not quite good enough

The Cinnamon desktop leaves me feeling a bit disappointed. I have it installed in Debian Jessie, and I also have an installation of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE 2) with Cinnamon.

Cinnamon's set-up includes a more "traditional" panel than GNOME Shell's, but still I can't do everything with it that I'd like to do. It isn't as configurable as Xfce's panel. I can't adjust the width so that the panel doesn't stretch 100% across the screen. Icons on the panel for running apps show icons plus text when I'd prefer icons-only.

I don't see how to show icons for apps running on all workspaces rather than only the active workspace. Because of that, when I've got apps running on multiple workspaces, it's actually easier for me to get around the desktop by bringing up the Expo view (using the upper-left hot corner) than by using the workspace switcher and the icons on the panel.

Expo would be about the same as using GNOME Shell's Activities overview, except the Expo view doesn't give me access to other applications like the Activities overview does.

With Cinnamon, some of the advantages of having a "traditional" panel are therefore lost. Cinnamon's is a better panel than GNOME Shell's, but since it still doesn't give me enough of what I'd want in a panel, I feel like I might as well be running GNOME Shell (which I'm quite comfortable using) instead. At any rate, GNOME Shell's Activities overview eliminates the need for some panel items like an application menu, application launchers, workspace switcher, and panel icons showing running apps -- for me, at least.

What I see in Cinnamon is a panel that isn't as good as several others you'd find in Linux, and an overview (Expo) that isn't as good as GNOME Shell's Activities overview.

I must say that one of the nicest things about Cinnamon is the Nemo file manager, which I like much better than GNOME's Files (aka Nautilus). However, I use SpaceFM almost all the time, anyway, so the default file manager is kinda irrelevant to me. Also, Cinnamon's main menu is pretty nice, although I wish I could access it with a right-click on the desktop.

I've been playing around with LXDE in Lubuntu 14.04. For me, LXDE has the edge over Cinnamon. I can do what I want with the LXDE panel; mine is sized to 85% width, the icons for running apps are icons-only, and the panel shows all icons from all workspaces. I can set-up Openbox's desktop right-click menu -- can't do anything like that with Cinnamon OR with GNOME Shell. The mouse's scroll-wheel, with the cursor on the open desktop, takes me to another workspace; that's another thing that doesn't happen in Cinnamon. And LXDE lets me have different backgrounds on different workspaces. There are no hot spots and no overview so navigating the desktop must be done in the more traditional manner, with panel icons and workspace switching, but that's fine with me as long as everything can be set up to my liking.

Mint fans won't like me saying this, but I feel that my workflow is actually better when I'm using either GNOME Shell or LXDE than when I'm using Cinnamon. However, with each DE/WM I've used, I've always become much more comfortable with it over time, and already I feel the same thing happening with Cinnamon. Anyway, to each her/his own; many people with have far more complaints about GNOME Shell than I have with Cinnamon. Often, the "best" environment is the one you're most used to, and the one that you don't like as much is the one that you're not (yet) quite good enough at using.

cinnamon added

In my Debian Jessie GNOME installation, I added the Cinnamon desktop by going to Synaptic and installing the cinnamon package (version 2.2.16-5). This brought in the following additional packages:

cinnamon-common (2.2.16-5)
cinnamon-control-center (2.2.11-4)
cinnamon-control-center-data (2.2.11-4)
cinnamon-desktop-data (2.2.3-3)
cinnamon-l10n (2.2.4-1)
cinnamon-screensaver (2.2.4-6)
cinnamon-session (2.2.2-5)
cinnamon-session-common (2.2.2-5)
cinnamon-settings-daemon (2.2.4.repack-7)
cjs (2.2.2-2)
gir1.2-cinnamondesktop-3.0 (2.2.3-3)
gir1.2-cmenu-3.0 (2.2.0-3)
gir1.2-gconf-2.0 (3.2.6-3)
gir1.2-meta-muffin-0.0 (2.2.6-4)
gnome-power-manager (3.14.1-1)
libcinnamon-control-center1 (2.2.11-4)
libcinnamon-desktop4 (2.2.3-3)
libcinnamon-menu-3-0 (2.2.0-3)
libcjs0 (2.2.2-2)
libmozjs185-1.0 (1.8.5-1.0.0+dfsg-4.3)
libmuffin0 (2.2.6-4)
libnemo-extension1 (2.2.4-2)
muffin-common (2.2.6-4)
nemo (2.2.4-2)
nemo-data (2.2.4-2)
nemo-fileroller (1.8.0-1)
python-pam (0.4.2-13.1)
python-pyinotify (0.9.4-1)


I set up Cinnamon with the panel at the top instead of the more traditional (and default) bottom placement. I added, removed, and/or moved some panel items, so the shots below show a somewhat personalized desktop:

Cinnamon's Expo provides a nice workspace overview:

Cinnamon's default file manager is Nemo, which I prefer over Nautilus. I'm very comfortable using GNOME Shell, but many people are not. Cinnamon seems to be very nicely done in Debian Jessie, giving users yet another excellent desktop option. Note: Jessie Cinnamon ISOs (there's a live one, too) are available at debian.org, so you don't have to add Cinnamon to an existing installation like I did.

one more

One more Mint 17.1 Cinnamon review -- this one by Arindam Sen (one of the best distro reviewers out there!): Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Cinnamon Review: As always, Impressive!

quite tempting

After playing around with the live session of Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Cinnamon, I'm actually tempted to install this release. But I'm not going to. I have too many distros installed right now, including Ubuntu 14.04 (which Mint 17 is derived from) and Kubuntu 12.04. Two 'Buntu distros is more than enough, and I don't want to replace either one with Mint.

