Dunno what to say: I've never tried XPde -- and I've never found Kde daunting in the least. I find XP quite like a very badly crafted version of Kde.

But maybe the best thing any Linux newbie can do (apart from read the HOWTOs -- I've always had a soft spot for Guido Gonzato's DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO) is to apt-get install rutebook

In fact, you can apt-get install the HOWTO's, too.

Once you've snagged them, they'll be in /usr/share/doc/