I experience similar problems to you Tiox. That is to say, I tend to go for a very specialized and customized installation. What this means is that upgrades are always slightly risky for me and the big upgrade to a newer version of UM invariably leads to at least one of my internal setups breaking. This is just my own personal experience. Like you, I should think, for the average user, these kinds of issues don’t arise.
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That’s a good saying 
Here’s one I like:
If it ain’t broke then you have not tweaked it enough.
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That one made me laugh. That’s basically me.
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After distro-hopping for the better part of the past decade, I ended up returning to Ubuntu, the distro many Linux users love to hate. Like many Ubuntu users, I didn’t like Unity at first either, but I decided to give it a chance and found that it grows on you. In my opinion it’s also more polished than other DEs I’ve used. That said, Unity did not run as fast or as well on my aging System76 laptop as it does on my Desktop PC.
After reading positive reviews of both Ubuntu MATE (16.04 and 16.10) and Mint MATE 18.0, I decided to test both in VirtualBox. To my surprise, Ubuntu MATE 16.04 used less resources and was more responsive than 16.10 and Mint 18.0, so I installed it on my laptop, configured it the with Munity, and like it so much that I’ve considered installing it on my desktop PC as well.
To the devs and everyone who have contributed to Ubuntu MATE, thank you for this great DE! 
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Me too. I had to laugh when I read this. I’ve been running Linux Mint KDE on my main laptop since I switched to Linux in 2012 because I love tweaking. I’m on this forum because I’m using UM 16.04 on my Raspberry Pi file server.
What’s up with Linux Mint these days? Like you, I switched to LM when Unity came out and have been using their KDE edition ever since. I recently re-installed LM 17.3 KDE on my laptop and have had several problems that never existed before. (Can’t disable the touchpad, add-on dialog boxes don’t work,…) I love KDE so I’ve been thinking about taking a look at Neon and Maui Linux.
I’m still running Mint Mate 17.3 on my computer, but installed Ubuntu Mate 16.04 on my girlfriend’s. Like 'em both, but right now am giving serious thought to moving my computer to Mate 18.04, by then the Mint will really be old. I am somewhat bothered by Mint’s upgrade policy, but the hack last February was more of their board security than anything else. If another security incident occurs in the next year, then Mate 16.04 it will be.
I began with Ubuntu and Mint back in the day, when Ubuntu used Gnome 2. When Ubuntu switched to Unity I used Mint as an anchor and started distro hopping. I never could find a distro I wanted to stick with for any length of time. There was always something I didn’t like, and I couldn’t always put my finger on it. I even played with Arch back when I was feeling more adventurous; I liked it but it began to be a chore after a while so I eventually moved on.
I began go grow tired of Mint for reasons I can’t quite recall. I decided a while back to give Ubuntu another try. I found I still don’t like Unity, which was not surprising, and I have no idea what the purpose of Gnome 3 (shell) is, but Kubuntu and Xubuntu were pretty nice (I used KDE with Arch). Then I found Ubuntu MATE 16.04. It was everything I wanted and more. It’s been a stable workhorse, intuitive and wonderfully customizable. I have since switched all my machines over to it. It’s the distro I recommend to everyone when they ask me. My hopping days are over. The grass is not always greener on the other side.
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Linux mint does not install recommended packages by default but also and more importantly this;
I don’t trust linux mint.
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I had mentioned this before, but I don’t believe I said anything in this thread about it; If I has, sorry for reposting the same bullocks about why I switched to Ubuntu MATE here. I also had decided to shrink my post up and not have it take so much space.
Discovering Ubuntu, and my distro-hopping adventures
Much like @Eggnog I was a user of Linux Mint before GTK3; I began my time on Ubuntu after a friend of mine who previously recommended to me Firefox also told me about Ubuntu, back when you could put the system on a 4GB USB drive. (what modern general-purpose system can you do that with these days?) From 2009 to 2011 it was great. then Unity became "The standard" and for the next year or so I found myself wandering about between GTK-based panel environments.My relationship with Mint and why I broke up
I was about to settle firmly in Xfce since it seemed close enough to GNOME 2, until I heard about MATE being picked up by the Linux Mint devs. Having previously installed mintMenu in Ubuntu for use with GNOME 2, I figured it would be a good idea to switch and use Mint. I began using Linux Mint around version 15. Mint felt like a breath of fresh air, with the MATE DE allowing me to feel "Comfortable" again with the desktop, and it was about to be something I would recommend, except around version 17 I wwas having significant trouble installing some things without resorting to hackish workarounds with software libraries I needed having to be installed by hand. I found that incredibly stupid, considering I never had to learn that previously.Praise be Ubuntu MATE (and screw tablet-like interfaces)
I am thankful for @Wimpy's efforts to being Ubuntu MATE into the fore as an official "Flavour" of Ubuntu. I believe I would still be at my wit's end trying different Linux distros out. Who knows, maybe I could had figured out Compiz + AWN on a different operating system and be a completely different user today. But life's short, and things can only go on for so long until I am left wondering; _Why am I doing this when I can just use Windows?_Speaking of, my disdain for Windows really began with RT, because I saw what Microsoft was trying to do. They solidified some design decisions in Windows 8 I was not fond of, but I found Windows 10 being an alright compromise between the features Microsoft wanted, and the features I wanted as a Windows 98-era user. I still don’t like that I am using Windows Phone on a PC (essentially), but I guess that’s the price of interface convergence. And I can see both Modern Windows and GNOME-Shell appealing to older people who need larger targets to click on. Problem is, Microsoft’s Modern UI, GNOME-Shell and Unity all try to act like tablets on desktop, which… isn’t what I wanted.
Overall...