The Cinnamon desktop is excellent, and has matured quite a bit since the last time I played around with it, which I think was when I had Cinnamon installed in Fedora at one point. I used to say that I liked Cinnamon, but that I liked both GNOME Shell and Ubuntu's Unity more. But at this point, Cinnamon's as nice as anything else, and I see several things about it that would make users prefer it over other DEs.

I see that Cinnamon is available in Debian (Jessie), Ubuntu 14.10, and Arch, and it's still available in Fedora. But I don't think that there are any distros (besides Mint, of course) currently offering Cinnamon spins, so in that respect, I'd say that it hasn't reached the level of KDE, GNOME, and Xfce. The same could be said for Unity, but Unity is still a "shell" for GNOME, while Cinnamon, which started out as a "shell" for GNOME, is now a separate DE.

For more info about Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, check out the feature story in this week's DistroWatch: First Impressions of Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon Edition

rebecca

Taking a look at Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" -- the default spin, with the Cinnamon desktop. I'm trying the live session from a flash drive, done with Unetbootin. Here's a shot of the default desktop:

One nice thing about Cinnamon is the Nemo file manager, forked from GNOME's Nautilus file manager by the Mint folks. Glad to see an option for dual-pane viewing!

Cinnamon has a nice automatic wallpaper changer. Not as good as what you can do in KDE, but better than what you get in GNOME or Xfce.

In Cinnamon, It isn't obvious at first how to use different workspaces, or how to add workspaces (there are two workspaces by default). If you go to System Settings/Control Center > Preferences > Hot Corners and enable hovering for one of the hot corners, then choose "Show all workspaces" from that hot corner's drop-down menu, you can use that hot corner to bring up the "Expo" view, which will show you all of the workspaces.

Or, in the Control Center's Applets window, you can add an Expo applet to the panel so you can bring up Expo that way.

There are other ways to get to Expo, too... In any case, from Expo you can add/remove workspaces, and switch workspaces from there. Unfortunately, you can't change workspaces with the mouse wheel on an open desktop like you can do in Openbox. However, you can add the Workspace switcher applet to the panel and use the mouse wheel on that to switch workspaces.

Mint 17.1 ships with a nice collection of software, including Firefox 33.0 (customized for Linux Mint).

Linux Mint still looks like a great option for folks new to Linux, and I think it would be fine for experienced Linux users as well, although I have no plans to install it here. Nice set-up; pleasant, attractive default appearances; easy to get up and running quickly. The live session booted up nicely from the flash drive, and everything seemed snappy and smooth. I encountered no major issues with any of the applications I tried. Pretty much what I've come to expect from this distro. Nice job, from what I could tell!

For more information, see Mint's page at DistroWatch and the Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Cinnamon release announcement.

looking good

Just a glance at Linux Mint 16 "Petra" (Cinnamon), from a live session:

It does look very nice, and quite polished. Impressive. I used Unetbootin in Debian Wheezy to put it on a flash drive, and it runs quite well.

The last Mint release I installed here was Mint 9. I won't be installing this release, but I think it would be a nice choice for newbies, or even for experienced Linux users. Everything is set up quite nicely for the user to be able to get right to work.

Mint comes with the Nemo file manager, forked from Nautilus, and I think Nemo's an improvement over Nautilus.

The Cinnamon 2.0 desktop looks fine, easy enough to get around. Here are some shots of what's in the menu:

The live session looks good enough that I'll probably keep Mint 16 on a flash drive for awhile; might come in handy, as it includes all of the tools that I like to have in a live session.

Good job by the Mint folks!

I'll Check Back Later

I thought Cinnamon looked nice in Fedora 16, but I found myself using GNOME Shell more often. I'm thinking that I'll go back and take another look at the shell in a year or so. I've read that things are progressing well.

I took a look around at cinnamon.linuxmint.com, which is laid out quite nicely. You'll find news there as well as a nice collection of themes, applets, and extensions. The "Download" page tells you how to get Cinnamon on various distros (you might want to check out the latest comments at the bottom of that page).

I found Cinnamon to be a pleasant alternative to GNOME Shell and Unity. The thing is, I no longer use Linux Mint (and have no plans to start using it again). I have some concerns about Cinnamon's "newness," and I'm not sure how well it's supported on distros other than Mint. I figure it would be best to let grow up a bit.

Seems like Cinnamon's reason for existence is to be anti-GNOME Shell and anti-Unity, but I happen to like both GNOME Shell and Unity. Further, Cinnamon's development was a reaction to the end of GNOME 2, which I don't miss at all.

