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I want to install Mint in my laptop, but I'm undecided about which desktop environment I should use with it. Currently the available desktop environments the distribution offers are Cinnamon, MATE, KDE and Xfce. From these I only know Xfce because it is the one I use with Fedora, but I don't want to use it anymore because it's too buggy.

So my question is: from the remaining desktop enviroments, Cinnamon, MATE and KDE, which one consumes fewer resources?

In case you need to know, my laptop has 2.9 GB of memory.


Update: I don't understand why my question has been put on hold for being "primarily opinion-based". I am not asking what desktop environment looks nicer or cuter, I am asking what desktop environment consumes fewer resources, something that can be perfectly quantified.

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  • Are you sure LXDE is not in the repositories?
    – YoMismo
    Mar 18, 2015 at 16:15
  • @YoMismo Yes, it's not there.
    – Carl Rojas
    Mar 18, 2015 at 16:23
  • Run each of them from USB and compare? That way you can also test if you really like them. IMO that is a very small time investment for making a decision that will be in your face for months, if not years to come.
    – Anthon
    Mar 18, 2015 at 18:42

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Of the three, MATE will probably be the lightest since that is a fork of Gnome2. Both Cinnamon and KDE are relatively heavy. However, in terms of RAM, 2.9GB is more than enough for any of them. The limiting factor is more likely to be your graphics card.

Also, note that you can install any desktop you want. Mint uses its own repositories and the Ubuntu ones which means that you will find blackbox, openbox, fluxbox, windowmaker, lxde and probably a good deal more. Shop around!

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  • Additional note: you can install and use multiple desktop environments. You then can use a display manager to select the environment you want to use.
    – user236012
    Mar 18, 2015 at 15:54

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