Poll: Desktop environments

[KBD47]

To each their own cup of tea For me Unity is a wall between me and my computer, I can use just about any other desktop and quickly access all my programs with a mouse or skimming across a touchpad, no extra typing, no texting through menus, but that's just me

I will say this, if you install myunity and unfreeze that dock so it auto-hides, and make the thing small enough to not be intrusive, then set the sensitivity all the way up, it's much better than the earlier iterations of Unity and approaches being almost usable Just need to move the window buttons to the right and get rid of the hiding menu bar and I could almost live with the thing

[toomanyquestions]

Enlightenment is my favorite DE, however I felt compelled to vote for a DE Mint actually uses (XFCE).

[WasLinspire]

Love mate on LMDE more complete then mate is on the main LM12 edition...I am sure mate on LM13 will be as functional as it is on the LMDE...looking forward to trying it out in LM 13...I also used gnome with extentions but that was till i found how to get to "open as admin" in mate LM12

[yro]

Im really sad to see that this pool will make me, probabily, abandon Mint because I think Cinnamon is not the way to run my desktop. I think Cinnamon is an option only. Not an default.

[cwwgateway]

Im really sad to see that this pool will make me, probabily, abandon Mint because I think Cinnamon is not the way to run my desktop. I think Cinnamon is an option only. Not an default.

There is no garuntee that Clem follows what this poll says, and, even if Cinnamon is the default, you can still run whatever DE you want, for example, MATE. Also, if I may ask, why don't you like Cinnamon? It would be helpful to the devs to know why you won't use it. Finally, again, if I may ask, where do you plan to go? To unity, gnome shell, or where?

[bamm]

I don't like Cinnamon either. I was excited about Cinnamon when it first came out. But I was disappointed that it designed its own menu. I hate the Cinnamon menu. The MintMenu is the reason I switched to Mint (the other reason is the beautiful Mint-X theme). MintMenu should be ported to Cinnamon. Then minimizing doesn't animate to the taskbar, but instead the window disappears as if I closed them. The settings are in many places rather than in a single Control Center. And, to make it worse, all these different control panels have the same icon! duh? And overall it has an unfinished feel. It feels like alpha software and feels like it has many months to go before it is ready for real consumption.

Lately I was surprised at the progress Mate has made. At this point, Mate is definitely more desktop-ready than Cinnamon. I believe that Mate deserves to be the default desktop in Maya. It is the logical continuation of Katya+gnome2. I will remember Mint 12 Lisa as merely a bump in the road.

The Mint that we know is tried and tested. Let as continue it in Maya+mate. Cinnamon should be an option for those who want to test a newer technology.

Clem, let's put more love on Mate and produce the best LTS.

[sbess]

I installed Linux Mint Debian with XFCE and LXDE desktops. Everything works fine and fast. I prefer LXDE. I noticed that some applications do not take the GTK theme when you change the theme from the theme manager. I also noticed it does not work in Pidgin libnotify extension. Otherwise everything works great.
When I tried KDE desktop effects with these dirty windows shadows appear. I had to disable the effects.
(Sorry for my English, I'm writing with Google Translator)

[mikeminty]

GnoMint for me please

[kunichiro]

I just registered only to vote.

Thank you, Linux Mint (Clem and team), for hear the users and let us know that we're important for your project.

I was very happy with LMDE Xfce but I had to leave it because of the repositories trouble.

I would like to see a new Linux Mint Xfce based in Ubuntu. I'm right now in Xubuntu 11.10 but I don't like as I used to like LMDE Xfce.

Xfce 4.10 is here so, this is a new chance to a Linux Mint Xfce version !!!

Thanks for all your work !

[MALsPa]

There is no garuntee that Clem follows what this poll says

Well, Clem started the thread and created the poll.

[J@n]

Currently using Gnome with Cairo Dock. Been using it for years with Ubuntu untill they decided to go Unity, which might be good but I personally don't like it. Got over here to Mint and used it with the default DE but could not stop myself from using Cairo Dock. Checked out the other options and only Mate comes close to an appealing DE which works how I'd expect it to.

Greetz,

J@n

[Hedgehood]

Using Cinnamon, I'm sastified even there are drawbacks and lacks.
* No way to close a window in the expo mode as with GShell
* applets not automatically updated (an officiel and optionnal PPA could solve this point) and manual installation which is far from the Mint spirit. The GShell extension management is more intuitive
* in expo, all windows in a row whatever the number

I tested Unity (LTS 12:04) and the improvement is amazing and "out of the box" more useable than Mint + Cinnamon. Wait Mint 13 to see …

[eanfrid]

First I must confess I am not a Mint user but an old pure-Debian user. However, intending to install an easy-to-use/easy-to-maintain distrib on my (old) mother's computer I tested Linux Mint 12 and... fell in love with it

I think Cinnamon is a promising alternative to Gnome shell. ATM Cinnamon still lacks a good and seamless integration of extensions/theming like what you get for Gnome shell (see https://extensions.gnome.org for example). I was never really convinced with to Gnome 2.x / 3.x transition and went to XFCE years ago. But starting with Gnome shell 3.2 I finally gave a try and found it quite useable, so I kept it even if I am more than often typing commands on the good old text console

For everyday use I switched back from XFCE to Gnome with Gnome shell 3.2 and a few add-ons on my desktop computer. Cinnamon is close to become my next DE (even on pure-Debian - I dont use LMDE) until it gets a bit more mature. However, my ASUS netbook is not able to support either Gnome shell or Cinnamon hence it will remain under XFCE.

