Poll: Desktop environments

[3fRI]

Before upgrading to Mint 13, I tried all of the Mint 12 DEs on my desktop and laptop. In the end, I preferred Cinnamon on the desktop and LXDE on the laptop. When Clem and his team released Mint 13, I stuck with Cinnamon on the desktop and switched to Xfce on the laptop. The more I played with Xfce, the more I liked it. In fact, I liked it so much that I also switched to Xfce on the desktop. In both cases, it's fast, responsive, and stable with no problems at all.

[bdantas]

MATE forever!

When I was a Ubuntu user, I put in a lot of time to learn Gnome2's ins and outs so that I could customize my desktop to perfection. Now that Gnome2 is gone, customizing any DE other than MATE to my satisfaction would take up so much time that it would put a serious strain on my marriage Except for having to learn some new names for the forked applications (gedit -> pluma, nautilus -> caja, gnome-terminal -> mate-terminal, eye of gnome -> eye of mate, etc.), I can't tell the difference between MATE and Gnome2. There are no stability or speed issues on any of the laptops I have LM13-MATE 64-bit installed on (Dell XPS15, Thinkpad T520, and Sony Vaio so far--I'm working on converting some other relatives to LM13-MATE to make my life easier, so this list will hopefully grow soon).

MATE is the reason I came to Linux Mint. MATE saves me time and keeps the wife happy. MATE allowed me to recreate the look and functionality of my perfect Gnome2 desktop with ease. I'm the IT guy in my family and circle of friends and, as long as Linux Mint supports MATE, Linux Mint will remain our one and only distro.

[caerolle]

Xfce here, too. Pretty much did the same thing as Mike (mingle), with the same outcome.

[Cerule]

Tried many other desktops but for me KDE is the best. I want to be able to configure DE to adjust to my needs and not the other way around. Gets me frustrated when interfaces have irritating elements that I cannot change. I also love the way KDE looks and how much it has features. Haven't got stability or performance issues with it.

[dagrump]

I installed 13 cinnamon on 1 desktop & my laptop. I put the old hard drive w/ 12 back in the laptop. Cinnamon seems to be sluggish on it.
I'd reinstall 12 on this desktop, but I really don't feel like messing with it.
I guess as much as I hate to, I'll have to switch to xfce, never could get used to kde.

[d00med]

I'm conflicted between Cinnamon and Mate. I like both, but Mate is dramatically speedier on my relatively low power hardware, and there are much more themes available, as well as it being more mature and customizable. But Cinnamon is more stable and has the features I'm looking for. After trying both for a while, I'm back to Cinnamon. Really do like it, and the development is moving along at a swift pace.

[SkunkApeMan]

I'm using Mint 13 with Mate. I come from Gnome2 and jumped to Mint because Unity is a joke.
I am extremely thankful to all the folks involved in the developement of Mate, and for how easy they made it to configure it almost exactly like my Ubuntu 10.04/Gnome2 setup!
Here's my config:
Moomex theme with Breathe icon set
Thunar File Manager (I like the icons better than the ones in Caja - other than the icons Caja is great)
Added a top panel with the Menu Bar that has Applications-Places-System just like Gnome2

Please keep up the good work with Mate! Mint13/Mate is the best out there!

- SkunkApeMan

[SkunkApeMan]

I installed 13 cinnamon on 1 desktop & my laptop. I put the old hard drive w/ 12 back in the laptop. Cinnamon seems to be sluggish on it.
I'd reinstall 12 on this desktop, but I really don't feel like messing with it.
I guess as much as I hate to, I'll have to switch to xfce, never could get used to kde.

Did you give Mate a proper chance? It's a lot more configurable than XFCE and not as sluggish as Cinnamon.

[bigbenaugust]

I am probably the only one silly enough to install the XFCE version and then install JWM.

[baptiste]

this sounds interesting, I'll have to try it as a poor man's lxde version .
though, lately lxde has had a system monitor plugin as in gnome 2/Mate, and I guess JWM does not support a feature such as a volume icon.
I've downloaded lxpanel's source, but didn't build it yet, there are annoying dependencies to meet first.

/edit: I had Jwm installed already, just tried it but the session gave me an empry black screen with a white mouse cursor. this is on mate edition. I use lxde to save on memory.

[bigbenaugust]

this sounds interesting, I'll have to try it as a poor man's lxde version .
though, lately lxde has had a system monitor plugin as in gnome 2/Mate, and I guess JWM does not support a feature such as a volume icon.
I've downloaded lxpanel's source, but didn't build it yet, there are annoying dependencies to meet first.

