Ubuntu vs mate vs cinnamon?

Question

i am new to linux and from electronics background. i searched all through the net and found that these 3 are best for beginners. 
i have all 3 of them on live cd but only few hours of working with each didnt helped me to choose the best one .

so my question is which of the above 3 will be best suited for my branch ( i.e electronics ) , or is it like, it doesnt matter what i choose they all equally helpful.  
Lets say if i go with Ubuntu ( it could be any one) but after understanding it i decided to learn mint then will my knowledge and experience of ubuntu help in learning new distros ( enterprise level)  or i have to start learning from very beginning.

also , what are these "shells" in linux ,is it same as cmd ( batch ) in windows.
1) should i learn shells or batch or both ( i know only c, are other languages also necessary)
2) are shells different for different distros
3) and FINNALY the IMPORTANT ONE - what knowledge of linux thus company wants to have in me                                       ( ELECTRONICS STUDENT ), is learning shells  sufficient if not then what else to learn.
( few lines in plain english with thorough explanation is appreciable,
Try to avoid 10 pages ans copied from wikki )
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Ubuntu is a Linux Distro. Mate and Cinnamon are Desktop Environments which can be installed on Ubuntu.



Cinnamon and Mate follow the more traditional desktop environment; Mate uses GTK2 (adding native support for GTK3) and Cinnamon uses GTK3. Both are nice DEs however, Mate consumes less system resources. It really is up to you.



When you say Ubuntu, I am assuming that you are referring to Unity which is like Gnome3; from personal experience with Gnome3, it does become very usable once tweaked the way you want it, however, it really comes down to preferences over usage with most.



You will learn a lot with a beginners distro such as Mint, Korora, or Manjaro (this is to include Ubuntu and others), the most important thing is that you will become familiar with Linux. From there you can move to a more advanced distro such as Debian, Slakware, Fedora; or ever Gentoo/Funtoo and Arch Linux.



The Shell you should start with is BASH which is the default for most distros.

Answer 2

I like Mint Cinnamon, and have installed it for several people. Seems to go down well, because it has a very familiar look and feel - more familiar than Ubuntu.



But as an electronics person, any of them will do, because they all will run the Arduino IDE, all come with Python installed so you can work with programmable electronics in (say) the Raspberry Pi, for instance, and they can all run Kicad (or Fritzing) if you are into designing PCBs, or whatever you need for FPGAs.



So your choice will come down to which user interface works best for you.

Answer 3

> Your choice of distro won't matter at all, and as others pointed

> out, all use the same shell, called BASH (Bourne again shell)

> which is easy to learn: get a manual on it if you want. Keep a

> terminal open and ensure that you can do your report-writing on

> Libre Office by becoming familiar with that suite of programs that

> your company uses. Just settle in and become comfortable,

> but remember to keep up with the updates.

> You've done lots of programming, so you've heard guys talk

> about how they couldn't code without emacs, and others say vim

> is the only way to fly; these sorts of debates infect the choice of

> Linux distros, too. They're quasireligious in their nature and thus

> cannot be solved by logical means, but are best avoided.

> Choose a distro, get comfortable with it, and you're done. Work

> beckons, and all distros can be altered to fit your needs. Good

> luck.

>

>John (gnujohn)

Answer 4

Mate and cinnamon both are graphic user interfaces and you can to install it only with a distro that you like. For exemple, if i get ubuntu i can to install a gui, if i want to intall mate i can do it going in the website and download and to install it. Graphic interfaces are many, in linux we have lxde, kde, gnome, mate, fxce, cinnamon and others, all are free to install and you can to install it without get a full distro with a gui.

Answer 5

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