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Thread: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

  1. #1
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    Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver

    Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    I have a new System76 Lemur Ultra Thin (lemu4) notebook PC with Ubuntu 12.04.1 64 bit Long Term Service and Linux kernel 3.3.6-030300 along with Mozilla Firefox Aurora 17.0a2 and Cinnamon 1.4 stable. I have been playing around with different desktop environments in the past few months and I have just settled upon Cinnamon 1.4 stable. Why? It is hyper fast and super stable! It is not Ubuntu Unity! I can easily read the fonts without causing eye strain. It resembles Microsoft Windows and KDE with the GNOME elements. It is in active development and future improved versions are being released on a timely basis. It is actively supported within the Linux Mint community. Ubuntu users can download and install a Cinnamon PPA and get the Cinnamon goodness for free. It supports GTK3 which is important for certain third-party, closed source, proprietary software applications that I installed like Adobe Air and Zinio Reader 4. Finally, it just works (TM)!

    I have been ignoring Cinnamon 1.4 stable for quite some time, but I decided to give it a go tonight because I got fed up with the quirks associated with GNOME 3.4.1. I value clear and concise organization for my software applications and I like how Cinnamon retains the original GNOME 2.x layout while incorporating some of the better aspects of GNOME 3.x, KDE, and Microsoft Windows. It is very thoughtfully well put together. It is designed for modern digital work flows for desktop users. There are no fancy effects that are frivolous and obviously designed for a touch centric input devices such as smart phones, tablets, and e-book readers to add confusion, complexity, and degraded PC performance. It is light on system resources and it is extremely fast on modern PCs. It is also super stable as I have yet to encounter any serious bugs that disrupt my digital work flow. It gets out of the way just enough to let me focus on my work without being too bland or boring. Cinnamon adds the right blend of spice to the desktop without overpowering any particular elements. It is very well balanced and thoroughly useful.

    Cinnamon 1.6 is in preview now, but I decided to add the Cinnamon Nightly PPA. I plan to see what the fuss is all about after upgrading, logging out, and logging back in.

  2. #2
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    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    I couldn't get the Cinnamon Nightly PPA to work properly. I am using Cinnamon 1.4.0-1 UP3 right now which is the latest stable version. I love it a lot. I think that I will continue to use it throughout this entire week to see how much I can learn how to use it to maximum productivity.

  3. #3
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    Hidden!
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    Xubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus

    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    Moved to the Community Cafe.

  4. #4
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    Kubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    The last time i tried Cinnamon 1.4, it was very unstable for me. As well as sorely missing alot of extras and plugins, that others DEs have, and so it wasn't very productive for me..
    I do agree that it is very lightweight though

  5. #5
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    Ubuntu Development Release

    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    Cinnamon 1.6 has been officially released.

    http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=207

  6. #6
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    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    Quote Originally Posted by wheeze View Post
    Cinnamon 1.6 has been officially released.

    http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=207
    just installed it from the AUR using yaourt and I have to say I think I would actually prefer stock gnome3. It's been my experience that cinnamon doesn't run well on anything but mint. Maybe if i had something more powerful than a netbook. back to xfce it is.
    Last edited by mamamia88; September 18th, 2012 at 06:14 PM.
    Whoever came up with the phrase "There is no such thing as a stupid question" obviously never had the internet.

  7. #7
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    Hardy Heron (Ubuntu Development)

    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    I recently tried Cinnamon out and it just felt lacking. Then I tried the latest KDE out and wondered why Cinnamon even exists.

    But to each his own.
    Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. - Dr. Seuss

  8. #8
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    Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver

    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    After some fits, I finally got Cinnamon 1.6.0 on my Ubuntu 12.04.1 64 bit Long Term Service. It is terrific. It has a much cleaner and sleeker look and feel and there are a lot of cool new and useful features without drastically altering the speed and performance of the Cinnamon desktop environment. Cinnamon now feels more complete and useful. I am surprised that it only took them about 4 months to crank out this update. I think it is an important update that a lot of Linux Mint users have requested for quite some time. Cinnamon is now my preferred desktop environment for this week. I am going to stick to using it for the rest of this week before I make my determination as to whether it will replace the default Ubuntu Unity desktop environment or not. Cinnamon 1.6.0 is 99 percent compatible with my software applications. It feels just right. It has the right balance of features, capabilities, simplicity, reliability, and speed and performance. I consider it to be a good alternative to Ubuntu Unity. It helps me to get my digital work flow done in a precise manner without too many disruptions and that is essential. So far, I really like the new features and improvements of Cinnamon 1.6.0. I think that it will grow on me over time and I will continue to prefer to use it in the future as my default desktop environment. I love the fact that it is pretty customizable unlike Ubuntu Unity and there are add-on themes, extensions, and applets that I can download and install to further enhance its features set and capabilities. That is very important to me. It helps me to get my own custom Cinnamon desktop environment to work exactly the way that I want it to work for me.

    I think that Ubuntu users should check out Cinnamon 1.6.x. Give it a try. See what I am seeing and if it's not for you, then remove it. Be of an open mind about the Cinnamon desktop environment. I like the new Nemo file manager. It adds important new and useful features that are missing from the traditional Nautilus file manager. It's fast and it is compatible with my folders and files some of which have special permissions and restrictions and very heavy encryption.

