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Which desktop environment?
Post by Arpee78 » Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:30 am
The most important criteria is the easy of use(for ex Windows users) and the stability.
Secondly, the speed and resource usage. I think high CPU usage worse than high RAM usage, I have enough RAM, 2-4GB.
Visual appearance the least important, of course nicer is better, but not at the cost of the previous criteria.
Some customization isnt problem.
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BigEasy Level 6
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Re: Which desktop environment?
Post by BigEasy » Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:45 am
Unique vote is not correct. In fact there is several desktops satisfied your criterias:
LXDE, XFCE, MATE. Even Cinnamon, but better to check by yourself. Lightweightest is LXDE, then XFCE, then almost equal to XFCE — MATE, then Cinnamon.
Every DE (LXDE, XFCE, MATE, Cinnamon) appearing close to classic Windows desktop. Some has little less «bells and whistles», Some hase little more.
karlchen Level 22
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Re: Which desktop environment?
Post by karlchen » Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:50 am
What is the intention of your poll? What actually is the complete question? «Which desktop environment?» could have more than one meaning:
(1) Which desktop environments should Linux Mint offer?
(2) Which desktop environments should Linux Mint drop from its list of supported desktop environments?
(3) Which desktop environment do you (each reader of your post) use?
(4) Which desktop environment will be the best desktop environment for Windows converts?
I suspect that it is (4) which you have in mind. If this is true, then there is no simple answer.
From a technical point of view the answer depends on the resources which the (Windows) machine has got.
From a personal point of view it all depends on the user’s personal point of view and preferences.
In the end the best desktop environment will be the one which you like personally and which does not exhaust the available (graphical) resources of your machine.
Telling from the past 12 months, in particular ex-Windows-XP users seem to think that their machines which often are 10 years old or older are pure racing machines and that they should run Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop without problems. Unlikely. Machines that came with Windows XP pre-installed are — from a technical point of view — dinosaurs. More often than not, they come with a single core CPU, little RAM (< 1 GB) and with very weak graphics cards. So their owners will be lucky if their equipment can be persuaded to run any Linux Mint at all. And if it can, it will be Linux Mint xfce.
In case, however, the Windows convert uses a machine which came with Windows 7 pre-installed, these machines may be really powerful and run Linux Mint 17.1 x64 Cinnamon without trouble.
And finally, in case the Windows convert is a Windows 8.x user, it is not unlikely that his machine is brand new, comes with EFI boot instead of Bios, and with 2 graphics cards instead of just one. These Windows converts will face totally different challenges when switching to Lnux Mint. Basically their machines will often be powerful to run anything. Yet, they may find it difficult to find the right drivers for their brand new hardware.
So what is the intention of your poll, please?
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Re: Which desktop environment?
Post by Arpee78 » Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:31 am
In my family I am the «home admin». Usually my job to buy and install new computers. We have mix of old and new computers, the old ones maybe replaced soon. I have some Linux experience, In the past I tried the most DEs, but LXDE become my favourite, and did not pay much attention to others. On old computers I installed LXDE (replaced Cinnamon in Linux Mint) or install Lubuntu.
Nowadays I tried other DEs again. XFCE seems nicer than the customized LXDE and dont need much powerful maschine. I know how much resource they need.
Because Windows similarity is an important factor I think LXDE, XFCE, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE are good options. Five DE and I just know LXDE better. I dont know how easy to use them.
Re: Which desktop environment?
Post by jahid » Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:47 am
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Re: Which desktop environment?
Post by coffee412 » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:48 am
I swear, When you run linux as an operating system its like walking into a candy store! This is really true for the desktop enviroments too!
Im using Mate as my desktop because I have to be productive on my computer and Im an old *art that likes traditional menus. However, I have used LXde in the past and liked it — Except for the filemanager. I really have not played around with cinnamon though or KDE. I did load up FXce but missed the ‘warm and fuzzy’ feel of mate.
There all great DE’s especially when they run on Mint.
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Re: Which desktop environment?
