Linux Mint Forums

I'm a die-hard Gnome2/Compiz user and MATE has truly been
my mate for some time now. However, on my system (LMDE/Dell D530),
when playing music, the volume can go to beyond 100% when I use
Cinnamon. That made me boot to Cinnamon more and I kinda grew
to like it very much also.

If the window manager of Cinnamon supported these things:
- left-winkey-left-mouse ; make screenshot of area
- window positioning for certain apps ; max / size / position
- be much faster on my Intel 965 graphics card ; compiz is way faster than mutter or muffin
- roll-up/shade using mouse wheel ; enable me to unclutter my desktop
- some more...

Then I am sold.

Mint with Cinnamon is definitely on the right track 4me and I
presume it will be my Desktop in the near future.

My kudo's go to all the Mint developers.
It is awesome how they listen to their users and while facing
severe technical challenges still manage to provide a system
that is worth being called Mint.

The Linux Mind Debian Edition is something that is also way too
cool. Breaking away from Ubuntu and returning to the Mothership
(Debian) is the right way to go 4sure.

Ben.

I like Cinnamon
But on my eeepc Mate is so much quicker

Recently I read on /dot that the Gnome peoples are
going to "enhance" Gnome3 with some stuff that aims
to bring back the "lost Desktop experience".

Maybe they "are waking up" or this is a move to undermine the
cool efforts like Cinnamon.
I don't know.

One thing I know is KDE is *definitely* on the right track.
They have their "Activities" and leave their users *choice*.
Just use activity "Desktop" for your Desktop or "what's-it's-name"
to get a NoteBook interface. Superior !

The KDE approach of "computer interfacing" makes all discussions
about Gnome2/MATE/Unity/GnomeShell and what-not redundant.

Maybe the whole Mint Distro should consider moving to QT and KDE
and build upon that.

The Gnome People are removing the fallback mode because llvmpipe allows graphics cards without 3D acceleration to use Gnome Shell. They have said that they will support a set of extensions that add elements of the classic desktop. Extensions to do this are already available, but they break with each major gnome shell update. These extensions will be updated so that they are compatible with gnome shell at the same time as the release.

I think people are overreacting over the possible effects of this decision. Gnome already provided the fallback mode, which didn't deter projects like Cinnamon, and many extensions are already available to do what these extensions would do. These extensions wouldn't be enabled by default, so gnome is still going for their current interface. Also, these extensions would still be very rigid - they would provide only one different layout, whereas Cinnamon and MATE provide many ways to customize your desktop.

On the subject of switching to KDE/QT, KDE is definitely a good desktop. I've been playing around with the unofficial LMDE KDE, and I am very happy with it. However, KDE still has some problems. First of all, many applications that are very important to users, including Firefox, are GTK apps. While GTK integration in KDE is decent by default, many KDE themes have bad GTK integration. Many good apps are GTK apps, and it could be a problem if they don't integrate well with the theme. Also, KDE is resource intensive - it gives you a lot of eye candy, but it can be very slow on older machines. I give KDE credit, however, for making KDE much faster over time, and for allowing people to turn off effects to get a lighter desktop. I personally haven't experienced this (although I just installed LMDE KDE yesterday night), but I have heard a lot of people saying that KDE can be fairly buggy. Also, in the Mint desktop poll, KDE was behind Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, and it was just ahead of Gnome Shell, so based on that, Mint users are probably happier with Cinnamon/MATE as the default. Finally, personally, I have never gotten past KDE seeming a little bit too eye-candy-ish. The look and feel of the desktop is a little bit distracting at times for me personally.

On the flip side, KDE has many great features. KWin is as good as compiz IMHO. Also, basically everything can be configured. There are many more good things, but I won't go into too much detail (as my point was to show some of the problems with KDE).

I disagree. We're not on the right track for a 'production' desktop. That's the real core of the problem. There is nothing out there at this point in time that is capable of replacing MATE/Gnome 2 reasonably and nothing is on a road map top do that. Everything is geared toward eye wash, cutsie and over-simplification for the lazy, playtoy people and the dumb. The new "desktop' environments are restrictive, cumbersome and are not friendly toward production and task intensive usage.. Thank goodness LM 13 MATE will be good at least until 2017. In the meanwhile, someone needs to genuinely produce a stand alone desktop that is geared toward real desktop production. JMO.

Trapper wrote:I disagree. We're not on the right track for a 'production' desktop. That's the real core of the problem. There is nothing out there at this point in time that is capable of replacing MATE/Gnome 2 reasonably and nothing is on a road map top do that. Everything is geared toward eye wash, cutsie and over-simplification for the lazy, playtoy people and the dumb. The new "desktop' environments are restrictive, cumbersome and are not friendly toward production and task intensive usage.. Thank goodness LM 13 MATE will be good at least until 2017. In the meanwhile, someone needs to genuinely produce a stand alone desktop that is geared toward real desktop production. JMO.

That's why Mint has a MATE edition . I think that, with everything, people's opinions differ, which is why Mint has Ubuntu-based Cinnamon, Mate, KDE, and Xfce, and Debian based Cinnamon and MATE. It also depends on what exactly you want to do - 90% +/- of desktop users are running Windows with very few ways to change things and a lot of simplification and they are perfectly happy with it. I personally enjoy eye candy as long as there still is functionality. I'd be curious to hear a few examples of what's not-friendly towards production. IMHO, libreoffice runs the same on anything from openbox to Gnome Shell. However, I'm happy that you're happy with MATE, and they're going to keep releasing MATE, so I don't know why a new desktop would be needed (unless you aren't completely happy with MATE?). Anyway, I think you were the type of person who MATE was intended for.