The most popular version of Linux Mint is the Cinnamon edition. Cinnamon is primarily developed for and by Linux Mint. It is slick, beautiful, and full of new features.
Linux Mint is also involved in the development of MATE, a classic desktop environment which is the continuation of GNOME 2, Linux Mint’s default desktop between 2006 and 2011. Although it misses a few features and its development is slower than Cinnamon’s, MATE runs faster, uses fewer resources and is more stable than Cinnamon.
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment. It doesn’t support as many features as Cinnamon or MATE, but it’s extremely stable and very light on resource usage.
An "EDGE" ISO image is also available for the Cinnamon edition. This image ships with a newer kernel to be able to support the latest hardware chipsets. If you cannot boot the regular editions, we recommend you try the "EDGE" ISO instead.