What desktop in linux mint

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 stable, and faster desktop
Xfce	The most lightweight and the most stable

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 runs faster, uses less resources and is more stable than Cinnamon.

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?¶

64-bit is recommended.

The 32-bit ISO images 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.

© Copyright 2017, Linux Mint Revision 11740971 .

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8 Reasons Why Linux Mint is Better Than Ubuntu for Linux Beginners

Last updated January 29, 2021 By Abhishek Prakash 500 Comments

Which one is better, Linux Mint or Ubuntu?

This question has been there ever since Linux Mint came in the picture, and this article does not answer to this question. Well, not entirely.

So, what is this about then?

I have been an Ubuntu user for a long time. I stray to other Linux distributions but I keep coming back to Ubuntu, sooner or later. I occasionally try my hands on Linux Mint also, mostly for the purpose of writing articles about it. I must say using Linux Mint is quite a pleasant experience.

As a die-hard Ubuntu fan, I come back from Mint to Ubuntu eventually but not before noticing that Linux Mint is better than Ubuntu for a beginner.

It’s because there are a few things that Linux Mint handles better than Ubuntu, by default. And this ‘by default’ matters when we are talking about a Linux beginner. Because an experienced Linux user will find his/her way. It’s the beginners who struggle with even a seemingly obvious thing.

Considering that I have used both of these popular Linux distributions, I am confident that I can make a fair comparison of Linux Mint and Ubuntu.

The comparison which I am doing here is from the point of view of a beginner Linux desktop user who probably has just switched from Windows or thinking to switch to Linux. But it should still be a good read for an experienced user.

8 things that make Linux Mint better than Ubuntu for beginners

Ubuntu and Linux Mint are unarguably the most popular desktop Linux distributions. While Ubuntu is based on Debian, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. Question is why to use an Ubuntu derivative or a Debian derivative instead of using the source itself. The answer to the question is that the derivative is better.

Hardcore Debian users would disagree but Ubuntu makes Debian better (or should I say easier?). Similarly, Linux Mint makes Ubuntu better.

How come? I am going to list five things that Linux Mint does better than Ubuntu.

Note that the comparison is mainly between Ubuntu GNOME vs Linux Mint’s Cinnamon desktop. A few parameters might not be applicable to other versions with different desktop environments. If you didn’t know, you can read this article to understand what is a desktop environment.

1. Low memory usage in Cinnamon than GNOME

Linux Mint technically tries to get rid of what they think is unnecessary in Ubuntu while aiming to make the experience faster. Of course, that includes using the Cinnamon desktop instead of GNOME as well.

Even though the difference isn’t huge, Linux Mint tends to get an edge with a lower memory consumption over Ubuntu. It is worth noting that the memory consumption depends on what applications you’re running and if they’re resource-friendly. But, out of the box, without any modifications, Linux Mint seems to be light on resources. This makes it an ideal choice for computers with older configuration.

Of course, if you have a core i7 with 16 GB of RAM, this won’t matter. But if you have a core i3 processor with 4GB of RAM (or lower), Cinnamon desktop gets the win technically.

Of course, you can install Cinnamon on Ubuntu but we are discussing the default desktop environments here.

2. Software Manager: faster, sleeker, lighter

Ubuntu Software Center takes ages to load, heavily eats up resources, and is slow while interacting with it. Of course, things have improved over the years but even with Ubuntu 20.04, on board, you will often notice it loading up slow or freezing when updating/installing an app.

On the other hand, Linux Mint’s Software Manager is lighter and quicker. Personally, I haven’t noticed it slow down, it is always snappy whenever you need it.

3. Software Sources with more features

As of now, you get all the essential options to manage repositories, revert the settings, and a couple other things to tweak the software sources as per your requirement.

With Ubuntu, you get the necessary features but Linux Mint goes a step beyond and offers additional benefits like the ability remove foreign packages, add missing keys, remove duplicate entries, and a couple other options which you don’t get with Ubuntu (considering Ubuntu 20.04).

The automatic options to troubleshoot (as shown in the screenshot below) is very useful for beginners, which you will not find in Ubuntu 20.04.

4. Themes, Applets and Desklets

I am not saying it’s rocket science to install themes in Ubuntu. But Linux Mint does it better than Ubuntu.

