Developer(s) | Linux Mint team |
---|---|
Initial release | December 20, 2011 |
Stable release | |
Repository | |
Written in | C (GTK), JavaScript, and Python |
Operating system | Unix-like |
Type | Desktop environment |
License | GPL-2.0 |
Website | projects |
Cinnamon is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, which was originally based on GNOME 3, but follows traditional desktop metaphor conventions.
The development of Cinnamon began by the Linux Mint team as the result of the April 2011 release of GNOME 3, in which the conventional desktop metaphor of GNOME 2 was discarded in favor of GNOME Shell. Following several attempts to extend GNOME 3 so that it would suit the Linux Mint design goals through "Mint GNOME Shell Extensions", the Linux Mint team eventually forked several GNOME 3 components to build an independent desktop environment. This separation from GNOME was finished with the release of Cinnamon 2.0.0 in October 9, 2013. Applets, extensions, actions, and desklets made explicitly for Cinnamon are no longer compatible with GNOME Shell.
As the distinctive factor and preeminent desktop environment for Linux Mint, Cinnamon has generally received favorable coverage by the press, in particular for its ease of use and gentle learning curve. In regard to its conservative design model, Cinnamon is similar to the Xfce, MATE, GNOME 2, and GNOME Flashback desktop environments.
This section needs additional citations for verification .(October 2023) |
As with many other desktop environments based on GNOME, including Canonical's Unity, Cinnamon was the result of disapproval and dissatisfaction of the GNOME team's abandonment of a traditional desktop experience in April 2011. Until then, GNOME (i.e. GNOME 2) had included the traditional desktop metaphor, but in GNOME 3, this was entirely replaced with GNOME Shell, which by default lacked a taskbar-like panel and other basic features of a conventional desktop. The elimination of these basic features was unacceptable to the developers of distributions such as Mint and Ubuntu, which are geared to users who wanted interfaces that are familiar and easy-to-use.
To overcome these differences, the Linux Mint team initially set out to develop extensions for GNOME Shell to replace the abandoned features. The results of this effort were known as the "Mint GNOME Shell Extensions" or MGSE. Meanwhile, the MATE desktop environment had also been forked from GNOME 2. Linux Mint 12, released in November 2011, subsequently included both, thereby giving users a choice of either GNOME 3 with the MGSE or a MATE desktop that closely resembled GNOME 2.
However, even with MGSE, GNOME 3 was still largely missing the comforts of GNOME 2 and was not well received by the user community. At the time, some of the missing features could not be replaced by extensions, and it seemed that extensions would not be viable in the long run due to concerns of significant changes upstream from the GNOME team. Moreover, the GNOME developers were not willing to cooperate with the wishes of the Mint developers. To give the Mint developers finer control over the development process, GNOME Shell was forked as "Project Cinnamon" in January 2012. [2]
Gradually, various core applications were adapted by the Mint developers. Beginning with version 1.2, released in January 2012, the window manager of Cinnamon is called Muffin, which was originally a fork of GNOME 3's Mutter. [3] Similarly, since September 2012 (version 1.6 onwards), Cinnamon includes the Nemo file manager which was forked from Nautilus. Nemo was created in response to disapproval of some upstream changes in Nautilus 3.6 that significantly altered the functionality and user interface of Nautilus. [4] Cinnamon-Settings, included since May 2013 (version 1.8 onwards), combines the functionality of GNOME-Control-Center with that of Cinnamon-Settings, and made it possible to manage and update applets, extensions, desklets and themes through Cinnamon-Settings. Gnome-Screensaver was also forked and is now called Cinnamon-Screensaver.
Since October 2013 (version 2.0 onwards), Cinnamon is no longer a frontend of GNOME like Unity or GNOME Shell, but rather a completely independent desktop environment. Although Cinnamon is still heavily built on GNOME technologies and utilizes GTK, it no longer requires GNOME as a dependency in order to be installed.
Further improvements in later versions include a desktop grid, wildcard support in file searches, multi-process settings daemon, desktop actions in the panel launcher, separate processes for desktop handling and file manager in Nemo; an additional desktop panel layout option that offers a more modern looking theme and grouped windows; improved naming for duplicate applications in the menu (i.e. Flatpak vs. deb packages), pinned files in Nemo, touchpad gestures, customizable context menu items in Nemo called "Actions", and an emphasis on performance improvements.
Cinnamon introduces X-Apps [5] which are based on GNOME Core Applications but are modified to work across Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE; most of these applications have a traditional user interface (UI). [6] [7]
Features provided by Cinnamon include [3]
As of 23 January 2024 [update] , there is no official documentation for Cinnamon itself. [9] That said, there is documentation for the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint, with a chapter on the Cinnamon desktop. [10]
New overview modes have been added to Cinnamon 1.4. These two modes are "Expo" and "Scale", which can be configured in Cinnamon Settings. [11]
Cinnamon can be modified by themes, applets, desklets, actions, and extensions. Themes can customize the look of aspects of Cinnamon, including but not limited to the menu, panel, calendar and run dialog. Applets are icons or texts that appear on the panel. Five applets are shipped by default, and developers are free to create their own. A tutorial for creating simple applets is available. [12] Desklets are miniature applications that one can place and run on the desktop, providing quick access to information and functionality. Actions are tasks that can be executed from the context menu of the Nemo file manager. Extensions can modify the functionalities of Cinnamon, such as providing an alternative menu to launch applications or altering the look of the Alt+Tab ↹ window switcher.
