Which do you prefer: Cinnamon or XFCE?

[JohnBobSmith]

Hello all! I am very interested to see which desktop environment users prefer. So my question to you is: Cinnamon or XFCE? Or neither, if your a silly penguin and love to use Unity. . . I would like reasons as to why you prefer one over the other, so that we can get a good comparision of each DE.

My thoughts thus far:
I use cinnamon on my laptop, and XFCE on my desktop. Cinnamon is really strong in its user interface, and easy to customize. All the settings I needed where in the preferences/settings window. Cinnamon has many themes, runs reasonably fast, and generally has a nice interface. I have no real cons when using cinnamon.

XFCE Has a simmilar interface, is somewhat-easily customizeable (in my current experience) and also has an appealing interface. XFCE runs blazing fast on my desktop, so if speed is an issue, XFCE all the way. The only real con is that as of yet I can't figure out how to edit the whisker menu, but that will come with time. All in all, for me, its very close between both DE's, but I prefer XFCE simply because its so lightweight and simple to use.

What are your thoughts?

[Neil Edmond]

I have Cinnamon install on one laptop, and XFCE on three. So, I guess, I must prefer XFCE.
All my hardware is kind of old...too very old, so that's probably why I install XFCE more often. I don't really have the resource available most of the time for a "heavy" desktop.

I also run KDE, MATE, JWM, Openbox and IceWM on other machines. They all have their pros and cons, and I don't really have a be all, end all, favorite.

[passerby]

For me it's XFCE > Cinnamon.
I want to like Cinnamon, but it's too sluggish, and the lack of community updates (ie. applets and themes) often causes grief.
Cinnamon has more of a future IMO (delay after delay with XFCE releases, seemingly little being accomplished), but at the same time there's not a whole lot more I think needs to be done to XFCE. It's at the stage where too much more being added would just surmount to bloat or change for the sake of change, whereas Cinnamon is rather new and far from peaking.
So I'll keep an eye on Cinnamon, but right now it's XFCE all the way.

[wayne128]

Me,
XFCE all the way because of

1. very stable for last 3+years
countless dist-upgrade ( even on SID) and no issue for all xfce versions.

2. 'very customiseable for me '.
probably takes some 5 minutes from fresh install to adjust desktop image, add all sorts of applets ( cpu usage, cpu coretemp, cpu freq monitor, etc), change panel from original default two to one, either on top, bottom or like unity on the left
change theme, change fonts/fonts size to make everything the right size for my aged eyes....
change theme, etc
drag and drop all the usual apps' icon to panel or at time to desktop.
install my favorite apps and add icon to panel/desktop

3. may be one important thing, I have several old computers, still running quite well, some as servers, some just normal web-surfing and media playing. often with legacy graphic cards..and I know, cinnamon does not like them.
and perhaps the real issue: cinnamon ( all versions) just loved to crash on them.
and on relatively newer CPU (i3, core2quad) it likes to hangup and consume lots of ram plus heat up the CPU.
I am sensitive to running CPU with 15-20degC hotter for the same task, which is one reason I always add sensors-applet to panel for real-time checking on any linux os. running hotter also trigger noisy fans.

4. when I install from Debian, it is very light and fast.
one can appreciate the speed when running an aged computer such as a 2G P4 single core machine.
memory consumption at idling usually around 100-120M, good for low ram , old CPU.
thunar can open a network shared file in a short time and play them

[kurotsugi]

right clik on the whiskermenu - properties. there you'll got whiskermenu configuration.

[Night Wing]

I have two desktop tower computers. They're both four years old, but not underpowered. Both have i7 processors (2.93, 2.80). One desktop has 24 GB of memory and the other desktop has 16 GB of memory.

I prefer the XFCE desktop. I don't care for the main menu of Cinnamon and the scrolling in it since it doesn't show everything at a glance. Concerning the Whisker menu in XFCE, it isn't my cup of tea so I removed it and replaced it with the old Applications menu.

[altair4]

Every time this question is asked I'm always surprised by the number of people who prefer XFCE.

I always though I was part of the lunatic fringe in using XFCE and I may be but it seems to be getting crowded over here

[shengchieh]

Definitely getting crowded. My vote is to XFCE - even over LXDE. KDE, GNIOME3 are too bloated. Openbox is not complete, but I use it if I have to (e.g., laptop still have #!). XFCE, a lightwieght desktop, lets you get works done.
I haven't try cinnamon, but know I need a lightweigth desktop to move around quickly.