First, you don’t need to install a new tool (like GNOME Tweak) just to change themes in Mint. It already lets you tweak it from the System Settings. On top of that, you can have several themes from the community at your disposal in Themes System Settings under ‘Get more online’ option.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, does not have this ease in installing the themes. You’ll have to look at places to download the zipped themes file and then install it.

Similarly, Linux Mint also has a separate entry in Settings for applets and desklets. You can also access an online collection of indicator applets and desklets (Windows like desktop widgets in Linux). You won’t find this ability in Ubuntu.

So, for users who want out of the box customizability and the support for applets/desklets with the ease of managing them, Linux Mint will be a perfect choice.

5. Codecs, Flash and plenty of applications by default

It’s not that you cannot install media codecs in Ubuntu. Ubuntu too gives the option to install codecs while installing OS itself. But if you don’t do at installation, you will find yourself struggling.

Ubuntu has a package named Ubuntu Restricted Extras that consists of most commonly used media codecs, including Adobe Flash.

While this package can easily be installed using a simple command, you won’t find it listed in the Ubuntu Software Center. Instead, you will have to browse/scroll down and choose to install GStreamer if you want.

Linux Mint doesn’t come with codecs installed (you do get the option to include it while installing it). But if you search for codecs using the Software Manager, at least it provides you the correct options right away.

You can either choose to install the Ubuntu-restricted-extras package to get the commonly used codecs or something else from the list.

6. More Desktop Choices with Longterm Support

Both Ubuntu and Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu, of course) support 5 years of system updates. However, with Ubuntu, you only get 5 year system updates for GNOME edition by Canonical.

If you want to try Kubuntu, Lubuntu or any other official flavors of Ubuntu, you will end up with only 3 year of system updates.

But, with Linux Mint, no matter whether you use Cinnamon desktop edition, MATE, or XFCE, you get 5 year system updates. I think that gives Linux Mint a slight edge over Ubuntu with different desktop choices without comprising on the software updates.

7. Linux Mint Disables Snap Store by Default

Of course, I don’t have anything against the Snap store in general. It is useful for some users with a variety of applications available while having the ability to get the latest updates. And, with Ubuntu, you get to make use of it by default.

On the other hand, it isn’t open-source and some recent decisions by Canonical to replace parts of APT with Snap without users consent have drifted away a lot of users.

So, if you are someone who does not prefer Snap store, Linux Mint will be a good option for you which blocks Snaps to be installed by APT. However, you may choose to follow one of our tutorials to enable snap support in Linux Mint 20, in case you want it.

8. Pre-installed Linux Mint Apps Are Awesome!

The Linux Mint team does some awesome work on some of their own tools that come pre-installed.

For instance, the update manager on Linux Mint and the Timeshift application to back up/restore easily.

With the update manager, you get to select what you need to update, check history on the update, and get some detailed information for each package update. The Software Updater in Ubuntu is good enough, but I tend to like the Linux Mint’s manager that works snappy all the time.

Not just limited to that, you can head right into Timeshift through the update manager giving you quick access to back up/restore.

Overall, it is a robust update manager. And, if you pair it up with pre-installed Timeshift application to create system backups, you will always be a click away from restoring your system.

Ubuntu 20 Software Updater

With Ubuntu, you can install Timeshift application to back up/restore but that does not come baked in.

What do you say? Mint or Ubuntu?

Keep in mind that it is not a hate post against Ubuntu. I am a great fan of Ubuntu. Personally, I have never liked Cinnamon interface. It’s just too dull for me. I prefer the user experience on Ubuntu.

However, everyone has their set of choices, and I just thought of giving you some reasons if you were thinking about Linux Mint as the desktop operating system for your computer.

It’s just that Linux Mint seems to be a better option than Ubuntu for an absolute beginner to Linux. Considering that Cinnamon has an interface like Windows, it may also be a factor when choosing between Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Of course, you can also check out some windows-like distributions in that case.

For users who have some experience with Linux desktop, it’s more of a personal liking between Ubuntu and Linux Mint. But if you ever wonder why Linux Mint over Ubuntu, these reasons may help you to decide.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Like what you read? Please share it with others.

