Cinnamon

[sally_maria]

Is anyone else using the new Cinnamon desktop that the Linux Mint devs are developing for Gnome 3?

I've been using Linux Mint as my main desktop for the last couple of years and have always really liked their style - I've tried Unity and Gnome Shell and I don't hate them, but they've never felt quite comfortable with them.

Cinnamon is still a work in progress at the moment, but I really enjoy its combination of traditional style desktop with the modern Gnome 3 libraries underneath. It's already pretty stable for day to day use, and there's the beginning of a active community of applet/extension developers. It just needs a wallpaper randomiser and it'll be my perfect desktop. ;-)

Comments

[owlectomy]

Thanks for letting us know about this!

I've just installed it on my own Mint installation. It looks really nice so far.

[sally_maria]

You're welcome. :-)

It has a few rough edges still, but I think it's got the potential to be a really successful alternative.

[siliconshaman]

Thanks for this, I think I'll set up a Ubuntu 12.04 live disk and give it whirl on that. If it works it should be just perfect for me.

[sally_maria]

You're welcome. :-)

I noticed reading the comments that there's a problem with it and 12.04 at the moment - incompatible versions of Clutter. I'm sure they'll update Cinnamon when they can, but you might be better off with either 11.10 or Mint 12 for your live disk. (http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=182#comment-2090)

[siliconshaman]

Thanks for the heads up, that saved me some wasted time and cursing!

[sally_maria]

No problem - I didn't want to drive you away from the project in frustration, because of a temporary problem.

[jewelfox]

I'm concerned about where it'll go in the future, but I think it's good that someone is looking out for fans of GNOME 2. Sort of like the Pathfinder fork of D&D 3.5.

[sally_maria]

I suppose a desktop that doesn't have the history of Gnome or KDE, or the financial backing of a company like Canonical is always at risk of petering out, but there definitely seems to be a demand for something along the lines of Cinnamon, as well as MATE, the actual Gnome 2 fork.