About a year ago I switched from Ubuntu to Mint Lisa because of the Unity desktop. I wasn't really thrilled with the desktop on Lisa either as I really liked Gnome 2.x. But as time marches on I guess I need to accept that Gnome 3.x is the future and I might as well get used to it.

I plan on backing up Lisa and doing a clean install of Maya. I'm using 32 bit Lisa right now on a Dell Latitude E6410. Is there an advantage (or disadvantage) in moving to the 64 bit Maya since I'm starting fresh anyway? Will I find that there are less applications available for the 64 bit system or will this not be an issue?

I also have no way to burn a DVD. Are there any issues with installing Maya with USB? I've never done a Linux install via USB but I would imagine it's no different than a CD install.

Is Cinnamon mature enough to use day to day? What am I running on Linux Mint Lisa, is that just straight Gnome 3? Is Cinnamon going to be a lot different than what I have on Lisa? Or should I use Mate as it's more stable (or is it really?)?

Thanks for any advise. Hope to get this done this weekend in time for work Tuesday!

If you like Gnome 2 then you can also use the MATE edition of Mint, it is a fork of Gnome 2.
If you have an older or exotic printer or an exotic USB device you might have difficulties to find a 64 bit driver. Other than that there shouldn't be problems, if necessary you can still use 32 bit software on a 64 bit system.
Installing from USB should work without a problem.

I also severely disliked unity and left the latest ubuntu editions. Considered various 64 bit ubuntu-based variants including debian, fluxbox, mint 12 (lxde, mint with early cinnamon added, etc, etc) and tried them out in virtualbox. I finally settled on mint 12 and was generally happy with it... enough to switch to the bundled mint 13 cinnamon 64 bit, when it was released. Cinnamon is still in relatively early life, although imho its a really worthwhile alternative to mate. I've been able to run virtually everything I could in ubuntu and for the most part (with a small mental adjustment on my part read -- learning curve) its been almost flawless. My only real qwibble is with the mouse. Damn thing just doesn't react the way I'm used to or would like. Mouse focus takes getting used to and doesn't always seem dependable. Double click and click response seems erratic also. I've tried adjusting the settings but I'm not really happy with the result. Might be down to me. That being said, otherwise I'm really impressed with both mint and the developing Cinnamon. If you keep your home directory on a separate partition (as you probably should), it really takes very little time to install a new ubuntu-based OS and try it out. You can always junk it and keep your separate /home partition, reinstall some other OS and just not reformat your /home in the new install. Less than an hour spent once you've done it once or twice. Nothing ventured nothing gained as the saying goes. Just be sure to save your /home partition or back it up and be sure to save any hidden files. cheers

My mistake.. should not have alluded to debian as being an ubuntu derivative. cheers

I went ahead and installed Mint Maya w/ Cinnamon and am quite content with it. I like it a lot better than Lisa and Unity. In fact, I can see me never going back to Ubuntu as long as I would be stuck using Unity.

If Cinnamon is basically Gnome 3 (perhaps modified a bit?) then I'm fine with Gnome 3. I did like Gnome 2 better but that's probably just me being used to things a certain way as I am a bit of a creature of habit.

Anyway, all is good with Cinnamon. Well, except the damn clock applet. The time won't advance, it just sits at whatever time it was when I logged in. Any ideas on that one?

To clarify that a bit: Both, Cinnamon and Gnome Shell (which is likely the one you are referring to as Gnome 3) are "only" shells for Gnome 3. Gnome 3 is the underlying base, not that what you actually see.

If you're still having trouble with your clock not advancing leupi, you might try starting Synaptic, entering indicator-datetime, clicking the green square and then selecting reinstall. Maybe that will do the trick.

Tried that, didn't work. What is interesting is that when I go to 'Date and Time Settings I see under 'Use network time' (which is checked) the correct time, it simply is not being reflected on the applet. I did change the date format for the panel to: '%a %b %e, %l:%m %p'. Perhaps that is doing it?

My time and date settings are: date format for the panel - %a %b %e, %H:%M , date format inside the applet - %A %B %e, %Y