm running with 1280x1024 now. -no ati-x11-drv...
Thanks.  -I think I'm done here.
Al