Linux Mint Forums

Hey guys.

Been testing the mint 13rc and think both are great but is anyone else having trouble deciding which DE they are going to go with?

I just can't decide!

Not me, I love the Cinnamon edition. Mate is Ok, but it's not my cup of tea.
What I really like about the Cinnamon desktop is the almost endless possibilities of applets and extensions. They're really easy to code and to deploy, so in a short time there will be applets for everything you can imagine.

Yeah I really like Cinnamon as well and the main things I used in compiz are available in cinnamon.

But compiz is compiz.

I can see me hopping between the two in indecision, haha.

I like cinnamon. But miss having the control over my windows that compiz gave me. With gnome3 and cinnamon, I can't choose what Apps launch without decorations, skip taskbar, launch in full screen etc etc. I also hate that icons in the panel don't flash when they need attention. I'm glad cinnamon is bringing back a sane desktop, but as it matures I would like to have a lot more control over my desktop experience.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

i prefer cinnamon over mate.

only thing that bugs me out is all the glitches with my ati card (hd4xxx) when using proprietary drivers

so i'll have to choose between mate with proprietary driver or cinnamon without them.

guess i can live without them since i don't do nothing special with my pc except browsing, watching movies, etc...

Prefer MATE over Cinnamon, it seems a bit more mature and configurable, but either is a good choice

KBD47 wrote:Prefer MATE over Cinnamon, it seems a bit more mature and configurable, but either is a good choice

I haven't noticed much of a difference from XFCE and Gnome 2. I have always wondered why MATE is even necessary.

Shibblet wrote:
I haven't noticed much of a difference from XFCE and Gnome 2. I have always wondered why MATE is even necessary.

Xfce and Gnome2/MATE are similar. Two of my favorite desktops.Some time back in the midst of the Gnome 3 debacle I suggested several times that Mint should use Xfce for their default desktop. I still think it would have been a good choice.

KBD47 wrote:Xfce and Gnome2/MATE are similar. Two of my favorite desktops.Some time back in the midst of the Gnome 3 debacle I suggested several times that Mint should use Xfce for their default desktop. I still think it would have been a good choice.

I actually think Cinnamon is a great step forward for Mint, but an XFCE "Spin" is a good idea.

KBD47 wrote:Prefer MATE over Cinnamon, it seems a bit more mature and configurable, but either is a good choice

Mate will be my choice since it plays nice with Compiz.

Shibblet wrote:

KBD47 wrote:Prefer MATE over Cinnamon, it seems a bit more mature and configurable, but either is a good choice

I haven't noticed much of a difference from XFCE and Gnome 2. I have always wondered why MATE is even necessary.

MATE is there to preserve the look, feel and operability of GNOME 2, which is dead now.

I'm in the MATE camp myself.

Add another vote for MATE. The original Gnome 2 setup meets 100% of my wishes and expectations. MATE continues that for me.

Why change? Certainly not just for the sake of change.

KBD47 wrote:Prefer MATE over Cinnamon, it seems a bit more mature and configurable, but either is a good choice

Another vote for MATE for its configurability, as the first thing I do after installing Mint (till 11; i tried but didn't use Mint 12) is customize the desktop... like right-click on taskbar to move it to the top, increase taskbar's width, remove Mint menu and add "Main Menu", etc.

Since Cinnamon came out, I've been strongly in the Cinnamon camp, but after taking a look at the MATE edition, as well as other DEs (like Unity, vanilla Gnome Shell, Xfce, LXDE, KDE), I've swayed towards some of the others. I still use Cinnamon on my laptop, but I think Xfce (I prefer LMDE Xfce) is a great Gnome 2 replacement for older computers.

But back to the original question, I use Cinnamon, I'm going to keep using Cinnamon, and I strongly believe that it is the future, but I am very surprised with MATE's stability and functionality with Mint 13 and I feel that it's a very good option (especially for people whose graphics cards don't work with Cinnamon/Gnome Shell).

+1 for MATE on Mint 13. Tried both variants, preferred MATE. Stability and performance win over looks every time.