    Cinnamon 1.6.0 takes up slightly fewer system resources than the older 1.4.x version and it is faster. They really cut out a lot of unnecessary code and they tightened it up quite a bit. It's leaner, faster, and friendlier than the older version.

    Cinnamon 1.6.x makes using Ubuntu a joy. I can focus on my work and not have to put up with the Ubuntu Unity problems. Cinnamon is under constant development and improvements are evident. It has a much faster release cycle than Ubuntu Unity which is another important fact for me.

    The biggest problem that I have with Ubuntu Unity is the fact that it looks and feels like Apple Macintosh OS X too much. I hate Apple, Inc.! They are as bad as Microsoft Corporation if not worse for overcharging their customers for extremely expensive products and services. Ubuntu Unity and OS X simplify the user interface so that a 2 year old can learn how to use it. That's not me. By oversimplifying the elements of a good desktop environment, you take away important and useful features for fluff that only looks good, but it lacks a truly useful purpose that anyone can enjoy. I don't like the direction in which Canonical is taking the Unity desktop environment. Now, they are adding more features such as a more features rich HUD that is more contextually aware of each specific software application and they are reaching for the Ubuntu One cloud by making websites function like desktop Apps. In other words, Canonical is just playing copy cat by cherry picking the best features found in Microsoft Windows 8 and Apple Macintosh OS X Mountain Lion and grafting it into Ubuntu with their own style. It just does not work and it drove away a lot of Ubuntu users in the past.

    Cinnamon offers a refreshing alternative desktop environment that is designed for desktop users with a keyboard and a mouse or a touchpad. It makes no apologies for doing so. Cinnamon is modular and flexible. It does not dictate your digital work flow for you. You are in full control of how you choose to use your PC running Ubuntu or Linux Mint. It makes it possible to enjoy neat new features that don't try to mimic other people's ideas too blatantly just for the sake of me too effect. It does not try to overburden your PC by consuming too many resources and slowing it down. Ubuntu Unity 6.4 is slower than 5.6 in Ubuntu 12.10 32 and 64 bit at least according to Phoronix in its Beta 1 testing results. Cinnamon 1.6.0 is significantly leaner and faster than 1.4.x. See the difference?

    Finally, Cinnamon makes it possible to organize and maximize your digital work flow in a cogent manner. It is not confusing and it does not require a learning curve. Each new additional feature was carefully thought out before it was coded into the next release update. Linux Mint users are not shy about their love for Cinnamon and they have not abandoned Linux Mint due to Cinnamon or MATE as a result. I strongly prefer Ubuntu over Linux Mint because System76 offers me two years of help and technical support for Ubuntu. Yet, I can add the Cinnamon PPA and get the look and feel of Linux Mint without having to re-install the operating system bare metal all over again. That is a positive win win scenario for me. There are some things that Ubuntu are doing well that Linux Mint can not match yet. The biggest plus in Ubuntu's favor is its huge base of Linux users that can attract the attention of software vendors to develop software applications and Apps for Ubuntu in the Ubuntu Software Center. Then, there is the huge number of PPAs to further customize Ubuntu to add new features and expand capabilities. Ubuntu is a known brand and it is well supported. It's just this crazy Unity desktop environment that is driving Ubuntu users to Linux Mint or other GNU/Linux distributions or even Apple or Microsoft that is the big problem.

  9. #9
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    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    Using the current Phoronix Test Suite 4.0.1-Suldal, my testing confirms that Cinnamon 1.6.0 is nearly as fast asXFCE 1.4 and LXDE 0.5.x on my System76 Lemur Ultra Thin (lemu4). The slowest aspect about Cinnamon 1.6.0 is loading the desktop environment after I log in because I have quite a number of applets and extensions that I added to customize it. Otherwise, daily usage case workloads indicate that Cinnamon 1.6.0 is nearly as fast as XFCE and LXDE without encumbering system resources and sacrificing speed and performance for additional features and capabilities. Your results may differ.
    Last edited by Welly Wu; September 19th, 2012 at 02:03 AM.

  10. #10
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    Re: Cinnamon Desktop Environment

    Cinnamon used to require high graphics card acceleration to run. Thanks to the new Gallium llvmpipe software graphics rastering engine, stock Cinnamon can now be run on even low powered machines that don't have high graphics cards.

    There is a 2D Cinnamon session but its best run on operating systems that don't have the llvmpipe software rendering engine installed by default.

    It looks like Windows 95/XP - just an old-fashioned desktop environment. In GNOME 3, I highly recommend Caffeine be installed and kept running in the tray to disable the screensaver as there is no way to turn it off in GNOME.

    I like Cinnamon 1.6 a lot and am running it in OpenSUSE 12.2. Its also been ported to Arch and Fedora. I'd like to see a Linux distribution that uses it as its default environment.

    Its come a long way since the first version came out in the winter and its just gotten better and better. Sure you can beat GNOME 3 Shell into something usable but why bother with all the work? Cinnamon already takes care of it for you and you can run the operating system the way you always have before.

    Old dogs in Linux do NOT need to learn new tricks! Thanks for the review.

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