MATE is a good Gnome 2.x revival but I dont think it is a good choice for long term use compared to XFCE. I see MATE like a quite-nostalgic attempt and as such not oriented toward the future. It is more a stand-by solution before to go to XFCE or to choose a more lightweight DE.

[torturedutopian]

There are so many choices but none of them is perfect, in my opinion, which I regret a lot ! Here's my personal take on this (after using each of them for months) :

- KDE is amazing but never perfectly stabilized and tends to be messy (although there are efforts to make it simpler). I always, after a couple of months, drop it because some non-obvious but still important stuff is broken.
- Unity is getting mature, brings very good ideas, but if you don't want to use the keyboard a lot, some basic actions get ridiculously difficult to perform. I'm extremely frustrated when I use this one. (sliders, global menu, dash I cannot stand, window switching very painful IMHO)
- Gnome Shell is pretty impressive and extendable, but, they pushed the simplification so much in some areas, some basic stuff cannot be done (without tweaking) and you lose time for instance when switching windows. I feel they are forcing a specific way to use it, which I only moderately like. I am VERY puzzled by new stuff they are introducing (the "one button global menu"), the "centralized" documents app, the fact you have to hit the top-left corner for everything, etc.
- Gnome Fallback lacks some polishing and doesn't benefit from many new Gnome Shell technologies which makes it a 2nd or even 3rd class citizen.
- MATE : I don't know what to think, I wonder what the long term plans are.
- Cinnamon kind of looks like it's yet another duplicate effort and the fact they fork Gnome Shell instead of extending it upsets me. But I have too see what Clem's long term vision is. At least it's Gnome 2 modernized. As a result it's what I'm using, at the moment, but it may change.

etc.

Regarding composition on my medium-end nvidia setup, the observations are similar (everything is quite good but nothing 100% satisfactory) :
- kwin : when disabling a specific option, it's extremely fast, complete and smooth (otherwise it's jerky). But tends to be demanding / not give good results on all setups. Games are not smooth unless fullscreen compositing is disabled.
- compiz : OK in most cases. Not really smooth, settings are such a mess, but at least it's consistent...
- mutter : butter smooth, but it seems, according to benchmarks, that you lose some FPS in games. Dunno if it's still true.


Well, this is just my humble *own experience*, and I'm sure, many of us will draw different conclusions....
This being said : I appreciate, to some extent, all of them. My point is : so many choices, none of them being really satisfactory. Which makes me sad WHAT A LOSS OF TIME switching distros and environments, what a loss of time contributing to X different yet similar projects. IMHO. If I weren't a free software advocate, this is probably the reason why I would get frustrated and drop Linux. But I won't, I love Linux nevertheless

[mbokil]

I was beta testing Ubuntu 12.04 from the alpha releases to the final. I filed so many bugs with Unity problems. All the testing drove me to Mint. I needed something simpler that I could pound on all day and get work done. Unity was slowing me down to much. So i kept Ubuntu and added the PPA for Cinnamon. Now I have the best of both worlds but I am using Unity less and less now that I have Cinnamon working nicely on my home box and laptop.

I have been liking Cinnamon a lot and I hacked together a theme from Gnome and Minty combined with the elements I liked.

Here is a screenshot of the custom applets I wrote plust the hacked theme I am working on:
http://markbokil.com/images/Screenshot-cinnamon.png

[Insane1]

Using cinnamon here. Gnome 3, honestly. isn't that bad of an idea when executed this way (I'll admit the whole tablet interface fad, though, is a horrible idea. Yes there are more tabs out there...however, I very much doubt schools are going to abruptly change all their shiny new desktops to tablets anytime soon). At first I was horrified at the idea of a 3D acceleration requirement gnome required...but honestly they were right that few computers these days don't have graphics card capable of at least scaling (even if only integrated. I wouldn't be surprised if some people refusing cinnamon for this reason have a built-in chip capable of handling it). Still, it'd be nice to see a no-graphics mode for cinnamon for those who can't properly use 3D acceleration, or perhaps keep an alternative like mate for them.

