Which do you prefer: Cinnamon or XFCE?

[excollier]

xfce - simple and stable

[lisabonne citadel]

Hi... I dont know if all of you already tried to install cinnamon DE over mint xcfe basement distro.
I can tell you...
Is the most compatible DE to install over with.
In another way, is like to have the same cinnamon look but with less resource hog (about 200MB less!)
so if your computer is quite old :
install xfce and then use cinnamon DE

[CaseyMarie]

I have to admit I really really didn't like Cinnamon at all when I first saw it and I'm really not sure why. Maybe it was an early version that was missing a little bit of polish, maybe it was the default lighter theming, maybe it was the fact that it was on a netbook and it's slightly chunkier in places that really needs a higher resolution...but I'm using it now and it looks nice, it looks really nice:


(Well it did before I had to resize it for the forum :p)

I'm not really sure what's changed, perhaps it's just the inevitable maturity with age. Although I'm sure that hundreds of thousands of hours of programming have gone into it since I last checked but I think the Devs have done a lovely job and I appreciate their efforts!

I love xfce as well, I had it on a netbook and it ran beautifully. I think it feels slightly more utilitarian than cinnamon but I don't actually think that's necessarily a bad thing, I think that kind of style does help me to focus better, although it still doesn't look as utilitarian as the windows 98/2000 look. Perhaps that's exactly why I'm liking the look of cinnamon more now as the software fashion has changed a little bit? It's an interesting thought!

[linux_rules]

I use Mint Mate simply because its gnome2 which I am used to from my Ubuntu days.

[Tomgin5]

I tried MATE and KDE and XFCE. I was not terribly impressed. Tried Cinnamon and have made over 100 installs since. It is the only distro I recommend.

[xfrank]

Cinnamon is great but not the best option for older or low end hardware. Moreover, Xfce is more customizable. For example, Xfce has a simple option in window management, to hide window decorations when the window is maximized: very useful to eliminate the title bar in a browser.
And Xfce main bar is clearly superior to Cinnamon, Mate and Lxde bars: so much configurable, a joy for the power user.

[g33zr]

At one time or another, I've tried just about every desktop environment out there. My vote is for Cinnamon and, FWIW, no one does Cinnamon like Mint!

[CoffeeFiend]

Good info. I run a live boot USB 18.2 Cinnamon on my HP Pavilion laptop and I love it. I am eyeballing a cheap (refurbished) Acer Aspire with 4GB RAM and a whopping 1.1GHz Intel Celeron processor. Which release would be most recommended for that weak of a processor? It would be an actual install, not a live boot.

[silfox2000]

Xfce is more light, more customizable and more stable. I have all necessary for me information on the panels. No need of desklets which are visible only on desktop and I can configure the other elements in the most convenient for me way. Bellow are my right and left bottom corners.

Screenshot_2017-12-17_08-40-15.png

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[rick gen]

I have tried liking Cinnamon, but Xfce just seems smoother.
I also found a glitch in Cinnamon recently.
I found it doesn't work well with Vokoscreen,
which is not an issue with the other flavors, Xfce and KDE.
The result is a flickering video switching back and forth between desktop wallpaper and captured vid in milliseconds.
(I don't use Mate.)

[Pepi]

I just finished going through XFCE, Mate, Cinnamon and KDE on 18.3. Cinnamon is the winner for me. Mate would be my next choice. XFCE is ok but I really don't see a lot of performance difference that I read about? I also don't like the customization on it. I just tested KDE yesterday and as far as I'm concerned I will never look at another KDE install again. Desktop crashed on me a few times and it's just too much eye candy for me

[silfox2000]

XFCE is ok but I really don't see a lot of performance difference that I read about?

You can make such difference on an old hardware. Otherwise it is pointless to try to make some visual difference.

[sh4dow]

Uhm, I dragged around a window rapidly on XFCE, Mate and Cinnamon today (after disabling compositing in all of them) and monitored the CPU usage with top.
The results were ~15%, ~40% and ~50% respectively.

So it seems that XFCE does offer much better performance in terms of UI rendering.
However, when comparing CPU usage while playing back the same 1080p60 YouTube video, it was Mate (55%) > XFCE (60%) > Cinnamon (80%).
(I use a Intel G3900T...)

Which is why I first thought XFCE was promising but would probably end up using Mate - I figure performance with everyday stuff like video playback is more important than UI.

[mrmajik45]

KDE - Lighter version of cinnamon.

[mr_raider]

KDE - Lighter version of cinnamon.

Unfortunately also a dying version. I admit I am very impressed with XFCE. The panel configuration rocks and is almost as fluid as KDE. I'm probably going to switch my low end hardware to MINT xfce for 19.x and my desktop to kubuntu.

[mrmajik45]

Yeah i'm sad about kde leaving.

[stavpup]

With stability in mind, XFCE

[czeekaj]

I found XFCE more customizable. Cinnamon is more modern but maybe a bit heavier.