So, I don't feel like I'm part of Cinnamon's "target audience."

I do love using different kinds of environments in Linux, though, so I'll get back around to Cinnamon eventually. For right now, I'm happy going between KDE, GNOME Shell, Unity, Openbox, and Fluxbox.

cinnamon 1.6

Cinnamon fans: Version 1.6 is on the way!




"Configurable panel heights" sounds good, I'd like to see even more configuration options for the panel. Last time I checked, you can't change the width (the panel extends all the way across the bottom of the screen). It would be even better if you could move the panel around like you can do with Xfce's panel, but maybe that would be asking too much.

At this point, I'm still more comfortable using GNOME Shell than Cinnamon, but maybe that'll change as Cinnamon continues to develop.

For more info, check out this post at the Cinnamon blog.

tweaking cinnamon

In Cinnamon, the dialog boxes are attached to the parent window. Whenever a dialog box is open, if you try to move it, its parent window will move along with it.

To disable this behavior, open up gconf-editor (you'll need to install it if you haven't already). Then:

desktop > windows > cinnamon > uncheck the box next to "attach_modal_dialogs"

Then Alt+F2. Then type r and press Enter. That'll restart the desktop, and the change will have taken effect.


A big "Thanks" to "bill," who mentioned this fix in this blog post at MPSHouse Blog.


There are still a few other things I'd liked to see in Cinnamon:

1. The ability to adjust the width of the panel; I've read that this is coming in the next version of Cinnamon.
2. Allow the Cinnamon Window List panel applet to show open windows from all desktops instead of only from the current desktop.
3. "Icons only" in the Window List instead of "Icons and Text." As I recall, this is something that I also couldn't change in GNOME 2.

workspaces on demand

The "dynamic workspaces" feature is one of the main reasons I enjoy using GNOME Shell. It makes GNOME Shell the only environment where, instead of a set number of workspaces, you have, in effect, "workspaces on demand." You have only the number of workspaces that are actually being used, plus one additional, empty workspace.

Other environments make is easy enough to add workspaces (or desktops, as they're called in KDE), but I find that in those environments I tend to work within the confines of the set number of workspaces -- which is fine. It's just that in GNOME Shell, I never even think about how many workspaces are available, so I feel less restricted.

The Cinnamon desktop makes it almost as easy as GNOME Shell to add workspaces when I need them -- it seems to take advantage of this "dynamic workspaces" feature, being another type of shell for GNOME 3. All I have to do is click on the "add" button in Expo mode.

But in GNOME Shell, I don't have add anything, and when I close the last app in any particular workspace, the number of workspaces automatically decreases by one.

So, even without a panel or dock to show all open application windows, I find it very easy to get around to different windows in GNOME Shell via the Activities overview. A click on any workspace shows me all of the open windows, all spread out.

Not everyone's cup of tea; and, a lot of people really hate it, and prefer getting around to different open windows using other approaches. But I've grown completely comfortable with GNOME Shell's dynamic workspaces set-up, and I find that I really miss it when I'm using other environments.

how soon they forget

I don't quite understand the attachment so many people have to old GNOME 2.

We've got MATE and Cinnamon in Linux Mint. The former is apparently nothing but GNOME 2 revisited. The latter is a shell for GNOME 3, but tries to look somewhat like GNOME 2.

And now we've got SolusOS. SolusOS 2, still in alpha, is built on top of GNOME 3.4, but it's "heavily tweaked to behave and look the same as Gnome 2."

Well, I'm all for people using what they're most comfortable with. I actually like Cinnamon (I have it installed in Fedora 16), although I don't prefer it over GNOME Shell. And SolusOS appears to be shaping up as a great distro -- might turn out to be better than Mint, if it isn't already.

But with all the negativity being heaped on "the new GNOME" lately, especially in regards to Unity and GNOME Shell, an ironic flashback to 2005 is in order:

I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE.

Yeah, that was Linus Torvalds, the "Father of Linux," back in 2005, talking about GNOME 2. LOL!

cinnamon in f16

A short screenshot tour of my Cinnamon desktop in Fedora 16.

The desktop, showing a few running applications from the current workspace:

I'd like to be able to do the following things: have the panel not be full-length across the screen; show icons-only for running applications; show running apps from all workspaces; and have two rows for the workspace pager instead of just one.


Here's the desktop with the main menu open:

My Favorites are in a column along the left side. The menu's fairly easy to navigate, and the search feature works great for finding an app by name.


The Expo overview with three workspaces enabled:

In Expo mode, if you move the cursor over one of the workspaces, the running windows separate and you can click on any one window to go directly to that app:

The Cinnamon settings window:

The Hot Corner settings window:

Desktop effects:

Panel settings:

The full screen with the desktop right-click menu opened, showing entries I added with Nautilus-Actions:

I prefer using GNOME Shell instead of Cinnamon, but I'm trying to keep an open mind and give Cinnamon a fair shot. It's definitely a nice desktop -- looks good, easy enough to get around.