Mate or Cinnamon?

[oysterboy]

For all the reasons mentioned above in this thread (most importantly gtk3 support), I wanted to use and like Cinnamon, but it's been too buggy and slow on my machine. MATE on the other hand delivers the same fine experience that I had with Isadora, and so far, has been fast and stable.

So a solid +1 for MATE from me Thanks clem for providing the best 'just works' distro that I know of.

[habfan29]

In my quick experimentation with the Live DVDs, I'm leaning toward Mate. It felt like an easier learning curve than Cinnamon, coming from the GNOME2 world. Just something simple like adding a top panel - Mate does it in a few clicks, while Cinnamon requires a restart (say what? In 2012 I have to restart a DE just to add a stinkin' panel?). I'll probably play around with both of them some more before making my final decision.

Feels like a lousy time to release an LTS, when both of these DEs are still fairly new. If only all the other major DEs weren't so much worse..

[isaach]

Feels like a lousy time to release an LTS, when both of these DEs are still fairly new. If only all the other major DEs weren't so much worse..

It's not really up to Mint. LM 13 Maya is an LTS because Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin is an LTS.

[xtremo]

Definitely Cinammon IMO. Considering the short space of time it's been around it's amazing how much it's developed!

[redschuart]

Well I've never tried Mate other than via the live CD, but I'm using Cinnamon, with Mint 13 64bit, and was very impressed at first.

But I've experienced a few issues that have left me feeling unsure about the stability of Cinnamon.

The first occured when I installed some true type fonts from my Win 7 install using Font Viewer. The fonts installed OK but I suddenly had no text anywhere, all the characters had been replaced with small white rectangles. I didn't make any changes at all to any system/application fonts, just installed the new fonts using the 'Install Font' button on the Font Viewer into the default user folder .fonts in my Home directory. Fortunately I was able to move the .fonts folder to rubbish bin and restart which returned everything to normal. I've never experienced this in any other Linux distro.
Next is the disappearing panel every time I close the Software Manager. It just disappears for about 30 seconds then re-appears.
After that is the Firefox problem that others have reported on the forum, ie every time I close Firefox I get the message about whether I want to save or close tabs regardless of doing everything to prevent it repeating.


These are little thing maybe but they add up to a feeling that Cinnamon is a bit too flaky to be trusted on a day to day basis. Coupled with lack of configuation options for window colours and not being able to create links in the Nautilus side pane they are pushing me to move away from Mint.

[StanTheMan]

With the present version of Cinnamon , there appears to be no way to minimize a running window.
If you click on the "Minimize" character on the top right edge of the window, it closes and no way to "Maximize" the window , as you used to be able to do on the "Windoiw list button" on the Panel .
If you are going to make "Minimizing" obsolete , you should remove the "Minimize character from the window top edge.
And then the process of multi-tasking goes the way of the Dodo Bird.

[bimsebasse]

? In my Cinnamon window minimize/maximize/close behaviour works the same way it always has worked.

[esteban1uy]

With the present version of Cinnamon , there appears to be no way to minimize a running window.
If you click on the "Minimize" character on the top right edge of the window, it closes and no way to "Maximize" the window , as you used to be able to do on the "Windoiw list button" on the Panel .
If you are going to make "Minimizing" obsolete , you should remove the "Minimize character from the window top edge.
And then the process of multi-tasking goes the way of the Dodo Bird.

Are you sure you were not messing with Cinnamon's window settings?:

[StanTheMan]

esteban1uy .

Thank you for your comment.
I will investigate further.
So far, I have installed two distros with Cinnammon.
In both cases , there is a menu for setting Panel . The only widget I can find is one which is called Cinnamon window list , which does not have "maximize" and "minimize" as in the usual Gnome add widget.
I have used computer often for multi-tasking , where I can have six or eight task windows running , and can go from one task task to another , for example to copy and paste selections when authoring a website or doing a large document.

[esteban1uy]

esteban1uy .

Thank you for your comment.
I will investigate further.
So far, I have installed two distros with Cinnammon.
In both cases , there is a menu for setting Panel . The only widget I can find is one which is called Cinnamon window list , which does not have "maximize" and "minimize" as in the usual Gnome add widget.
I have used computer often for multi-tasking , where I can have six or eight task windows running , and can go from one task task to another , for example to copy and paste selections when authoring a website or doing a large document.

Well... that sounds really strange.
This is a screenshot of a default Cinnamon desktop running three apps. As you can see, you can minimize, maximize, etc. using the window list:


Or, if you prefer, you can install the great "Coverflow Alt-Tab" extension and fast switch between application windows:


But, if you don't want to install something else, the default Cinnamon task switch (Alt-Tab) works really great:

[StanTheMan]

esteban1uy .

Muchas gracias , Esteban .
In my Cinnammon present installation , according to the menu I should be able to double-click on a window list button in order to maximize. But here, northing happens.

The keystroke " Alt/Tab " does toggle between running windows, but I cannot select a single window out of several which may be running.

For a long time , with KDE or Gnome 2x or MATE , I could select a specific window list button in the Panel with ONE click to maximize. For example, I may have six windows running and want to do some " copy and paste" from several sources , into a new document. The single-click makes this multi-tasking very quick..