Sheng-Chieh

[RacerBG]

XFCE. The answer is as usual: configurable, easy, fast, light on resources, good looking.

Of course if you have something new (piece of hardware) or you don't care about memory usage - use Cinnamon.

[jahid]

Cinnamon....

[edwardr]

Historically my computers have been too old/not powerful enough to handle the heavy desktops like KDE, Unity, Cinnamon, and Gnome, so I used Xubuntu and since Mint 8, I have been using Mint Xfce. My latest hand-me-down can actually run Cinnamon snappily, so I have Cinnamon on that one but Mint Xfce on the others. I really like Mint Xfce and probably will not switch to Cinnamon.

[JohnBobSmith]

Wow, im surprised as to how many people like to use XFCE! Thats great!

Using both, I say both have strengths, just in different areas. As I already stated though, I prefer XFCE as well. Once I can fully customize my XFCE then we will be good to go.

@jahid_0903014
Could you list some reasons as to why you like cinnamon? I think it will give us more of a comparison between the two DE's. Im also very interested to hear your thoughts on cinnamon.

[GeneC]

For all the reasons above, its XFCE for me as well.
I have three installations all with XFCE

• Debian (Testing)
  Siduction (SID)
  Manjaro (Stable)

Bulletproof
Easily customizable
Simple (but fancy if you wish)..
Best menu around (Whisker)

I try out every new (and old) DE that I find and always come back to XFCE...



Gotham Conky
Rainlendar Calendar
Plank Dock


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PS:
I have 12gb RAM and a 4 core processor, so its NOT because of lightness...

[jo12]

I did like Cinnamon but am very happy with and now using XFCE(16) mainly because it is faster than Cinnamon on my system and it has everything working easily. I think it is great!! Any new system takes time to get used to and tweak.
edit/add:
I have an alternate XFCE desktop on Kubuntu and do not like it as much as the Petra release. I have read that Mint supplies XFCE a step up from others and it seems so.

[jahid]

i am surprised!!! seeing these many votes on xfce. i had used it for several times in past, but for the reasoning that everyone gave, i am going to check it again. i will be giving a comparative explanation about my experience....

[phill1978]

KDE

but if its between cinnamon and XFCE. Well it has to be XFCE by quite a long shot. Sure Cinnamon is really nice and i think one day it might replace XFCE. And sure XFCE does lack some of the nice apps Cinnamon has. But in the end what you want is A.) stability and B.) performance.

XFCE and KDE have this, Cinnamon doesnt. An example is that you have to troubleshoot and restart cinnamon to move the panel to the top, why ?? it all seems so clunky and as if its about to fall.

btw i mention KDE as to me now in the latest versions it feels almost as quick as XFCE even with the effects! and everything is alive and animates where as XFCE is traditional snappy but flat. Also KDE has proper Vsync support and works extremley well for gaming.

I cant choose, but being linux i dont have to, so i have options for cinnamon,XFCE,kde on my desktop and the laptop gets XFCE which i may add apart from vsync missing has been rock solid on my old hardware.

if i really had to pick between KDE and XFCE, it would in the end have to be XFCE as you can trust it (not that KDE has been unstable at all)

[d00med]

Cinnamon. Aesthetically and I don't have problems with sluggishness on my laptop, or stability issues, and I like Nemo a lot. Cinnamon is where all the modern development is happening, while aesthetically speaking, XFCE is from more than ten years is the past. XFCE users don't generally care about that though, which is fair; it's just a subjective opinion on my part.

[Crewp]

Cinnamon, I have have it on 2 towers, and my laptop. I don't feel it's sluggish or unstable at all. I like the look and feel, also it's performance. Yes, it's a work in progress, but it's very good so far, and I think it's going to get even better.

[Brahim Salem]

Cinnamon all the way It is very elegant, customizable and modern. I like Mate too.XFCE with whisker menu looks great too

[InkKnife]

I think they are both really good. I generally use Cinnamon because its pretty but XFCE works great and it is what I put on older hardware, anything pre-Core2. If I was running someing less powerful I would be running XFCE but with a Core2Quad and a big honking video card I can spend the cycles on Cinnamon.
I am a recovering Mac user, I need my eye candy.