Cinnamon vs Mate - opinions

[Carl.Spackler]

I have done several installs of LM13 Maya on Cinnamon, but am very interested in reading Ubuntu and Linux Mint users' perspectives on Mate. I have tried Cinnamon on Precise and had too many issues with visual artifacts on the screen and such.

[mbarland]

If Mate didn't exist, then I'd be running Cinnamon or XFCE. Cinnamon worked for me, but I got frustrated trying to configure it. It may get somewhere one day, but at the moment it did not click for me. Mate, as expected, was just like Gnome 2, and thus a very enjoyable experience.

[Famicommander]

I have never used Cinnamon but am currently running Linux Mint 13 MATE on one of my desktops and have nothing but good things to say about it. I was a fan of GNOME2 like many others, and MATE is a logical and enjoyable evolution.

I am not sure whether I like it as much as Xfce, but it's close. I can't stand GNOME3 or Unity and am not huge on KDE (I use it in PCBSD and like it fine but I have never had a KDE Linux install behave well). LXDE is also good.

I am considering trying Cinnamon when Mint 14 is out. I stick to Xubuntu or Fedora LXDE on my other machines.

[GeForce 9500GT]

Cinnamon worked for me, but I got frustrated trying to configure it

This is because Cinnamon is based on Gnome3 and this means that all the Gnome3 inconvenient can be found in Cinnamon too.

Mate, as expected, was just like Gnome 2, and thus a very enjoyable experience.

Mate is a Gnome2 fallback mode under Gnome3. This is part of MGSE (Mint Gnome Shell Extension) and Mate is much better configurable than Cinnamon.

Xfce comes the closest to Gnome2 interface as we were use to it under Ubuntu up till 11.10 (or 11.04???). LXDE is a very lightweigth DE which i really like because of the simplicity of it. Not much configurable too, but i don't need any fancy, resource consuming eye-candy stuff.

[kurok]

MAte is its own desktop and is not a fall back mode for gnome 3 it might be similar but isnt the same thing. Mate is the old gnome 2 beeing ported and updated to work with what is happening with gnome 3. MSGE was discontinued and cinnamon took its place. It needs 3d acceleration to work at present and has some conflicts with systems running stock gnome 3 or unity. If you want to try cinnamon id suggest you dl and try a mint install do the same with mate.I know they are big downloads but it is the best way to try them. I prefer cinnamon and am using an 10 year old computer that uses an agp accelerated nividia 6200 se. While it runs a little slower than mate its not intolerable and still works well with my box, It looks better than mate while it is still less configurable it has made leaps and bounds in the year or so it has been around.
What i guess im saying is give them both a try and see what you like better.
Sorry for the lack of punctuation and such just got off of a hard 12 hr shift and am tired as heck.

[BigSilly]

This is because Cinnamon is based on Gnome3 and this means that all the Gnome3 inconvenient can be found in Cinnamon too.

Not sure what this means, but you couldn't be more wrong about Cinnamon. Nothing "inconvenient" at all about it.

[wheeze]

Mate is a Gnome2 fallback mode under Gnome3. This is part of MGSE (Mint Gnome Shell Extension) and Mate is much better configurable than Cinnamon.

This is a total fallacy. Please don't spread incorrect information. There's too much of that in the Linux world already.

[NormanFLinux]

Unity and Cinnamon used to be available in 2D builds but both of them should run in the future in the single default mode on PCs, laptops and netbooks with non-accelerated graphics thanks to the Gallium llvmpipe rendering engine.

[BigSilly]

This is a total fallacy. Please don't spread incorrect information. There's too much of that in the Linux world already.

Never spotted that. You're right - its cobblers.