Poll: Desktop environments

[balbecdaze]

I've been using Ubuntu since it was called Heron and apart from an inquisitive flirt with KDE a few years ago (well it looked very pretty ...) have stuck with it. However, when I offered to resurrect my mum's old 512MB RAM laptop I discovered it wasn't so clever with Unity. So I researched a few alternatives and came up with Linux Mint 12 LXDE. I installed it and over the course of a few days fixing and tweaking came to really like it. So out went my laptop's (895MB RAM?) OS (again Ubunty and Unity) and that is now happily running Mint12 LXDE. Now I've got my beady eye on my PC and the partition I made in my girlfiend's laptop, both, thankfully with much more RAM. ..hmmm which to try first.

Excellent poll and very thought provoking comments, keep it up!

[NGC6888]

Longtime fan of Mint. My favorite is maybe Mint 11, and Gnome 2. My life is extremely busy, and when I see that desktop I feel a sense of relief that I can speed through my tasks quickly. However I use 11 infrequently, on a daily basis I use the latest 12 with Cinnamon.

Someone mentioned Mint KDE, because it is Mint, Mint KDE is OK. Generally speaking it's not my cup of tea. However with Mint 12 64 bit on my Intel mobo, Q9450 processor, and nvidia Asus GTX 550 Ti 1 gb video card, the Gnome version of every single type of Mint from 12 back to 7 refused to boot at all, just got a blank black screen with the live disk. I tried 64 Mint 12 KDE and it worked. Unfortunately I could only stand KDE for a couple months, then switched back to the latest Ubuntu, and for once I got Ubuntu working fine. I've had trouble in the past with Ubuntu while Mint has always worked better for me. The latest Ubuntu is out, not sure if I'm going to use that on my Q9450 computer now that I got the past version working well on it (11.10 I think). I've been waiting for Mint lucky 13 to see if it will run on my Q9450 system and nvidia GTX 550 Ti video card, 4 gb ram.

I like the old features of Gnome 2 where you can put lots of applets on the bottom task bar. On my mainstream computers I use Mint 12 and Cinnamon because at the very least I can put the workspace switcher on the task bar, for me that is crucial. I selected 36 desktop workspaces, and usually have maybe around 60 windows/tabs open? I need this to organize my tasks for greatest efficiency. It would be nice to be able to also put on the task bar the sleep inhibit applet, I miss the applets. For Gnome 3, I do all right, on my Q9450 computer Ubuntu 11.10 only has a four space desktop switcher and I can't adjust it, it is not optimal for my heavy internet tasks but I try to reserve that computer for graphics, and Flight Simulator.

For modern Mint, guess I like Cinnamon best because most crucially I can put the workspace switcher in the taskbar. If I didn't have that, I might have gone back to Mint 11 and Gnome 2. I have computers still running Mint 7 and 9, they were classics. I think 7 was the first really superb Mint edition, then 9 is an outstanding classic that works fabulously. Normally I upgrade to the latest Mint every six months with great enthusiasm, but the installations of 7 and 9 on those other computers were so perfect I leave them that way. Better update 9 while I still can. I liked 11 very much, outstanding.

Can you add video editing to Mint or to Mint 13 64 bit? And sound editing? Whatever is the best available? I have to use Windows to scan negatives because Xsane doesn't get the colors right. Can you also put into Synaptic the latest version of Speech Recognition from that Carnegie Mellon group, Sphinx? They have a version 4 or greather, version 2 is only listed in synaptic, and I've never gotten it working.

[AngelGR]

LMDE + Cinnamon = Powerful system + modern and functional desktop = Very happy Mint user

[habfan29]

I am still a Mint 9 user, since it is an LTS and I have no interest in installing/upgrading every 6 months. I haven't decided to what DE I will move when Mint 13 comes out but it will be one of Cinnamon, Mate, or KDE. I've yet to try Cinnamon or Mate. I did try KDE 4.x in its early days and loathed it. It was part of what led me to Ubuntu and finally Mint. I've read that the KDE 4.x line has improved greatly from its early days, so I may take another look at it.

I've zero interest in Gnome Shell, and even less in Unity. My desktop is a desktop, gosh-darn it, not a tablet! They oughta round up all those UI designers in charge of those projects and lash them to death with wet noodles

[adequate]

Long time forum/mint lurker. I put my vote in with MATE. I'm been using Linux Mint Debian 201204 and I'm really impressed with how far MATE has gotten in a short time.

