From Cinnamon to XFCE

[ciryon]

Hello

in order to help my laptop to handle more easily Mint, I am thinking about migrating from cinnamon (I use 17.1 by default) to XFCE.

Do I have to make a fresh install or can I install a XFCE package and switch without side effects ?

[GeneBenson]

Hi ciryon,

You can easily install XFCE alongside Cinnamon. You need to install the package "xfce4". This is a meta-package and will install most of what you want. After the installation is complete just logout. In the login screen you can then choose to use xfce or cinnamon. I can't say exactly where on the login screen, but most have 3 icons: one to shutdown/restart, one for language, and one for the session you want to run.

The first time you login to xfce it will ask about the menu. Choose the default. This will give you the default xfce menu. Later, if you want, you could replace it with the Mint Menu.

[ciryon]

Thanks

I suppse then than if the test is positive, I can remove the Cinnamon package after ?

[GeneBenson]

Thanks

I suppse then than if the test is positive, I can remove the Cinnamon package after ?

You could, but it will be a lot of packages. To get an idea now how many have a look in Synaptic. Search for "cinnamon" to see how many are installed.

[Hoser Rob]

I agree ... it's a shed load of packages. And replacing the original DE isn't a novice friendly task.

Myself, I wouldn't bother.

[ciryon]

The results are not to my taste.

I have read Dedoimedo's review of Xubuntu 15.04 and I will make a fresh install. This distro is more adapted to my laptop hardware configuration.

Anyway, thanks for your help .

[Hoser Rob]

I've used Xubuntu before on a couple of machines and it's a nice DE. I'm sure 15.04 is a nice release of it but there are a couple of things:

15.04 is not a long term support release. It is only supported until the end of this year. Having done a bunch of distro/DE hopping on my netbook, I can state that I will never install a non LTS release unless a hardware support issue forces me to do that. Which is why I version hopped on that netbook.

My previous experience with ubuntu indicates that just because 15.04 works very nicely does not mean that the next release will. While I actually do think ubuntu is good for newbies, I have mint installed now.

All mint releases except for LMDE are ubuntu based. So to say "this distro is more adapted to my laptop hardware configuration" frankly doesn't make a lot of sense to me. In fact to tell the truth if I'm searching any tech/config thing for either of my 2 mint installs, I almost always use ubuntu instead of mint as a search term unless it's a cinnamon or mate DE thing.

[Prankmaster]

Hello

in order to help my laptop to handle more easily Mint, I am thinking about migrating from cinnamon (I use 17.1 by default) to XFCE.

Is that desktop the one in your signature? because your specs seem good to me, what problems are you having with cinnamon?

[ciryon]

Hello

in order to help my laptop to handle more easily Mint, I am thinking about migrating from cinnamon (I use 17.1 by default) to XFCE.

Is that desktop the one in your signature? because your specs seem good to me, what problems are you having with cinnamon?

my laptop was lagging. Xubuntu XFCE is faster, indeed, it booted even faster from my USB key than Mint with my hard drive.

[MtnDewManiac]

Perhaps check your graphics driver? I agree that Cinnamon requires more to run smoothly than Xfce, but I'd expect that a discrete graphics card would go a long way to mitigate that. Unless your nVidia component and your CPU are sharing RAM, of course...

After you install the Xfce DE (or a distro which uses it ), you might want to run Synaptic Package Manager, select "Not installed" on the upper-left of the screen, and then type "xfce" (sans quotation marks) or at least "xf" (ditto) into the quick search box in order to see what other Xfce and associated components/apps you can install. There are several things that might appeal, depending on the user.

Regards,
MDM

[ciryon]

Perhaps check your graphics driver? I agree that Cinnamon requires more to run smoothly than Xfce, but I'd expect that a discrete graphics card would go a long way to mitigate that. Unless your nVidia component and your CPU are sharing RAM, of course...

After you install the Xfce DE (or a distro which uses it ), you might want to run Synaptic Package Manager, select "Not installed" on the upper-left of the screen, and then type "xfce" (sans quotation marks) or at least "xf" (ditto) into the quick search box in order to see what other Xfce and associated components/apps you can install. There are several things that might appeal, depending on the user.

Regards,
MDM

I will keep in mind your suggestions in case I change my mind but the idea so far is to keep Xubuntu 15.04 and upgrade it to 15.10 in a few months.