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Ubuntu vs Linux Mint Desktop Versions

In the desktop market, the competition has always been among Linux, MacOS and Windows operating systems, which has led to an increase in development of Linux based operating systems, and consequently more rich, intuitive features like its Windows and MacOS counterparts. However, there is an internal battle among various Linux distributions for the desk top environment of choice. Currently the consumer market is dominated by Ubuntu due to its rich and user-friendly features, but for a while Ubuntu has been threatened by the rise of Mint which is also Debian based, but claims to provide more features out of the box. However, there are still many pros and cons of both operating systems, and this article demonstrates the features offered by both, and how useful they are to desktop users.

Target Users

Basically Linux mint is Ubuntu with some changes on the surface, and thus there is not much difference in its core. Linux mint is mostly targeted for those who are coming from the Windows environment, whereas Ubuntu is for a wide variety of audiences in many industries, for instance Ubuntu has server, cloud, and media center operating system called Mythbuntu flavors, but Mint has only the desktop flavor. So, for desktop consumers either one is sufficient, but for servers there is no point of going with Mint as its basically based on either Debian or Ubuntu.

System Requirements

Both Mint and Ubuntu require almost the same system requirements. However, when testing both operating systems it appears as Ubuntu requires slightly more memory than Mint, and Mint requires a slightly big hard drive due to its bundled features, but other than that both function equally well in a machine which fulfills the minimum system requirements:

1. 700 MHz processor (about Intel Celeron or better)
2. 512 MiB RAM (just for the system), but it’s recommended for at least 1GB to 1.5GB
3. 5 GB of hard-drive space for Ubuntu and 9 GB for Mint
4. VGA capable of 1024×768 screen resolution

Resource Consumption of both operating systems after doing a fresh installation, and right after the computer is turned on.

Figure 1Ubuntu 17.04 desktop-amd64

Figure 2Linux Mint-18.2-cinnamon-64bit

Installation

Both operating systems have the same contents but with different interfaces; hence, anyone who is familiar with Ubuntu is also familiar with Mint. There is not much difference here, other than the time to complete the installation in Mint is slighter higher, but that’s because Mint consists of a large number of software out of the box. This makes Mint take more space in the hard drive as well, but it also makes Mint more suitable for an average desktop user. Ubuntu users are required to download what is missing from its software center. In mint it’s known as software portal. The installation ISO file is slightly larger in Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon 64bit, 1.56GB, whereas it’s 1.49GB in Ubuntu 17.04 desktop x64bit.

Features

Interface

The default Interface is completely different in both operating systems, that’s because both target different audiences. As explained earlier, Mint is primarily for ex-Windows users, whereas Ubuntu is for just Linux user base. Ubuntu uses Unity as its default interface, whereas Mint primarily uses Cinnamon, but There are few other flavors from both Ubuntu, and Mint, for instance Ubuntu provides Kubuntu (KDE), Lubuntu (LXDE), Ubuntu GNOME (GNOME Shell), Xubuntu (Xfce), and Mint provides MATE, Xfce, KDE. So, there is not different between Kubuntu and Mint KDE, and Xubuntu, and Mint Xfce as both use the same interface.

The advantage of the Unity interface is taking less space, and thus is suitable for a smaller screens such as notebook or laptop. Unity also provides an advanced filtering system to weed out unnecessary software from appearing on the screen. So it’s easy to find what the user wants by using it along with its inbuilt search bar.

On the contrary, the interface in Ubuntu might be difficult for a novice user who is accustomed to Windows, and thus the Cinnamon interface is most suitable for such users. It has a search bar on top of its menu, categories in the left side, and contents of each category in the right side. Like in Unity, frequently used applications can be pinned down by dragging and dropping in the far left side of the menu.

Software

Mint is rich with its bundled applications. Popular applications like VLC, Hex, Pidgin, Pix are preinstalled at the outset, and thus users are ready to have a full blown experience out of the box.

The software installed in Ubuntu can be uninstalled via “Ubuntu Software” application. Also from the same application, existing applications can be updated and new applications can be downloaded to install.

In Mint, this is slightly different, more advanced, but complicated than what is in Ubuntu. In Ubuntu new applications can be downloaded to install, existing applications can be viewed, and updated within the same application, whereas in Mint these functionalities are separated. As seen in the following screenshot, “Software Manager” is primarily for download new applications. However, even though existing applications can be uninstalled, it’s a frustrated experience due to the way it’s organized. There is no separate place to view already installed applications, and thus they have to be searched to uninstalled, but in Ubuntu it’s just a matter of scrolling.