[naticus]

Mint 13: Cinnamon (default DE), gnome-shell (secondary), MATE (Fallback).

Mint KDE: for the KDE users (enthusiasts)
Mint Xfce: mint users with low/older specs.

LMDE: for the test bed into a Mint future where they ditch Ubuntu and Shuttleworth and provide the Linux community with the slickest,faster, most polished out-of-the-box Debian Testing/Unstable branch OS in Linux history.

This seems to be the most logical choice as all suit users needs in the most broadest of scenarios.

[bamm]

Mint 13: Cinnamon (default DE), gnome-shell (secondary), MATE (Fallback).

I disagree with this. Gnome3 has a fallback for those users with hardware that can't handle compositing.

Mate is not fallback. Mate is a full DE in itself that can run Compiz.

Furthermore, Gnome3 and Fallback share the same set of libraries. However, Mate does not share libraries with Cinnamon. In fact, it is Gnome3 and Cinnamon which share common libraries.

A better set would be:

* Mate in Main Edition
* Cinnamon and Shell in Gnome3 Edition (they are both shells for Gnome3)
* KDE in KDE Edition
* XFCE or LXDE in Light Edition

[KBD47]

[/quote]


A better set would be:

* Mate in Main Edition
* Cinnamon and Shell in Gnome3 Edition (they are both shells for Gnome3)
* KDE in KDE Edition
* XFCE or LXDE in Light Edition[/quote]

+1 for this.
I'm not sure how much it matters which desktop is in the main/default Mint edition as long as users have the choice of either MATE or Cinnamon in Mint 13. The reason I think MATE might be a better choice for default is that Cinnamon will not run on as much hardware as MATE, and because MATE is the traditional Mint desktop, and this release is LTS.
I think that those fixated on Gnome 2 have not seen MATE in its most recent iteration, namely LMDE, they've seen the half-finished job in Mint 12 which was buggy. MATE needs a bit more polish to fully fit into Gnome 2's shoes, but it is close, and I hope it's fully there with a few more updates.

[cwwgateway]

This has been said before, but I'll say it again, Cinnamon will not require hardware rendering in Mint 13 (meaning there's no need for fallback) and there will be a 2d mode. This mode supports pretty much all hardware (although MATE might be faster). As for standard desktop, as I've said, I think Cinnamon.

[KBD47]

This has been said before, but I'll say it again, Cinnamon will not require hardware rendering in Mint 13 (meaning there's no need for fallback) and there will be a 2d mode. This mode supports pretty much all hardware (although MATE might be faster). As for standard desktop, as I've said, I think Cinnamon.

If that's the case then it really wouldn't matter other than what Mint users are already used to as compared to going with something new. I have definitely noticed a speed difference between MATE and Cinnamon on low spec hardware, with MATE being much faster, but maybe Cinnamon is going to be much faster in Mint 13?

[naticus]

The one caveat I have with Cinnamon is, like others have mentioned, the performance -- even compared to gnome-shell, cinnamon is heavier and feels a bit sluggish. If Clem and the Mint team can fix this issue, make it more efficient (especially the menu response bug) then it should most definitely be the default DE, along with GNOME shell. With gnome-panel being what it is, almost as good as MATE, why even continue to beat a dead horse?

[bimsebasse]

The one caveat I have with Cinnamon is, like others have mentioned, the performance -- even compared to gnome-shell, cinnamon is heavier and feels a bit sluggish. If Clem and the Mint team can fix this issue, make it more efficient (especially the menu response bug) then it should most definitely be the default DE, along with GNOME shell. With gnome-panel being what it is, almost as good as MATE, why even continue to beat a dead horse?

?? The main reason this perfectly content Gnome Shell user switched to Cinnamon at an early stage was the better performance and stability. Gnome shell starts to crease and crack and become unstable as you pile on extensions, an issue Cinnamon doesn't have using applets instead of extensions. If I do an alt+f2+r in Gnome Shell, there's a 40% chance I'll lose my window borders (so I try not to) - I have never had any issues with resets in Cinnamon. The "menu response bug" is actually inherited from Gnome Shell, the first time you use the overview menu in Gnome Shell there is a significant lag and it's the same in Cinnamon's Menu. Otherwise Cinnamon is generally faster than GS for me both in fedora 16, Mint 12 and Ubuntu 12.04. Maybe you have been using a poorly constructed theme because they can cause considerable lag.