With Grub 3 it is possible to select a maximize from the desktop thumbnails, but this involves about three clicks , as againstg the single click wit the old systems.

I will do some more experimenting with Cinnamon.

[lunatico]

I used to be an Ubuntu user until they came out with that Unity crap. I was using Ubuntu at work and I was using Linux Mint at home. When Gnome3 (Gnome Shell) came out I started using Fedora on one of my laptops and at first I didn't like it but then it grew on me and now I love it. So I am too struggleing to decide between MATE and Cinnamon. MATE gives me that stable and plain Gnome2 I used to love from old Ubuntu, but Cinnamon gives me a bit of Gnome Shell.

I'll play a bit more with both.

[cwwgateway]

I used to be an Ubuntu user until they came out with that Unity crap. I was using Ubuntu at work and I was using Linux Mint at home. When Gnome3 (Gnome Shell) came out I started using Fedora on one of my laptops and at first I didn't like it but then it grew on me and now I love it. So I am too struggleing to decide between MATE and Cinnamon. MATE gives me that stable and plain Gnome2 I used to love from old Ubuntu, but Cinnamon gives me a bit of Gnome Shell.

I'll play a bit more with both.

Another option is to use the Cinnamon edition and install gnome shell on it (apt install gnome-shell). It's pretty easy because Cinnamon is based on gnome shell.

[lunatico]

Another option is to use the Cinnamon edition and install gnome shell on it (apt install gnome-shell). It's pretty easy because Cinnamon is based on gnome shell.

Yup, I did that. But I had also already installed MATE so I ended up with a slightly messed up system with Cinnamon, MATE, gnome-shell and gnome-panel. I re-installed plain Cinnamon and I think I'm going to stick with it for a while. After all that's where the future seems to be heading.

[austin.texas]

Your window tabs that you can't see are probably still there - just minimized. Look for a small white bar next to your system tray and pull it to the left.

If that does not work, just right click on the panel and choose "Add to Panel". There are a couple of applets that you can add that will give you the ability to switch windows.

[animaguy]

I have been an Xfce fan for since I started using Linux exclusively.

But everything I have read about Cinnamon makes it a done deal.

I am currently downloading Linux Mint 13 for both 32 and 64 bit and so far Xfce is seems sharp although I suspect I will take me a while to appreciate the differences betweeh Maya and Lisa...

but I am also downloading Cinnamon for 32 and 64 bit and am looking forward to see what all the hub bub is about.

I tried Ubuntu for sometime but, I believe that Linux Mint is the best default everyday use computer.

It will be interesting for me to play around with Cinnamon for everyday stuff.

[AllGamer]

IMO

I find Cinnamon to run quicker & faster than Mate

Mate reminds me too much of the old heavy and clunky Gnome

in Cinnamon any changes happens right away, and the interface is fluid

Mate / Gnome is like before, you change something, you'll need to refresh, reload, or exit and comeback to see some of the changes to apply

after learning how great Cinnamon works, i upgraded all my older Linux desktop/servers to run Cinnamon instead of Gnome, Xfce or Unity

I was rather surprised Cinnamon works so quickly even on older video cards where Gnome will simply struggle to get loaded, and people usually end up installing Xfce on those low end linux boxes

[jupiter66]

I come from Gnome2 with Compiz and cairo-dock. I'm sad to say that MATE or Cinnamon can't satisfy me, but have great hope on XFCE edition (maybe with an added gnome-fallback session).

I experimented a lot with MATE (both LM13 and LMDE) and I don't think it's a good idea. MATE is presented as a substitute to GNOME2, but it's not true. Yes, It LOOKS like gnome2 and you feel at home, first. But it's a NEW desktop and is not (at this time) as well supported as gnome3 or xfce. Some examples: want to install ubuntuone or dropbox or cairo-dock? Well, these things are integrated with nautilus, not caja (everything had to be renamed in MATE, and it has consequences). Many things will work as gnome2, but not all. It seems easier to have a coherent nautilus file manager in xfce than in MATE. So for me, it's a deception.

Cinnamon doesn't have all these compatibility problems (true GNOME under the hood), but lacks some features (and options) right now. For example, workspace change by moving a windows (flip on move) or by mouse button2. I can live without a "cube", but the workspace flip in compiz is part of the way I work. Also, I prefer to use a dock and have a good menu in it. The Cinnamon menu is not bad (mintmenu is better and is integrated in xfce now) but is not compatible with cairo-dock. But if someone is satisfied with what Cinnamon offers right now, I think it's a safer path than MATE. Otherwise, consider xfce.

[Zikco]

The main reason (as I see it) for some to want Cinnamon, while others don't want it (yet), can actually be summed up in two words:

New Tech

Many want it because, well, it's shiny new tech ,
while the others want their DE to not go wonky at a moments notice when something goes off.

Either way is just fine.

I prefer my DE to not go wonky when I'm not mucking about in the innards of the system, so I use MATE for my day-to-day activities.

[phelest]

Does anyone know where to find the "most used" or "most downloaded" statistics for that item ?