Apart from the aforesaid manager, Mint provides another application to install new software packages, which is known as “Synaptic Package Manager”, and from this application the existing applications can be uninstalled and updated as well, but this is not much user-friendly or intuitive like the one provided in Ubuntu, as Synaptic Package Manager states the package name instead of the software’s name. On top of that, in the Mint menu, where all the software is displaying, it doesn’t state the package names, but software names; hence it can be slightly difficult to locate existing applications to uninstall. However, Mint provides another way to uninstall software directly via its menu.

Unlike in Ubuntu, Mint has a very organized structure in its “Software Manager” application. The GUI is very well designed, tidy, informative, and intuitive, whereas it’s not that user-friendly in Ubuntu as in Mint.

Additionally, Mint provides a special application to analyze the hard disk by the sections in the file system. This is quite useful to pinpoint the culprit in case when hard disk is overfilled with junk files. It states the size, number of contents, and also the last modified date in front of each section.

The latest public stable version of Linux Mint is 18.2, and of Ubuntu is 17.04. Since Ubuntu 17.04 isn’t LTS (Long Term Support), it’s not suitable in an environment where support for prolonged period of time without upgrading to the consecutive next version is required.

Customization

Customization is an important part of any operating system regardless of its targeted audience. Generally speaking, both Ubuntu and Mint can be customized to their core, due to being open source. However, here it mainly focuses on what both operating systems offer to customize its interface with ease. As explained earlier, Mint is rich with features; hence, Mint is superior to Ubuntu out of the box in this respect, but there are many third party software packages for Ubuntu to customize it with ease more.

Wallpaper

In both operating systems, Wallpapers can be changed, new wallpapers can be added. In Mint, there are preinstalled beautiful wallpapers available in its wallpaper repository. It’s fairly difficulty to find these kind of full HD, ultra-quality, vibrant desktop wallpapers. So, it’s safe to say that mint developers heavily emphasize on the aesthetic side of their operating system. In Ubuntu, not only the number of wallpapers are low, but the quality of them isn’t that great as its Mint counterpart. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the quality of the wallpaper is really objective.

Mint provides a set of functions to change its theme extensively. This customization includes window border, icons, controls, mouse pointers, desktop interface. Unlike in Ubuntu, there are a large number of desktop interfaces. So a serious customization can be done with Mint without ever requiring any third party software package. In a nutshell, Mint provides everything a user requires out of the box. However, in Ubuntu, there are only a couple of themes, and rest of the areas can’t even be customized natively.

On the other hand, if a user has access to Internet, there are a number of tools to customize theme, for instance The Unity Tweak Tool provided especially for Ubuntu can customize the whole Ubuntu operating system extensively.

Panels

A Panel is a bar which is typically placed at the bottom of the screen on where the menu icon is placed. In Ubuntu it’s at the top of the screen, whereas in Mint it’s at the bottom of the screen. It’s currently not possible to add multiple panels to Ubuntu, but in Mint up to 4 panels can be added as one for each side of the screen.

Mint provides extensive features to customize these panels as well. For example, a panel can be customized, removed, changed, and also applets can be added on top of the panel as in MacOS. So, for users who are coming from MacOS, Mint makes it easy to adapt to the Mint environment.

Ubuntu has two panels. One at top of the screen, and one at left side of the screen. Even though it’s not possible to add more panels, Ubuntu allows to pin the currently installed software packages to this left side panel by dragging. As seen in the following screenshot, any software package can be pinned to make it easy to open without wasting any time.

Desklets

This feature is similar to the “Windows desktop gadgets” feature available in Windows Vista. In Mint it’s known as desklets. Unfortunately, in the Windows family it’s removed after Visa, but fortunately it exists in Mint. So for those who are fans of desktop gadgets and coming from Windows environment this might be handy. Unfortunately, this doesn’t exist in Ubuntu; hence, users are compelled to look for a third party solution. Currently the most suitable candidate for it is “Conky Manager”

Login Window

Mint again overwhelms Ubuntu in terms of customizability. Login Window is the area which appears right at the start up. This area can be customized with Mint through its “Login Window” application, but for Ubuntu there isn’t a native application which does what Mint does, but there are number of third party applications such as lightdm-gtk-greeter package.

Let us know your preference and thoughts on Linux Mint vs Ubuntu in the comments section below!

About the author

Admin

A passionate Linux user for personal and professional reasons, always exploring what is new in the world of Linux and sharing with my readers.

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