Users can find themes, applets, desklets, actions, and extensions from Cinnamon Spices, [13] the official repository where developers can share their creations for users to download and rate. [14]
Distribution | Since version | Since date | Officially supported | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Arch Linux [15] | Also available for EndeavourOS, which uses Arch repositories. | |||
Artix | ||||
CentOS | ||||
Debian | ||||
Fedora Linux | Cinnamon is available as a spin or is available in the Fedora repositories. [16] | |||
FreeBSD [17] | ||||
Funtoo Linux [18] | ||||
Gentoo Linux | ||||
Linux Mint | Ubuntu-based release: 12 [2] LMDE: 1? - Update pack 4 [19] | The Cinnamon desktop environment has been included and available in Linux Mint since version 13 in May 2012. | ||
Mageia [20] | ||||
Manjaro Linux | There are three official editions of Manjaro: Xfce, KDE Plasma 5 and GNOME. While not official releases, Manjaro Community Editions are maintained by members of the Manjaro community. They offer additional user interfaces over the official releases, including Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, [21] i3, MATE, and Sway. [22] | |||
OpenMandriva | ||||
openSUSE [23] | ||||
Pardus | ||||
Sabayon | 8 [24] | |||
Ubuntu [25] | 23.04 [26] | Ubuntu Cinnamon is an official Ubuntu derivative that utilizes the Cinnamon desktop environment. [27] [26] | ||
Void Linux |
In their review of Linux Mint 17, Ars Technica described Cinnamon 2.2 as "being perhaps the most user-friendly and all-around useful desktop available on any platform." [28]
In their review of Linux Mint 18, ZDNet said "You can turn the Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop into the desktop of your dreams." [29]
Xfce or XFCE is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
GNOME Files, formerly and internally known as Nautilus, is the official file manager for the GNOME desktop. Nautilus was originally developed by Eazel with many luminaries from the tech world including Andy Hertzfeld (Apple), chief architect for Nautilus. The nautilus name was a play on words, evoking the shell of a nautilus to represent an operating system shell. Nautilus replaced Midnight Commander in GNOME 1.4 (2001) and has been the default file manager from version 2.0 onwards.
Rhythmbox is a free and open-source audio player software, tag editor and music organizer for digital audio files on Linux and Unix-like systems.
ClamTk is a free software graphical interface for the ClamAV command line antivirus software program, for Linux desktop users. It provides both on-demand and scheduled scanning. The project was started by Dave Mauroni in February 2004 and remains under development.
A desktop environment is a collection of software designed to give functionality and a certain look and feel to an operating system.
GNOME Panel is a highly configurable taskbar for GNOME. It formed a core part of the desktop in GNOME 1 and GNOME 2. It has been replaced in GNOME 3 by default with GNOME Shell, which only works with the Mutter window manager.
Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu, bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to include proprietary software such as multimedia codecs. Compared to Ubuntu, it uses the Cinnamon interface in the most popular edition, using a different, more traditional layout that can be customized by dragging the applets and creating panels. New applets can also be downloaded.
GNOME 3 is the third major release of the GNOME desktop environment. A major departure from technologies implemented by its predecessors, GNOME 3 introduced a dramatically different user interface. It was the first GNOME release to utilize a unified graphical shell known as GNOME Shell. It also introduced support for the Wayland display protocol and added integration with other key technologies such as Flatpak during its development lifecycle.
GNOME, originally an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment, is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
GNOME Shell is the graphical shell of the GNOME desktop environment starting with version 3, which was released on April 6, 2011. It provides basic functions like launching applications and switching between windows, and is also a widget engine. GNOME Shell replaced GNOME Panel and some ancillary components of GNOME 2.
Peppermint OS is a Linux distribution based on Debian and Devuan Stable, and formerly based on Ubuntu. It uses the Xfce desktop environment. It aims to provide a familiar environment for newcomers to Linux, which requires relatively low hardware resources to run.
Unity is a graphical shell for the GNOME desktop environment originally developed by Canonical Ltd. for its Ubuntu operating system. It debuted in 2010 in the netbook edition of Ubuntu 10.10. Since 2017, its development was taken over by the Unity7 Maintainers (Unity7) and UBports.
Mutter is a window manager initially designed and implemented for the X Window System, but then evolved to be a Wayland compositor. It became the default window manager in GNOME 3, replacing Metacity which used GTK for rendering.
MATE is a desktop environment composed of free and open-source software that runs on Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems such as BSD, and illumos operating systems.
Manjaro is a free and open-source Linux distribution based on the Arch Linux operating system that has a focus on user-friendliness and accessibility. It uses a rolling release update model and Pacman as its package manager. It is developed mainly in Austria, France and Germany.
Nemo is a free and open-source software and official file manager of the Cinnamon desktop environment. It is a fork of GNOME Files.
Antergos is a discontinued Linux distribution based on Arch Linux. By default, it includes the GNOME desktop environment, but it also offers options for Cinnamon, MATE, KDE Plasma 5, Deepin, and Xfce desktops. Originally released in July 2012 as Cinnarch, it quickly gained popularity and was ranked among the top 40 most popular distributions on DistroWatch by June 2013. The name Antergos derived from the Galician word for ancestors, was chosen to "to link the past with the present".
Budgie is an independent, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems that targets the desktop metaphor. Budgie is developed by the Buddies of Budgie organization, which is composed of a team of contributors from Linux distributions such as Fedora, Debian, and Arch Linux. Its design emphasizes simplicity, minimalism, and elegance, while providing the means to extend or customize the desktop in various ways. Unlike desktop environments like Cinnamon, Budgie does not have a reference platform, and all distributions that ship Budgie are recommended to set defaults that best fit their desired user experience.
Ubuntu Budgie is an official community flavor of Ubuntu. It combines the Ubuntu-based system with the independently developed Budgie desktop environment.