Linux Mint 17.1 MATE or Cinnamon, which is best?

With my limited experience I can't see much difference between the two.  The only thing I have seen/read is that there are a few things different with the software included.  Other than that I think it is just the way it looks and being heavier on graphics.  I'm sure cat1092 that you know more than most just from what you have read about it. 

pcpunk, actually you're right, I do know a little more, have tried it, the screen has a jerky feel to it, like it's highly sensitive, maybe this can be adjusted in the Settings. Though this was only in a Live session, have only installed Cinnamon once, that was version 13, and in a VM. Back then it wasn't as mature nor popular as now, and for obvious reasons, Cinnamon, developed by the Mint team (though can be added to Ubuntu & possibly related distros), was still a work in progress, and to some extent, still is. 

I'll likely try it on on a different computer with a not too old graphics card from 2012 & see how it runs now. Then when Mint 18 is released, can make an informed decision based on first hand experience. I don't want my main Linux install at this time to be a learning one, that's part of why I keep different computers, to have for practice & learning. Just like my main installs, these are imaged at least once monthly, so can get back to where I was in a few minutes. 

One may soon become a dedicated 24/7 non-stop running Firewall appliance, if I can figure out the details to set it up & all, just need to install an outbound Ethernet card to connect my router to. This is far superior over the Firewall that's built into routers & gives the one in control over it total control over what content guests & different Users can access. It can also be used for parental control for those with children, which is brought up from time to time on the Forum. It doesn't matter which OS is being used, a Firewall appliance provides total control over what those on the network can do. 

Many businesses has such an appliance to keep employees in line, home users can benefit from the same technology. 

Cat

On Linux you can install both of those desktops and compare.

macbeton, thanks for your input!

Though I don't want to install both on my main PC. This one only has the OS's that I use the most, and my drives have been planned accordingly. If I were to do that, would need to add another Data drive for /home, because my current one was already partitioned for one OS a week ago, any changes made (such as shrinking the current /home) may cause other issues, such as Swap being deactivated. I resized the partition once before on another computer & ended up with no Swap & I'm not going through a lot of troubles to reconfigure.

The Data drive was planned out before the install, that's the way I do things, is by planning before acting, things just works out better. That's why this time, I installed Linux Mint MATE 17.1 using the inbuilt Intel 4600 HD graphics, to avoid the issues of an XXL resolution before the NVIDIA card was added. This allowed me to install those drivers before connecting to the card & ended up with a better experience. Had to make one adjustment, and have posted a final question to another & hopefully the last one in that Topic (link is above your post). 

Planning ahead is normally always better than acting on the run. I'll install Cinnamon, likely on another computer for now, and also in a VM on this computer, what I created such a large /home partition for (465.74GiB), half of the 1TiB HDD. The ISO is already downloaded & ready to go. 

Thanks for your opinion!

Cat

I said YOU CAN INSTALL BOTH DESKTOPS ON 1 LINUX!

Yes you can install as many DE's ( Desktop environments ) on your operating system as you like, But just because I install KDE on Puppy Linux dont make it Kubuntu.

Edited by NickAu, 10 June 2015 - 04:47 AM.

I said YOU CAN INSTALL BOTH DESKTOPS ON 1 LINUX!

I said YOU CAN INSTALL BOTH DESKTOPS ON 1 LINUX!

I'm not going to pollute my main install by installing different DE's on one OS, a few months back, I tried install the Cinnamon DE on MATE, ended up removing it & the configuration files. It's all in the Package Manager, KDE too I recall seeing. As to switching back & forth, no I don't want to do that, however some users may prefer 2 or more DE's on one OS. If so, that's OK by me, it's not my computer. 

Cinnamon is now installed as a VMware VM, so that will give me something to play with for now.

Still, it'll be when Mint 18 is released before I make a permanent change, should I choose to do so. For now, I have a lot of work ahead of me in configuring other VM's, which is why I needed a larger /home & purchased a single 1TiB HDD as opposed to running two 500GiB ones, to save power & a SATA port for another SSD, if I need to add another. Only one left. 

Cat

Edited by cat1092, 10 June 2015 - 05:11 AM.

 

I'm not going to pollute my main install by installing different DE's on one OS,

Different GUI's save data in the same places, that could cause problems.

Having libraries from Gnome and KDE on your system may not be an issue as long as they are unique. The problem may occur when you have library dependencies that overlap, You could  have two of the same library with different version numbers, and that may cause conflict.

That was the main reason why I went with a total clean install, including /home, because I knew something was on that partition besides what's shown in the few folders labeled 'cat's home'. Lots of garbage and configurations left over from prior Linux Mint installs going back to version 12. My guess is that some of this garbage was causing some conflicts with the newer versions. 

I was clean installing the main or root partition & was seeing some icons from previous installs, so knew these had to be in /home & after 3.5 years of recycling the same partition, decided it was time to tidy things up. New partitions & formatting takes care of that, though I did copy the items I wanted to save to an external, including a couple of VM's I wanted to keep, which fired up right away once VMware Player was installed. The OS is overall faster than before as a result of installing fresh & I doubt I'll be recycling the /home with each LTS release as before. 

Because for the most part, I can clean install Linux Mint, plus software & configuration in about 2 hours. There may be a couple of minor things to fix later, for the most part, that's all it takes for me. Cinnamon likely would take a little longer because have never set one up fully, yet not a lot of extra time. 

Cat

MATE for me since i like GNOME 2

ak47suk1, hello &   to BC Forums!

Glad to have you abroad.

GNOME 2 has been really good & has also had a long run & fortunately the MATE desktop has kept it going. 

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a-review-of-mate-is-it-a-true-gnome-2-replica-linux/

How much longer this holds up after so many years is what yet remains to be seen. I suppose as long as Linux MInt & other distros that uses the MATE environment can keep it patched, up to date & in demand, GNOME 2 can hang in there. It's been a good one for me, 6 years running. 

Should you have any questions in regards to your Linux install, feel free to post. There are no 'dumb' questions here. Everyone's needs & configuration is unique, we don't believe in the 'one size fits all' philosophy around here, even though we all have our own preferred favorite distros, we're open to the needs of others. 

Good Luck!

Cat