I much prefer Cinnamon as it feels much more mature than MATE in my opinion. I've had nothing but issues with MATE when I tried it. I think this is due to the fact that MATE is only a fork of Gnome 2, and is trying to preserve Gnome 2 100%. Unfortunately, everyone else is moving on passed Gnome 2 tech. So Cinnamon definitely wins out here for me. I do hope to see MATE mature though. It definitely is a good idea.

antikythera wrote:+1 for MATE on Mint 13. Tried both variants, preferred MATE. Stability and performance win over looks every time.

That being the case, you'd be using XFCE.

realitykid wrote:I much prefer Cinnamon as it feels much more mature than MATE in my opinion. I've had nothing but issues with MATE when I tried it. I think this is due to the fact that MATE is only a fork of Gnome 2, and is trying to preserve Gnome 2 100%. Unfortunately, everyone else is moving on passed Gnome 2 tech. So Cinnamon definitely wins out here for me. I do hope to see MATE mature though. It definitely is a good idea.

MATE is the way to move forward, and keep what people are comfortable with.

Hello to all, long time no see...
I loved Isadora so much (and it being on LTS and all), I stopped upgrading distros (and kinda disconnected from the forums ) until Mint 13 came out.

Well, that time is almost up now and I'm trying to catch up on history about the whole Unity/Gnome3 debate and I've been trying both editions of Maya RC. Personally, I prefer Gnome2 so I'm glad Mint pulled the plug on Gnome3, but I'm curious as to what led to the creation of Cinnamon.
As an engineer, I appreciate the power of diversity and choice (that's why I use Linux); but as a user, and in the few days I have been trying the RC, I have found MATE to deliver everything I like about Gnome2, so I honestly ask what where the reasons for the development of Cinnamon, or what does it do (or will do) that MATE doesn't?

luisgf wrote:Hello to all, long time no see...
I loved Isadora so much (and it being on LTS and all), I stopped upgrading distros (and kinda disconnected from the forums ) until Mint 13 came out.

Well, that time is almost up now and I'm trying to catch up on history about the whole Unity/Gnome3 debate and I've been trying both editions of Maya RC. Personally, I prefer Gnome2 so I'm glad Mint pulled the plug on Gnome3, but I'm curious as to what led to the creation of Cinnamon.
As an engineer, I appreciate the power of diversity and choice (that's why I use Linux); but as a user, and in the few days I have been trying the RC, I have found MATE to deliver everything I like about Gnome2, so I honestly ask what where the reasons for the development of Cinnamon, or what does it do (or will do) that MATE doesn't?

Cinnamon has a lot of benefits over MATE (I'm not saying it's better, as there are also many cons):

• It's based on GTK 3 which is a huge step up from GTK 2, whereas MATE is based on GTK 2
• Cinnamon is built on new technology and therefore benefits from this new technology
• Cinnamon is directly controlled by the Linux Mint team and it will be their exact vision for the desktop
• Cinnamon has lots of applets, themes, and extensions
• It has a much faster development pace than MATE and will therefore get new features faster
• Cinnamon feels much newer (this point is debatable)
• Here's a really big one - when all of the popular apps move to GTK 3 (which, whether you like it or not will happen eventually), they will stop working with MATE
• Cinnamon benefits from Gnome's new features, whereas MATE doesn't (gnome 2 isn't updated anymore)
• MATE still has some bugs, especially with compiz, whereas Cinnamon has 3d effects built in and while it has bugs to fix, a lot of them can be fixed by the Gnome team
• Soon Cinnamon will work with software rendering as well as hardware rendering (with llvmpipe), which will bring it on par with MATE in terms of hardware compatibility.

Specific features that Cinnamon has that MATE doesn't:

• 3d effects out of the box (compiz has trouble with MATE sometimes)
• Built in expo and scale mode
• Applets
• Cinnamon Settings, which allows you to easily tweak all of Cinnamon in one place
• Bluetooth

Thank you for your very enlightening response. I suspected it had something to do with future-proofing, and yes, GTK3 is a much better choice. The fact that the Mint team has control over Cinnamon is what just sealed the deal for me.. count me in!