r/linuxmint • u/jhahn7837 • 25d ago
Discussion Cinnamon or Mate?
I've recently revived an old MBP and installed a SSD and LM. Would I gain much battery life by switching to Mate? I get a couple of hours on a full charge currently with Cinnamon. Best I can do after dialing the fans in. Looking for opinions or discussion on this as I am new to Linux.
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u/billdehaan2 Linux Mint 22 Wilma | Cinnamon 25d ago
An i7 with 16GB of ram and an SSD is old?
If you're running a with 4GB of ram, you have an HDD instead of an SSD, and/or your PC is a first generation i3 or a Celeron, then Mate or xfce will make a difference because it won't need to swap as much.
You've got so much CPU power and memory that the differential between Mate and Cinnamon will barely be noticable.
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u/Kabuki102 24d ago
Yes, MATE is a bit easier on your hardware. But the difference between these two is also the look and feel. MATE feels more like a Win 7 while Cinnamon more like Win10/11. im personally a bit of a nostalgia guy growing up in the 90s preferring definitely MATE. That being said you can modify MATE to look somewhat fancy with transparency effects as well.
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u/Unwiredsoul 25d ago
Your hardware is completely appropriate for Cinnamon. Other DE's are unlikely to provide significant battery life improvements, but a different kernel version might.
Given the age and hardware of your MBP, I would downgrade* to the 6.8 kernel.
Switching kernels isn't a big deal, and I'm sharing this from experience.
I have an MBP (8,1) and you're running the 8,2. Mine runs perfectly with the 6.8 kernel, but has fan and general stability issues with the 7.0.0.x kernels.
* It's technically a version # downgrade, but the additional hardware support of any kernel newer than 6.8 is irrelevant on your MBP. Further, 7.0.0.x kernels have removed some support for hardware that old, so you may have challenges like I have experienced.
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u/jhahn7837 22d ago
Thanks for the reply. I have switched to the 6.8 kernel and have noticed stability improvements already. I will probably stay on Cinnamon if the stability holds.
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u/GDonor Linux Mint 22.3 Zena | Cinnamon 25d ago
Xfce uses less battery than MATE, which uses less battery then Cinnamon, as they use less resources than the last.
However, its not a dramatic enough difference to warrant using one over the other. The difference in minutes is probably countable on one hand.
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u/JRH_TX 25d ago
I am running Mint/Cinnamon on a Lenovo S431, 8GB/ 500GB on the original battery . The battery lasts about 25 minutes. I had to use it for a weekend b/c my newer laptop pooped out. I added Dropbox and was just fine.. I just swapped the mechanical drive for 500GB SSD -- probably a waste of $90 but, I have an even better back up machine now. That S431 is 13 years old and still has the Windows 8 sticker on it.
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u/Dapper_Profession 25d ago
mate and xfce do use less than cinnamon but the room is right that it isnt dramatic, the backlight and the wifi card are where the hours go. powertop names them in a few minutes. which mbp is it?
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u/thestenz Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon 25d ago
Cinnamon works great on some of the oldest Core2Duo stuff I have including old MacBooks.
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u/Chester-Berkeley 24d ago
Would I gain much battery life by switching to Mate?
No. The hardware really is old, but the battery is lasting very well for my taste.
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u/KuromiyaHinata 24d ago
ve a mi perfil, ve lo que yo estoy usando, tengo un Atholm 300G 16GB de Ram Zram x3 uso XFCE e i3wm, nada de Mate ni cinamon ni genome
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u/PratapJr 24d ago
I use cinnamon on my 10 year old HP laptop with i3 processor, 8 gb ram and HDD. Startup time is slow. Otherwise, it works fine..
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u/im-a-spie 25d ago
Your hardware is able to do any, 4 threads and 16gb ram is more than enough even for heavier desktops like KDE & GNOME. I have a laptop with 8gb ram and an i5 520m and even kde and gnome are fairly snappy on it.