Search My Blog

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Linux Mint Blog » Blog Archive » Introducing Cinnamon

Introducing Cinnamon

Written by Clem on Monday, January 2nd, 2012 @ 12:10 pm | Main Topics

Introducing Cinnamon

With Gnome 2 no longer an option we lost one of the most important upstream components our Linux Mint desktop was based on. Our entire focus shifted from innovating on the desktop, to patching existing alternatives such as Gnome Shell. We used MATE and MGSE to provide an easier transition away from Gnome 2, but without being able to truly offer an alternative that was better than Gnome 2. Both MATE and Gnome Shell are promising projects but MATE’s ultimate goal is to replicate Gnome 2 using GTK+ and Gnome Shell doesn’t provide what we need in a desktop and is going in a direction we do not want to follow. So for these reasons we’re designing a new desktop called Cinnamon, which leverages new technology and implements our vision.

If you like Linux Mint you’ll probably like Cinnamon. Both projects share the same philosophy and the same vision of what a desktop should be. In this vision, the computer works for you and makes it easy for you to be productive. Things aren’t hidden away but easy to access. With easy to use interfaces, a familiar layout, advanced technologies and principles you’ve already got to to use in Linux Mint, you’ll quickly find yourself at home. Configuration is also something important in Cinnamon as one of its fundamental goals is to make you feel at home… thus giving you the ability to change the way the desktop works, looks and behave.

Under the hood Cinnamon is forked from Gnome Shell and based on Mutter and Gnome 3. It’s already available for Linux Mint 12, Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, OpenSUSE 12.1 and Arch Linux and will soon make its way (along with MGSE and MATE) to LMDE when Gnome 3.2 enters Debian Testing.

The latest release, Cinnamon 1.1.3, brings stability and improvements to what has already become our favorite desktop. Going forward, Cinnamon will gain themes, extensions and a control center. It will likely replace Gnome Shell / MGSE as the main desktop in Linux Mint, and we will continue to support MATE (which goal and technology are different but which is also getting better and better by the day).

A few cool things already in Cinnamon

One unique bottom panel which you can auto-hide (and which location will be configurable in the future)
Window list, “show desktop” button, systray icons and all the features introduced in MGSE
A menu featuring the same layout as mintMenu, with options to add applications to favorites, to the desktop or to the panel
Custom panel launchers
A sound applet which lets you launch and control your music, and switch your sound from your speakers to your headphones and vice-versa.

Installing Cinnamon

You can install Cinnamon alongside other desktops (including MATE and Gnome Shell/MGSE). Install the package “cinnamon-session“, log out and choose the “Cinnamon” session at the login screen.

More information about Cinnamon

Main website: http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/
Issues and milestones: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues
Git repository: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Go there Read and Make Comments...
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1910

Cinnamon 1.1.3 released

January 2nd, 2012News24 Comments

We are proud to announce the release of Cinnamon 1.1.3.

This release is significantly better than the previous one and features a lot of fixes and improvements. Although Cinnamon still lacks a graphical configuration tool and it’s still too early for extensions and themes developers to extend it (these three issues are the main priority for 1.1.4), this release is stable and provides users with one of the best Linux desktop experience available.

With 1.1.3, we’re seeing some of the old mintMenu features re-appear in the Cinnamon menu, and the first batch of configuration options emerge. You can start making Cinnamon your own, define your favorite apps, your panel launchers, decide whether you want an overview corner or not, how to name your Menu, whether to auto-hide your panel… etc.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you enjoy this new release as mush as we enjoyed working on it.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

Menu improvements:

The search entry isn’t cleared anymore when the menu is closed
Clearing the search entry now resets the search results
Context menu for applications and favorites to “Add to panel”, “Add to desktop”, “Add/Remove to/from favorites”

Panel Launchers improvements:

Custom launchers don’t appear in the menu anymore and are store separately
Application launchers can be added by right-clicking on apps in the menu and selecting “Add to panel”
The Panel Launchers applet refreshes automatically when launchers are added/removed

Visual improvements:

The space between panel applets was reduced to 4px
Improved menu look & feel (less margins, system buttons merged with favorites..etc)
Reduced overall font size to 9.5pt (we’re targeting PC users not mobile phones)
Windows in overview now feature icons for easier recognition
The notifications were moved a bit in order not to appear on top of window buttons when a window is maximized
Thumbnails from theme.json files in Gnome Shell themes are now used
Improved dialog for adding custom launchers
Panel Launchers now have tooltips

Network Manager Applet improvements:

Switching Ethernet off now actually disconnects the device
Switching Wireless off now actually disconnects the device

Bug fixes:

Critical: Cinnamon doesn’t crash anymore when a theme was unreadable due to permission problems
Themes: Themes in ~/.themes are now detected
Panel: New default size for status icons (fixes issue with Gnome Shell themes where an icon could get too big)
Window List: A bug which prevented LibreOffice applications from showing an icon was fixed
Dual Monitors: Fixed a bug which prevented the mouse pointer from moving from the primary monitor to the secondary monitor

New configuration options:

The menu text (“Menu”) is now configurable via gsettings (at “org.cinnamon menu-text”)
The panel can now auto-hide (this is turned OFF by default and available via gsettings at “org.cinnamon panel-autohide”)
The Overview Hot Corner can be disabled (it is enabled by default and this is available via gsettings at “org.cinnamon overview-corner-hover”)
The Overview Icon can be disabled (it is enabled by default and this is available via gsettings at “org.cinnamon overview-corner-visible”)

Last Post

About The Author

Clement Lefebvre (aka "Clem") is the lead developer and founder of Cinnamon and Linux Mint. He's also involved in the MATE project as release manager.