[tdrass]

I use Mint 12 with kde on top.
for me the kde distros don't run well on my amd machines.
so i piggy back kde on mint. it gets pretty bloated but everything runs great and that's all i really care about,
I also think other people trying kde run into video driver, sound and network issues.
even still being a noob <2yrs i like ubuntu based systems cause of stability and i strongly believe that kde will always be lacking.
ubuntu team and the mint team will continue to move forward in the current direction.
i just hope they can make some fixes to kde issues on their flagship distro.
i'm going to keep running kde cause i think Qt is better and moving forward quickly.
but mostly i'm glad there are so many DE to choose from.

[lostpoetjj]

This is my first post on this forum. Many of the people on here sound like developers or beta testers. Once that was me but nowadays I am, I guess, a power user. Years ago I was a Unix admin, but now I'm a writer. I can't imagine using anything but Linux. I basically want a system where I can just get on with my work, but also get under the hood and configure things. I write poetry using vi, prose using LibreOffice, and occasionally I write some HTML or CSS, or a shell or Perl script.

I have just switched from Ubuntu 11.10 to Linux Mint 12, largely because Ubuntu was starting to feel too corporate. I liked Unity (once I got used to it, I could work faster) but I never used the Dash because I could never find what I wanted in it. And there was no way to add and remove apps in it. Linux Mint's configurable menu is such a relief!

Now I am using the Gnome shell, if that's the right name for what you get by default with Linux Mint 12 ('ps' appears to confirm this). And I really like it. It's nice to be able to quickly use the trackpad (I hate mice!) and the 'magic corner' to flick between apps, Unity-style, but still have the menus and panels. It's the best of both worlds -- perfect for a touch-typing power user like me whose brain is sometimes in pointer mode and sometimes in keyboard mode.

[bamm]

@KBD47: You are correct that it doesn't matter which is the default, as long as a user can have the edition he wants. I myself don't mind. But since Mint will have to choose which edition is the main edition anyway, then it will have to be a good choice. My vote is Mate, because, overall it will give the Mint project a sense of continuity from Julia/Katya.

[just1acc]

Guys guys...have you seen this?
Clem were right about KDE's hike. But one thing you probably haven't noticed. Well rather describing, here is the screenshot.

https://twitter.com/#!/psychover/status ... 36/photo/1

Preview:

[cwwgateway]

Guys guys...have you seen this?
Clem were right about KDE's hike. But one thing you probably haven't noticed. Well rather describing, here is the screenshot.

https://twitter.com/#!/psychover/status ... 36/photo/1

Preview:

I was taking down the numbers periodically, and I noticed this too. At one point they were actually equal to 150%. I thought that I had just taken the numbers down wrong (I did the total after the poll closed), but this confirms it. This is just a guess, but I think that the service (pollmonkey?) took the number of votes for each DE and mad a percent based on the number of people who voted, not the number of votes (you got more than one), meaning it wasn't supposed to equal 100. It would read (I made up these numbers) "40% of users use at some point Cinnamon, 20% use MATE, 20% use Gnome Shell, 20% use KDE, and 16% use Xfce." Basically, it's saying that each user uses it, not that they use it soley, meaning there's an overlap of numbers (for example my vote was counted for both Cinnamon and Xfce, meaning if I was the only one who voted, both Cinnamon and Xfce would have 1 vote / 1 person, although I did two votes, and both would have 100%).

[bamm]

@just1acc, there is nothing wrong with the total exceeding 100% because we are allowed to vote more than once. I think it's just a matter of the formula used to measure percentage. If they divide it by total votes cast (like this poll) then the total will be 100%. But if they divide it by number of voters (which was probably what happened) then the total percentage will exceed 100%.

[cvasum]

Cinnamon & MATE are best good Desktop Environments.

[intok]

Using Mate 1.2 from it's official repos http://mate-desktop.org/ has ironed out all the kinks that where in version 1.0 in the Mint repos, I don't use Compiz or any other compositor.

I have Cinnamon installed, but rarely use it as it's too heavy on my old Pentium4. I've tried XFCE and LXDE a few times and was never impressed with either.

I'd actually much prefer a Mate only version of Mint13.