ugh! don't get me started on them!

Since this thread still seems viable, I'll add my two and a half cents.

I've been running Linux Mint/Cinnamon, both 32 and 64 bit versions on various machines since Cinnamon first came out (and Linux Mint/Gnome 2 long before that). Since you didn't post your machine's basic specs except that it has 2GB of memory it makes it impossible to ferret out the problem. However, I can tell you from long experience with Mint and other distros as well, that Cinnamon has not become bloated since it became it's own desktop environment. Yes, there's been a very few bugs in the past that caused higher resource usage until a patch came out but those were few and were patched quickly.

Right now I have Linux Mint/Cinnamon (32-bit/PAE enabled) running on an older ThinkPad R61 that has an Intel Core2 Duo CPU with 2GB of DDR2 memory plus Intel graphics and I have absolutely no problems with it. It's fast, stable and has never crashed. At an idle (login after boot/reboot) memory usage is typically around 146 MB and that's hardly bloated.

Typical crashes like the ones you are seeing is usually the result of Kernel/hardware incompatibilities and, even more common, machines with AMD based graphic hardware.

If you can post your machine's hardware specs then you'll make it easier for someone to offer a solution. And just because a new version crashes doesn't mean it's bloated. The problem usually lies in a bad ISO or hardware incompatibility problems.

Well I run Mint 13 MATE for some years on my T42. Not a single thing to complain about. I planned to upgrade to Mint 17 (forcepae). Installed it for a test drive:
No way. Mint 17 was way too heavy.

I vaguely recall trying Mint 15 or 16 too, but don't recall anything to complain about either.

1 members found this post helpful.

What version? Since you don't mention the version in your quote, we can't know how this applies to what this thread is about.

For those of you who were familiar with Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), I just discovered over at distrowatch that this project branched off, and is now SolydXK. It says the team from Mint LMDE are now in the SolydXK project.

I mention it, just in case there were others like myself who were behind the times on the news.

It offers two desktops: XFCE and KDE, available in 32bit and 64bit versions.
According to their website, it needs at least 160MB to run, in contrast with 512MB for Mint17.

What's your problem with Mint?

You're not that well informed i guess. SolydXK is in fact a continuation of the, not by the Linux Mint team supported, LMDE version with the KDE and Xfce desktop environment developed by Schoelje. Schoelje started offering (unsupported) versions of LMDE with these 2 desktops. He was the only maintainer/developer during those days. Since Mint never intended to support these versions and/or integrated KDE/Xfce in LMDE, Schoelje started his own distro by the name of SolydXK. The Mint team only offers LMDE with the Cinnamon desktop and MATE desktop, no other desktop environments are available for LMDE.

If you read his website, he clearly states that the roots of SolydXK can be found in Mint LMDe and Debian. I tried the Xfce version of it and i honestly must say that due to the chosen theme, it gave me a lot of KDE feeling (i.e.: same mouse pointer, etc.).

...

NONE silly! it was really good at the time (when I made that signature), and it heightened one's expectations. what else did you read into that? (perhaps English is not your native language - understandable misinterpretation)

I did not say it was supported by Mint. I said it branched off. What is the big deal?

BTW, when I had used Mint LMDE, it was NOT with mate or cinammon. it was with XFCE! at the time, there wasn't even any mate or cinammon - if they existed they weren't yet being offered at Mint (feel free to research what year that was).

This is what I got from Distrowatch:
"The project started as an unofficial variant of Linux Mint's "Debian" edition with KDE as the default desktop, but it was later given its own identity as SolydK. SolydX was added after Linux Mint dropped its Debian-based flavour that used the Xfce desktop."
If it is inaccurate, feel free to contact them to let them know.

solydX is a shit_y distro:

not even could install it!!! stuck FOREVER at usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.8/libgcc.a

thx to 'life' ain't lost my boot(DEB,arch)...

Happens sometimes on sh!tty computers.

If the install failed on your computer, how did you even try the distro?
How did you evaluate it and it's features when you didn't even run it?

Oops, my apologies. I don't know how I missed posting the version number and me being so detail oriented. It's Linux Mint/Cinnamon 17 (32-bit/PAE-enabled).

In case anyone is interested, the following fix will solve most slow downs in computers with only 2 to 4 GB of memory although I recommend it regardless of how much on-board you have:

Reference: http://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-sof...ow-to-fix-that

One problem almost every Linux distro has including Ubuntu and Ubuntu based distros that causes a slow down on computers with 2 to 4 GB of memory is the rather ludicrous hold over where paging is swapped from memory to the swap partition when memory usage reaches 20% (used) which is only used where "Linux" is running a server (see referenced link for explanation). And why it hasn't been changed for today's desktop type Linux distros is one of those long time Linux distro mysteries.

Anyway, to fix this in Ubuntu and Linux Mint, open the /etc/sysctl.conf as root and add the following to the end of the file:

vm.swappiness can be set to any value between 1 and 100 but the higher the number the more chance there is that paging will be sent to the disk rather than memory. Setting the value to 20 means that paging will only be switched to the swap partition when memory usage reaches 80% (used).

Note: 20% is the setting I personally use for all my machines loaded with Linux Mint. Other users can use a lower setting if they wish.

This is an old but still very viable fix and something that should have been included by default a long time ago in Ubuntu as well as other popular distros. By the way, this fix works in other distributions also but the location of the file to add the fix to may vary depending on the distro involved (like for Arch and Arch based distros).

And for anyone wanting to install Ubuntu or an Ubuntu based distro that includes the default Ubuntu mainline kernels (32 and 64 bit versions) on a machine with 4 GB or less memory, always go with the 32-bit version. It's quite a bit less memory intensive than the 64 bit version and because the kernel in the 32-bit version is PAE enabled it will see and use all your memory.

Hope this helps some folks out.