low powerhungry desktop environment

[bartgrefte]

Hi,

Linux Mint 13 only seems to be available with MATE and Cinnamon.
Since I don't have any experience with either of those, which one consumes the lowest amount of system recourses?

It's for a system build around an Intel DN2800MT (linkto powerusage test and specs), that should consume as less power as possible.

I'm thinking MATE, since Cinnamon requires 3D acceleration according to http://linuxmint.com/rel_maya_whatsnew.php , but I could be wrong by using just that as an argument.

Any thoughts on this?

[xenopeek]

I'm not sure, but esteban1uy has done two comparisons between MATE and Cinnamon (on real hardware) to look at system load:

viewtopic.php?f=60&p=582292#p582292
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=102030&start=180#p582337

[esteban1uy]

I'm not sure, but esteban1uy has done two comparisons between MATE and Cinnamon (on real hardware) to look at system load:

viewtopic.php?f=60&p=582292#p582292
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=102030&start=180#p582337

I'm not sure if that little test is really representative of the power consumption of each DE. It shows the CPU usage at idle but, for a lot of reasons, that can't be taken as an accurate measure of the real power consumption. So I'm going to repeat the idling tests to have a better comparison for that specific parameter.
So, stay tuned

[esteban1uy]

Ok, here we go!
For the purpose of the test both Maya MATE and Cinnamon Live-DVDs were used with screensaver, screen lock and dimming disabled, so we were sure we have the system in its most pristine state and we were measuring only the desktop at idle power consumption:

After 10 minutes idling, this is what powertop reports for Maya MATE:


And this is for Maya Cinnamon under exactly the same conditions:


So Cinnamon uses 1.6% more power than Mate... not a very relevant difference from my point of view.
Of course, this is valid only for my system (Lenovo B570), others may find different results.