I want to install a medium resource desktop manager and need some suggestions as I'm not to familiar with the many desktops out there.

Which of these desktops are medium or high resource type:

MATE, Cinnamon, Unity, Kde, Gnome?

KDE & Gnome are your biggest 2 desktops, so if you want something that's somewhat light, they're out (however, you'd be surprised how well most systems can still run them).

Cinnamon, XFCE, LXDE/LXQT & MATE are mid-range resource users, with XFCE starting to creep towards KDE/Gnome land and LXDE being the lightest in my experience.

No idea on Unity. I assume since it's a just an alternative shell to gnome, it's probably pretty intensive, but I refuse to touch anything *buntu, so never used it to say for sure.

Great, this info has helped a lot

My system can handle kde and Gnome as my cpu is a quadcore @ 3.3 GHZ and 8gb of ram, but I'm not a fan of heavy desktop managers nor light-weight desktops like fluxbox, blackbox Openbox, and etcetera. A good mid-range desktop is my preference.

In just my personal OPINION, I'm a fan of LXQT and Cinnamon for the midrange stuff. Neither is perfect so I keep sticking to KDE, but I can use either one without issue.

If you are willing to compile your own try this:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ect-4175542914

Just finished testing it on xubuntu replacing xfce4, new update comming in a day or so.

Currently using Cinnamon as it was the default desktop for linux Mint.

If you're happy with it, stick to it. You're not going to get OVERLY much lighter without getting into the WM only and such.

i feel xfce4 deserves another mention here.
it is really a very well-made and long-developed desktop environment, and fulfils op's "midrange" requirement.

Cinnamon is, I believe, a shell for Gnome, so there's always the chance that Gnome will do something that creates trouble for Cinnamon. But it's a very remote chance, so if you're currently happy, stick with it.

In principle, I'd second the vote for Xfce. It's the oldest full desktop for Linux and has had the most consistent policy. The lack of bugs over the years suggests good coding.

One of the reasons for creating Gnome 3 (other than blind following of fashion) was said to be that the code had got very complex over the years and it was getting difficult to maintain. Since Mate was based on that code, I wonder if that explains some of the sporadic bugs that have come and gone in Mate, like the "disappearing panel icons" one.

I did tried xfce4 way back, but it looked ancient, like a desktop from the 90's. It's been quite a long time since I last used it. Perhaps I should give it another look and see how much has changed.

I don't really have a favorite desktop. I just use whichever desktop is a mid-range resource type if possible. To be honest, I though Cinnamon was a heavy resource type desktop until Timothy Miller posted it was a mid-range type.

Sometimes It's hard to tell if a desktop is heavy since my cpu is an intel Xen 3.3 GHZ and 8gb of ram.

I guess I would need a old, slow computer to see the difference.

Yeah, most of them are decent nowadays. I'm here typing this on a full KDE desktop on a measly Celeron dual core 2.16 GHz that has only 2 GB ram. Yet despite those extremely limited specs, it runs absolutely fine, without any issues, and is quite spry and very quick.

That's really cool to know. I though kde would keel over on a system like that

I think improved coding and memory management makes it possible for kde to run OK on lower spec systems. Just my guess.

one of the biggest difference between, say, debian and "user-friendly" distros like ubuntu and mint, is that the latter take some effort to make it look nice ootb.
yes, xfce4 used to be pretty damn ugly. xubuntu looks a liitle better.
but in both cases, nothing that a little "Customizing" can't fix - which, according to many, is the biggest fun in linux.

in any case, i've learned to wait for a while and look behind the nicely painted walls, before passing judgement.
quite often i noticed that a highly polished desktop starts falling apart as soon as you try to adjust something. xfce4 has always been an exception from that tendency.

the terms light/heavyweight, or minimal/full-featured, are highly suggestive and subjective and prone to abuse.

For me it's XFCE as it just works well...

Hi,

The only Light weight that I use is 'LXDE' on a Rpi setup. Meets the needs for me when I must use a DE on the RaspberryPi. I use the 'cli' mostly on this benchtop system but when a DE is necessary then 'LXDE' with no big issues.

All my other systems are using KDE which happen to be Slackware based installs.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!