Experienced Mint/Budgie users
Do you agree with this comparison ?
JF
Tks ! 
I guess Iād like to just clarify, this isnāt Mint vs (Ubuntu) Budgie (a distro comparison), this is Cinnamon vs Budgie (a Desktop Environment comparison).
Mint vs Budgie is a different comparison altogether (perhaps not comparable at allā¦)
Of course, asking this question on a forum dedicated to the support of one of the choices is probably going to yield a predictable result.
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@cleary You are rightā¦ Cinnamon vs Budgieā¦
I come from the Macintosh World and Windows world where OS and GUIās names are the sameā¦
JF
I donāt take those types of comparisons very seriously. But with that being said, here are some thoughts:
- Mint has definitely been around longer
- How many of those people have actually used BOTH desktops for a decent period of time?
- Some of the āproā features are only supported on the specific desktop. For example āWorks well with Cairo dock on the bottom and cinnamon menu on topā. Well of course budgie will not have that pro - we donāt use the cinnamon menu at all.
- Itās obviously very subjective. Not Desktop will be everything to everyone.
I just find they are not a reason or accurate means for determining if you should use a desktop. Reality - just try it and try bothā¦ for more than a few days and use what works for you. That was a generalized statement - not targeted to you. 
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Iāve been using Cinnamon for about 2 years at work. It does what I need it to do, but its been getting a bit slow. Iām getting a new workstation which is why Iām looking at other options. My needs are pretty simple:
- Multiple desktops
- Tabbed terminal
- Not crash!
Iāve always had the dock on the bottom so anything where its on the side weirds me out. Budgie looks interesting though, and Iām willing to give it a shot.
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You can always change the desktop layout through the Budgie Desktop Settings program. I used to run Mint as well until Spectre/Meltdown patches soft bricked the machine. Now Iām running Budgie on my MacBook Air, the only problems Iāve ever had are with the wifi adapter intermittently dropping in and out while using 5ghz radio band. I havenāt noticed any disconnections connected to my 2.4ghz routerā¦ and even then, thatās not even Ubuntuās doing although itād be great to have some native support for Apple products. I had to connect to my phoneās Bluetooth tether in order to download the driver for the wifi adapter. Had to do this in Mint as well, such are the challenges we face for a reward as great as Linux, knowing whatās going on inside your machine rather than running completely proprietary code.
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You can easily move the dock to the bottom in the āplank preferencesā.
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I will be perfectly honest here, the only reason I am using Budgie now is because Mint will not run on my AMD Ryzen 3 2200G based computer. Budgie at least runs, although not perfectly.
Iāve been using Mint for many years, and it fits me like a well-worn suit. Budgie is like a new suit, needs adjustment here and there, but in time, will be just as comfortable. However, right now, I am not prepared to say which one I like better, because Iām still in the adjustment process and trying to figure out if the problems Iām experiencing are because of the Ryzen CPU.
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You should try Manjaro Budgie.
Love the look of Budgie and the whole layout just works for me. Minor issue is the width of the window scroll bar which is too thin and can only be adjusted (unless Iāve missed something) by changing the default theme which is my favorite. Been using it for over a year now and prefer it over all other desktop environments Iāve tried beforeā¦the worst for me being Unity - full hate on that !
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You can change the width with:
sudo gedit ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css
and add:
scrollbar slider {
min-width: 20px; # size of the slider
min-height: 20px;
border-radius: 22px;
border: 5px solid transparent; # padding around the slider
}
Using U-Budgie for some months now, quite pleasant. Coming from Unity - full love on it, personally - I feel almost as comfortable with Budgie as I was with Unity. I assume you wonāt like Ā« my Ā» Budgie layout, lol.
Almost : like in most DE, I miss a place where recently used files AND appās are shown with same importance, at one click or keystroke reach.
Iāve tried Cinnamon ( under Ubuntu, not Mint ) a few weeks and it did not Ā« catch Ā» me : nothingās wrong but also nothing Ā« special Ā». But it may be its strength for some reason.
You could use an appindicator solution such as this to display recently used files
Ohā¦ I remember now why Vlijm is not an unknown name for me 
I tried / used many of his scripts for Unityā¦
So AppIndicators work in Budgie ? Interestingā¦ thanks !
The linked answer should work without an issue (just tried). It also mentions this one: https://askubuntu.com/questions/850930/is-there-a-places-menu-for-ubuntu-unity/851148#851148, which has two issues: the icon is huge and Nautilus connect to network has changed, which makes the indicator crash on modern versions of nautilus. Iāll see if I can knock up an applet from (modernized code of) the indicator, but working on another applet atm.
Ahā¦ the .png needs to be 22px as per the indicator spec ā¦ or a .svg
Exactly, and is gone (I believe it was that one). choosing it makes the indicator crash. Just need to remove it form the menu, the options and the corresponding functions.
One of the thing I always found weird is Cinnamon itself on how little it was extensible and how there werenāt many addons for it. Aside from that Iām not really a fan of their security system and update process to new releases.
Arenāt there quite a few Cinnamon Spices add-ons? I remember when I was trying it I had a number of Weather apps, menu extension, etc working with itā¦
I have used Mint before in the past, Cinnamon, and Cinnamon always seem to crash on me. I had finally had enough and moved on. I have never had the Budgie desktop crash on meā¦and couldnāt be more happy.
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