Linux Mint 20.1 Mate vs Linux Mint 20.1 XFCE: RAM

OHRam

[tenfourproductionsllc]

In all fairness, that's just at startup. The real question of RAM usage is when you are running your most common applications. So it would be more accurate to compare their RAM usage saying using firefox, terminal open, file manager open, and another program like libre office or a game. Then compare the RAM usage.

[mattx]

When it comes to resources usage there's not much difference between XFCE and Mate in my opinion. If you can't use Mint Cinnamon on your old laptop, because it's too heavy Mint Mate is made to be close as possible. For old laptops that came with WinXP/Vista/7 Mate will be just enough lightwieght to be faster than Windows. For machines that came with Win8/10/11, Cinnamon will work great. If you want to use your PC for gaming installing lighter desktop environment may give some noticeable performance boost. If you got only 1GB of RAM in your PC don't be supprised that modern browser like Chrome or Firefox will struggle. Today's web technologies have their own requirements. 2GB of RAM is minimum for reasonable performance of a modern browser, but for peace of mind I recommend 4GB. This is not much either for todays standards.

[thistime]

I have been using Mate since as far back as I can remember. I tried cinnamon, but much preferred the stability of Mate.

[uberdonkey]

I was an ubuntu user until mint came out, and had problems with cinnamon (used to be a little unstable) so got used to mate. Been using it since last week. Previously XFCE seemed ugly. Now (mint 20.2) I realise its more customizable and I expect Thunar is faster than Caja. Functionally I feel XFCE more customizable and I'm very happy with panels in XFCE even though I spent ages previously getting mate exactly how I like it. Other than file manager, they seem equally fast to me. I'm gonna stick with XFCE for now as for some reason my Caja just seems a little slow. Running a virtual machine (windows 11) sometimes doesn't help with i7 and 4GB, but I'm hoping XFCE is also more stable (it is purportedly more so). My advice is install both desktops and test, then when you come to next mint update download the version you prefer.

[briansrcadventures]

I think Mint 20.1 Mate might be a better fit on my old PC that I use as an HTPC, than Mint 20.1 Cinnamon or Kubuntu. Specs are Intel Core 2 Due E5200 CPU, 4Gb Ram, and an Nvidia GT1030. Currently it has Kubuntu 20.04.1 installed, but Plasma isn't running particularly well on it... So perhaps a good idea to try Mint Mate or Xfce. I did run Mint 20.1 Cinnamon on it but I found it quite sluggish.

[connornelson]

I'm gonna go with Mate. I've been using Zorin Lite, and while I think they've done a good job at making it look nice, XFCE itself is just hideous in my opinion. I'll take a slight hit to my performance if it means moving to a different desktop environment. That's just me though.

[Kneedragon]

I like that Mate myself, but that's just me...