[SOLVED] Cinnamon vs Mate?

[Fuzzy]

I notice most of the power users on the board seem to prefer Cinnamon to Mate. Does Cinnamon offer any benefits over Mate, or is it just user preference? Are any tasks easier/shorter, require less clicking, etc? (I've always used Mate, and am wondering if I'd benefit in any way by switching to Cinnamon).

Thanks,
Fuzzy

[jimallyn]

Mostly a matter of personal preference, I would say. They come with different applications installed by default, but you can install the applications from the other desktops if you want to. (I use k3b from KDE on Cinnamon and XFCE, for example.) MATE will use less resources than Cinnamon; Cinnamon requires 3D graphics acceleration. When I changed over to Mint, I had a look at the different desktop available, and I just liked the way Cinnamon looked and felt. You could try the other desktop environments from the live disk, or install them in VirtualBox and see what you think before committing yourself to a change.

[all41]

Mostly a matter of personal preference, I would say

+1 on this.
For instance: If you could order your dream car and choose your dashboard layout..
Some may choose futuristic, other may prefer traditional, some will want their own
custom gauges--but you get the same engine and chassis underneath.
So it is with both desktops you mention. Test drive each and choose the dashboard that fits you best.

[zorzi]

I really was a Gnome 2 addict a few years ago. So Mate is perfectly suited for me, and easy to configure.

[GoLinux]

Before installing Mint 18 Mate 64bit, I had Linux Mint Debian Edition Cinnamon. My computer is a 2011 Samsung laptop, with a Dual Core i3 processor. A modest setup by today's standards (see my sig)

While Cinnamon was perfectly usable, Mate is for sure snappier. Besides personal preferences, your hardware specs are also part of the equation.

If you want to easily give all of the desktop flavors a try, there is a Windows utility called YUMI which allows to create a bootable USB flash drive with multiple Linux distributions. It will take as many can fit on the USB drive. A USB 3.0 flash drive will also minimize the inevitable lag when using a live distribution.

Have fun!

[Fuzzy]

Thanks for all the responses. I have used Cinnamon from live media (and even...I know, I know...installed Cinnamon in addition to Mate so that I could choose during startup - I didn't know this was a no-no at the time). However, I've never found any advantage of one over the other - other than mate seemed more intuitive to me. Your responses substantiated my suspicions.

Thanks for clarifying this for me!