Post by raptir » Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:39 am
Desktop environment has always been a tough decision for me. They all have their pros and cons at this point. For ease of setup and use I would usually recommend using one of the desktop environments that has a pre-built «spin» for your distribution of choice. In the past I have run into issues when I have installed a second DE. You can build up from a command line install, but that’s much more time consuming if you are supporting multiple computers.
If you’re sticking with Linux Mint, there are fewer differences between the «look and feel» of the four default desktop environments. They all have the «traditional» single panel at the bottom with the menu button at the bottom left which will be familiar for Windows XP/7 users. The menus themselves are all fairly similar as well, all offering type-to-search and favorites «pinning.» This is in contrast to other distros, where MATE offers a two-panel design with the menu at the top left, Xfce offers a single panel at the top with a faux «dock» at the bottom, etc. Cinnamon’s menu is the most similar to Windows 7, but none of them should be too hard for someone to pick up.
In terms of resources, from heaviest to lightest:
Cinnamon’s window manager (muffin) is slightly heavier than KDE’s (kwin), but KDE has more services that run in the background all the time. In the end I would say they’re about the same weight. Lxde is lighter than Xfce, but if you’re planning on running even Firefox/Chrome the difference in resources between the two is negligible. All of that said, I have Mint Cinnamon installed on a sandy bridge ULV i3 laptop with 4GB of RAM and integrated graphics and it runs perfectly smoothly. The only DE that doesn’t run well is Gnome 3 which isn’t even an option for Mint.
Now, recommendation time. If you’re an lxde user, I would recommend against KDE. Not that I think it’s bad, but since it is built on qt instead of GTK the system administration tools are going to be very different. Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce would all be solid options. I would actually recommend Cinnamon or MATE. Cinnamon, as I said, is going to be the easiest transition for Windows users and unless you have really old and low-end hardware it should run fine. If some of your hardware can’t handle Cinnamon, go with MATE. The major advantage I see there is that it bundles both marco and compiz as window managers, with marco being the default. But on the higher spec laptops, you can easily switch to compiz with a single toggle to get features like scale, expo, etc.
Choose the right edition¶
You can download Linux Mint from the Linux Mint website.
Read below to choose which edition and architecture are right for you.
Cinnamon, MATE or Xfce?¶
Linux Mint comes in 3 different flavours, each featuring a different desktop environment.
| Cinnamon | The most modern, innovative and full-featured desktop |
| MATE | A more traditional, and faster desktop |
| Xfce | The most lightweight desktop |
The most popular version of Linux Mint is the Cinnamon edition. Cinnamon is primarily developed for and by Linux Mint. It is slick, beautiful, and full of new features.
Linux Mint is also involved in the development of MATE, a classic desktop environment which is the continuation of GNOME 2, Linux Mint’s default desktop between 2006 and 2011. Although it misses a few features and its development is slower than Cinnamon’s, MATE uses less resources and can run faster on older computers.
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment. It doesn’t support as many features as Cinnamon or MATE, but it’s extremely stable and very light on resource usage.
Of course, all three desktops are great and Linux Mint is extremely proud of each edition. Although there are more features and better support in some editions than others, and some do run faster and use less resources than others, they’re all great alternatives and choosing the right edition is largely a matter of taste.
Other than their features and performance, Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce also represent three different desktop environments, with different menus, different panels and configuration tools. The right one for you is the one where you feel at home.
If you are unsure which desktop to choose start with the Cinnamon edition. Try them all eventually when you have the time. All three of them have their own audience within the Linux Mint community and they’re all very popular.
32-bit or 64-bit?¶
From version 20 onward, only 64-bit is available.
The 32-bit ISO images on prior versions are provided for compatibility with older computers. 32-bit processors are extremely rare nowadays and most computers are able to run in 64-bit. If your computer was manufactured after 2007, you probably have a 64-bit processor.
If you have an old computer and you are unsure whether or not it can run in 64-bit, read X86 Chronology.
You can try to boot Linux Mint 64-bit on your computer. If it isn’t compatible, nothing bad will happen. You will just get an error message.
If you cannot boot or install Linux Mint because your hardware is too recent and is not properly detected see the Edge ISO Images chapter in the Linux Mint User Guide for an alternative ISO.
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