Cinnamon vs MATE

**ramakanta** · May 16th, 2014

I have a desktop computer , I am confusing about Linux mint version , what is the different between Linux mint Cinnamon and MATE . please with details ???? what sholld be used . and which one better ??? thank you.

**TheFu** · May 16th, 2014

I don't use MATE or Cinnamon or Mint, however ....

These are just different GUIs. You could run them under Fedora or Ubuntu. The GUI is NOT the OS. There must be 40+ different GUIs that can be swapped in as you like. The only risk is if configuration files overlap and have incompatible settings. The best way to try these different GUIs is to create a new account, which keeps the individual account settings separate, After you find one that you like, merge the settings back into your main login.

**LastDino** · May 16th, 2014

It is mostly personal preference. You can very much shift from one to another irrespective of what you initially downloaded. I personally never used the whole package of either but I've used few things from those to customize my own disktop. There are people who do say that Cinnamon is slightly snappier than Mate with old graphics, but I can't verify that.

You might find this little more helpful.

http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in/20...-and-mate.html

**buzzingrobot** · May 16th, 2014

Mate and Cinnamon are both traditional panel-and-menu interfaces. Mate is based on and a continuation of the now-abandoned Gnome 2 interface seen in pre-Unity Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions. Cinnamon is a newer purpose-built interface from the Linux Mint folks.

I've used both. They handle workspace management in slightly different ways. Mate does not enable a compositor by default while Cinnamon does. Here, out of the box, Mate uses slightly less memory, but the difference is insignificant once applications are loaded.

The simplest way to decide if you like either is to grab and burn a live image from the Linux Mint site and boot it up in live mode and take a look. (Be aware that Mint adds in its own menu to Mate (easily replaced by the old Gnome 2 menus if you wish, and makes an effort to ensure that all its versions -- Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, XFCE, show some family similarity.)