There were a lot of things I did not like; Microsoft's unwillingness to learn from Canonical's hubris, GNOME team's unwillingness to dedicate time for GNOME 2 as a supported "Legacy" interface, Mint team's incessant desire to continue using outdated packages and software that causes Apt to take a dump in my Cheerios. But without any of that, I wouldn't have any reason to say that Ubuntu MATE is by far the best operating system for any "Windows Classic" user who both are tired of Microsoft's Modern UI and wants a legacy-looking desktop that's current with the times.
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Last time I checked Linux Mint (LM) was in the 17.x era. The LM updater is actually one of their selling points because you can customize it to include kernel updates or not.
[details=Have I written this before?]What I don’t like about LM is their obsessiveness about their brand. They make it hard to make custom LM isos. They don’t ship the default MATE themes. They put LM paint all over the distro and I prefer distros with a more generic (inclusive) feel. Think Ubuntu before the rebranding in 2009-2010. I think Ubuntu MATE successfully created a brand that feels inclusive.
LM is a quality product, but they also introduce a few uncertainties of their own.
Overall I want to give them thumbs up for delivering FOSS software for over a decade and being a very successful distribution.[/details]
Off topic
I am using UM 14.04 to satisfy my love for GTK2. I am also using Windows 7 because although it’s very limited in a way it’s also very polished. Reading about Budgie switching to Qt I feel the Linux toolkit problems will never end. On Windows 7 I have had my custom theme since 2009 without breakages, because the toolkit doesn’t change. All my old tricks still work because the OS doesn’t change. I guess I am tired of change. I feel like a very old man. 
Yeah, it sucks. But you’ll either have to submit or keep yourself open to vulns that will never be patched out because Windows is an exclusive product that will actively punish you for not paying the leviathan that is Microsoft. Least most open-source Linux products are free for personal use.
On the other hand, you can still probably use all of your old tricks with 16.10, albeit with some significant changes to how things work. How you do it doesn’t matter so long the outcome is similar, right? My reason for upgrading was the improved xrandr stuff which actually works with my hardware. Otherwise I would had never upgraded from 16.04, which I was never intending to but enough became enough and I did it. (And IMO got something better from it, even if it means every six months will be the same bullocks until 2018.)
Ubuntu mate for the win.
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At the risk of hyping a podcast I really don’t watch regularly, I would like to add something to this UM vs LM discussion that hit home with me last year.
This highly talented group of developers differs a little (a little?) in tact. so be warned. 
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I switched to Mint Cinnamon after Ubuntu got Unity. I had lots of problems - it felt like it had been issued before it was ready, and the support was poor. I switched to Ubuntu MATE, the support is good and very fast. That said, I have more recently installed Mint MATE on a friend’s computer and she hasn’t had any problems - so I don’t know whether the support has improved.
I’m sticking with UM and I like the choice of desktop style, I use Cupertino as I have always liked the APS menu, but Plank is quicker for the programs you use often and it’s a quick way to switch running programs.
I started with Ubuntu since like 8.04 and when Unity came out i tried using it, but with however using it on a laptop, I was constantly annoyed by the supposedly “useful” touch gestures which for some time being in forums and in chat, couldn’t find a good way to just “disable” gestures without turning off the touchpad completely. So I then hopped to Linux Mint. My hardware supported cinnamon but when I tried MATE, it wasn’t because of nestalgya but rather the desktop environment had a smoother experience.
However then can the issue like others have said that when I was using apt in terminal to manage and remove packages, I had the continual issue of system packages being removed when I no longer wanted a PPA and its packages. So after a year or so of disgust but toughing it out,
I read online that the Ubuntu Mate was about to become a flavor. I didn’t installed the remix right off but when it launched off, I jumped into Ubuntu Mate. To me I keep the quick response of MATE but also can manage packages without the package manager trying to remove system packages (which IAMOis bad by design for software packages to not be modular from system packages).
Thats my two cents.
Indeed, Cinnamon has performance problems but there is a fix on the way. (This is classic small-scale performance testing).
Together with the GNOME memory leak fix it is good to see that hard problems to do with the speed and responsiveness of the desktop environments are being tackled.
(The notion, which got some traction, that the GNOME developers were ignoring "fundamental issues"in favour of trivia is false. Memory leaks are notoriously difficult to isolate).
@Juanjo
It would be interesting to know what OS you use now, April 2018.
I can only speak for the differences between LM 18.03 and UM 17.10/18.04: Last summer, I considered a change from Windows to Linux, and started with installing the top ten of distrowatch on a VMware. I believe I have installed at least 15 if not more distributions. Gnome 3 was a no-go.
I found LM as the most beginner-friendly. I worked as much as possible with LM over the following months and worked out what I can and what I can’t change.
In December, I came across with UM and liked it from the beginning. I did in all distributions exactly the same, and noticed that from these few things that I expect to be working, they didn’t work in LM: I installed a certain program .deb, an additional dictionary into Firefox, and I updated programs, and system.
All together, I felt from the beginning that UM is more professional and reliable. I felt in love with it from day one. Mate Tweak was the unexpected surprise.
I know that LM is often used, but I found too many issues with it. Coming from Windows and facing Windows 10, I didn’t want to continue with an unpredictable system. Last month, I finally changed to UM in my real computer life. I know that this was my final step. After using Mac for 9 years, Windows for 16 years, I’m now back where I started back then, and it feels good.
I use Mate 16.04 and Mint 18.3. For what it’s worth I have to use Mint for Netflix because the image tearing with Mate is ridiculous. I’ve also found Mate to be more buggy but for some reason do tend to use it more than Mint. Make of that what you will 
That could be a compositor thing. See what Mint uses and try to simulate that in Ubuntu.
If it’s a Cinnamon v. MATE thing, see if the issue lies in the DE with using Mint MATE.