As for cinnamon...I do have a few recommendations for it:
1) A more unified settings menu
2) Don't show certain Mate configurations. I got really confused when I was presented with both mate's desktop background changer AND cinnamon's in the same menu when only one affected cinnamon
3) Mozo improvements as for some reason it can be a bit wonky when it decides to actually let me add/remove menu items (I have to run it in a separate terminal at the moment to let me do anything)
4) I can live with the clock settings, but a more friendly editor for the options would be nice. It's good for now that we're linked to a site which comes up with formatting, though. That was a nice touch.
5) Let us change the font cinnamon uses for its panel. I know this sounds silly to some, but it tends to be a bit of a problem for me when using certain themes that seem to have absolutely horrible font choices
6) More "Live" configuration of the cinnamon. At the moment I have to manually log off or on, or restart cinnamon from the panel, to see any changes. That seems a little...off... Especially given most other desktop's abilities to configure themselves live.
7) A sensitivity option for the hot corner. PLEASE. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally hit it, in all four corners, only lightly to have my work interrupted by expo. But despite that it's a really REALLY useful feature. So I'd wonder if a sensitivity option is possible, or perhaps making an actual panel applet to trigger it via clicking.
8) A few more of mintmenu's feature's ported to the cinnamon menu. I think this would make a lot of mate users happy to see their ability to uninstall and the like re-added to the cinnamon menu.
9) This is just a pet peeve for me that REALLY irritates me. It isn't part of cinnamon, per se, but the folder browser it uses. (on that note, I'm curious. Can cinnamon use something other than nautilus to run its desktop?) That is how nautilus disabled using delete to delete files. You have to use ctrl + delete. While that isn't too much of a change...it's driving me nuts DB

Aside from these changes, I really do like the idea behind cinnamon. Including it's highly modular feel. I adore the music control options present in the panel when a music application is running as well. It detected Clementine, which was a HUGE plus for me. It's also got simple, yet effective effects, and the 3D accelerated desktop makes windows move far more smoothly than on most systems I use. Honestly it's a wonderful UI that just needs polishing. I'll be sticking to it on LMDE as long as I can as Ubuntu just keeps getting worse and worse for user friendliness. They introduced another intel HDA regression in their latest version that causes bad playback problems through headphones on certain systems (the headphone switch causes nearly mute sound, while leaving the switch ALONE... which it doesn't do...creates proper sound).

I hope my feedback is appreciated and looked at. Been on and off with mint since the early days!

[liquidkermit]

Gnome 2.x is still the best, which is the only reason I don't upgrade my LinuxMint 11 box. It's a shame that gnome 2.x development has been shut down. Shell is nightmare, unity has potential but is aiming touchscreen. So, I will pick MATE for my linuxmint 13 desktop. For linuxmint 14 I will consider using cinnamon, if the cinnamon show good progress.

I'm just too lazy to learn (a lot of) new features

[dolphin]

I voted for Cinnamon, KDE, MATE, and Xfce. For the moment I use Mint 11 with Gnome 2.32.1 and this is the best desktop experience I have had so far. I voted for other DE too, just because I don't know if anything can replace Gnome 2.32.1 and give me the same level of satisfaction. So, I will stick to Mint 11 and test. If something is good enough I will switch to it. In my opinion Cinnamon is not mature enough to replace Gnome 2.32.1 - at least on my desktop, I hope MATE will be soon.

Bear in mind that this is a long term release, so it is worth to release also KDE and Xfce 4.10 for their lovers and LTS lovers, just because these two DE are mature enough to provide predictable, reliable experience for the next 5 years, which is important in business.

By the way, any chances of pushing update of Mate 1.2 to Mint 12 Lisa? I currently use it and test it on the other PC.

[janj]

Ok - Im a socalled newbie......

Im using LISA and gnome 3.2.1

What exact environment is on, I actually dont know. I dont understand what "Cinnamon" is, what "mate" is.
So - I didnt vote because I dont know what Im using..

Still, this time is the first time Im going to stick with a Linux. Mint works for me, in a lot of ways - not all. Wine cannot work satisfacory at all, as an exampel. Soundprogrammes freeze quite easy.

Exactly one feature keeps me here - its the magic corner feature, where I can arrange desktops and - in my version, also programmes.

Im quite disappointed to learn that this feature with the programme-part, is now being removed.

Why not instead use this way of overviewing programmes, to add some program-controlling features - like describing what dependencies goes to which programmes, which are needed - maybe showing how programmes can be set up in a workflow, describing which codecs are present, which are not - I mean, upgrade the programmecontrolling instead of removing the feature which gives a much better possibily for contemplating the program environment than the normal start-menu!

And - thanks for asking us!!..

[tacoz]

When Lisa came out... and Cinnamon, I musta done two or three fresh installs. Nice learning curves... but I could've done without the frustrations of the new methods of std gnome3, fallback, mate and then that spicy thingy trashing my Mint! With my last install I removed all that stuff and stuck it out with Unity... and I don't get what all the fuss is about. The crazy thing just works! Ok so the docky bit is stuck on the left vertical but I got so used it that eventually it dawned on me how much more sensible that is that the familiar bottom docky position. Anyway... it doesn't matter where you decide to take the DE... I like Mint enough and I'll chuck on Unity as my preference!