/edit: I had Jwm installed already, just tried it but the session gave me an empry black screen with a white mouse cursor. this is on mate edition. I use lxde to save on memory.

I usually install volumeicon and have it as a StartupCommand in my .jwmrc. It swallows automatically. xfce4-power-manager works the same way.

[bigbenaugust]

In fact, if you want to see the .jwmrc file, I can throw it up somewhere.

[grandtheft_jiujitsu]

Cool to see the poll supports some of my suspicions. I currently use Cinnamon for a "daily driver", but I'm on a laptop so I have XFCE installed for when I'm running on battery. I'm also playing with a few others to run battery tests and just get a feel for other options. After all, what is the point of Linux if you're just going to take everything as it comes out of the box, right?

[Acebull]

I think Cinnamon is the ducksnuts its great keep up the great work with Mint

[Runaway1956]

Unfortunately - the Linux world isn't doing enough work on the lightweights. My very favorite DE is Enlightenment, but it's been stuck at E17 for a long time. LXDE is nice, but it really needs some polishing. I don't understand the need to have a desktop environment that uses 1/4 of the memory on a 4 gig system, and loads a ton of widgets, applets, etc at startup. This is all to much Windows-like for my taste.

[PcMojo]

Unfortunately - the Linux world isn't doing enough work on the lightweights. My very favorite DE is Enlightenment, but it's been stuck at E17 for a long time. LXDE is nice, but it really needs some polishing. I don't understand the need to have a desktop environment that uses 1/4 of the memory on a 4 gig system, and loads a ton of widgets, applets, etc at startup. This is all to much Windows-like for my taste.

I agree. I was always a fan of Enlightenment and wish they had more development. As I understand it, Enlightenment acts as both a DE and a windows manager and other DE's sometimes use it as a window manager. It only makes sense, if it can do both jobs successfully to use all of it's capabilities; why layer a whole other set of programs and their inherent dependencies on top of it?

I was never a fan of LXDE or XFCE but recently installed Ubuntu Studio. I've used it previously and it was always buggy and slow. They changed from Gnome to XFCE and I can't believe how quick it is! They made the desktop look somewhat gnome-like and is organized quite well. In fact, they kept familiar applications like gedit and Nautilus. I can run multiple memory intensive applications simultaneously, that I never could before on just a half gig of memory and they are quick and smooth. Try a live CD!

[PcMojo]

I think Cinnamon is the ducksnuts its great keep up the great work with Mint

Yeah! Cinnamon goes well with a bagel or mint! There is just an inherently familiar feel with Cinnamon. If I don't know how to do something, I just guess and I usually happen to be right. It's intuitive. I used to bring new Linux converts up on gnome/Ubuntu; now I start them on Mint with Cinnamon sprinkled on top and they have very few questions. I've learned to have them sign into this forum and introduce themselves; while they are doing that, I'm sneaking out the door!

[InkKnife]

Unfortunately - the Linux world isn't doing enough work on the lightweights. My very favorite DE is Enlightenment, but it's been stuck at E17 for a long time. LXDE is nice, but it really needs some polishing. I don't understand the need to have a desktop environment that uses 1/4 of the memory on a 4 gig system, and loads a ton of widgets, applets, etc at startup. This is all to much Windows-like for my taste.

There must be some problem with your system if you are seeing your DE using a gig of ram.
I just looked at my system monitor and Cinnamon is consuming 94MB of ram on my system, right now and this amount is typical. The highest I have seen it was about 135MB but that was Cinnamon 1.3. Ram use has gone down in newer versions.

[homerscousin]

I'll throw this in for a comparison. I'm on Mint 13 KDE 64 bit now. Total mem use now is 965 Mb. I did run Cinnamon 32 bit and it used 200-300 Mb less total, but that was on my old rig also with only 1 Gb ram and Cinnamon commonly used 150-170 Mb. Now on KDE I see processes for Plasma desktop- 85 Mb, Kwin 40 Mb, and xorg 40 Mb, all rounded up numbers. Not much difference in total unless I'm missing something. I thought 64 bit used more anyway. I much prefer KDE over Cinnamon.

[AlbertP]

Cinnamon RAM usage has decreased even more in 1.6 compared to the default 1.4 version of Mint 13. If you are worried about your RAM usage please upgrade: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2177.