I can't help with dial up as I have been on broadband for over ten years. I
can't even remember dialup although I used it for longer than ten years. I
can't believe that it is still used. I used it in the mid 1980s before there
was a www. However I am a big KDE user (since Mandrake 7 or 8) with a few
Ubuntu years from 2006 - 8. When you say there was so many options I assume
you mean packages. The core Kubuntu packages are different from GNOME ones.
There is a corresponding KDE package for most GNOME ones and then some, so
it is not surprising that it is a big undertaking for someone on dialup.
Basically the setup for KDE and GNOME is much the same except the may be
called different names. Perhaps one of our dialup KDE users can get you
pointed in the right direction. This is not meant to be condescending.
Broadband is the way to go and anything else is unacceptable in this day and
age. If you are stuck on dialup then you need to make some noise.