Cinnamon is a
free and open-source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
desktop environment
In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...
for
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
and
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s, deriving from
GNOME 3
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 unif ...
but following traditional
desktop metaphor
In computing, the desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact more easily with the computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is t ...
conventions.
The development of Cinnamon began by the
Linux Mint
Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), 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 i ...
team as a reaction to the April 2011 release of GNOME 3 in which the conventional desktop metaphor of
GNOME 2
GNOME 2 is the second major release of the GNOME desktop environment. Building upon the release of GNOME 1, development of GNOME 2 focused on a greater design-oriented approach that simplified and standardized elements of the environment. It als ...
was abandoned in favor of
GNOME Shell
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, switching between windows and is also a widget engine. ...
. Following several attempts to extend GNOME 3 such that it would suit the Linux Mint design goals, the Mint developers
forked several GNOME 3 components to build an independent desktop environment. Separation from GNOME was completed in Cinnamon 2.0, which was released in October 2013. Applets and desklets are no longer compatible with GNOME 3.
As the distinguishing factor of Linux Mint, Cinnamon has generally received favorable coverage by the press, in particular for its ease of use and gentle
learning curve
A learning curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between how Skill, proficient people are at a task and the amount of experience they have. Proficiency (measured on the vertical axis) usually increases with increased experience ...
. With respect to its conservative design model, Cinnamon is similar to the
Xfce,
MATE
Mate may refer to:
Science
* Mate, one of a pair of animals involved in:
** Mate choice, intersexual selection
** Mating
* Multi-antimicrobial extrusion protein, or MATE, an efflux transporter family of proteins
Person or title
* Friendship ...
, GNOME 2 (and
GNOME Flashback
A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...
) desktop environments.
History
Like several other desktop environments based on GNOME, including
Canonical's Unity
Unity may refer to:
Buildings
* Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building
* Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper
* Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England
* Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...
, Cinnamon was a product of dissatisfaction with 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 replaced with GNOME Shell, which lacked a taskbar-like panel and other basic features of a conventional desktop. The elimination of these elementary features was unacceptable to the developers of distributions such as
Mint
MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...
and
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...
, which are addressed to users who want interfaces that they would immediately be comfortable with.
To overcome these differences, the Linux Mint team initially set out to develop extensions for the GNOME Shell to replace the abandoned features. The results of this effort were the "Mint GNOME Shell Extensions" (MGSE). Meanwhile, the
MATE
Mate may refer to:
Science
* Mate, one of a pair of animals involved in:
** Mate choice, intersexual selection
** Mating
* Multi-antimicrobial extrusion protein, or MATE, an efflux transporter family of proteins
Person or title
* Friendship ...
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-MGSE or a traditional GNOME 2 desktop.
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. Moreover, the GNOME developers were not amenable to the needs 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.
Gradually, various core applications were adapted by the Mint developers. Beginning with version 1.2, released in January 2012, Cinnamon's window manager is
Muffin
A muffin is an individually portioned baked product, however the term can refer to one of two distinct items: a part-raised flatbread (like a crumpet) that is baked and then cooked on a griddle (typically unsweetened), or an (often sweetened) ...
, which was originally a fork of GNOME 3's
Mutter.
Similarly, since September 2012 (version 1.6 onwards), Cinnamon includes the
Nemo
Nemo may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Games
* ''Nemo'' (arcade game), a 1990 arcade game by Capcom based on ''Little Nemo''
* NEMO (video game console), an unreleased console
Music
* Nemo (American band), an indie rock band
* Nemo ...
file manager which was forked from
Nautilus
The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina.
It comprises six living species in t ...
. Cinnamon-Control-Center, 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 the control-center. Gnome-Screensaver was also forked and is now called Cinnamon-Screensaver.
Since October 2013 (version 2.0 onwards), Cinnamon is no longer a frontend on top of the GNOME desktop like
Unity
Unity may refer to:
Buildings
* Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building
* Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper
* Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England
* Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...
or
GNOME Shell
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, switching between windows and is also a widget engine. ...
, but a discrete desktop environment in its own right. Although Cinnamon is still built on GNOME technologies and uses
GTK
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and propriet ...
, it no longer requires GNOME itself 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, and a focus on performance improvements.
Software components
X-Apps
![Xed v1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Xed_v1.2.2--adwaita_dark_theme.png)
Cinnamon introduces X-Apps which are based on
GNOME Core Applications
GNOME Core Applications is a software suite of approximately 30 application software that are packaged as part of the standard free and open-source GNOME desktop environment. GNOME Core Applications have the look and feel of the GNOME desktop, an ...
but are changed to work across Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE; they have the traditional user interface (UI).
* Xed is a text editor based on
Gedit
gedit ( or ) is a text editor designed for the GNOME desktop environment. It was GNOME's default text editor and part of the GNOME Core Applications until GNOME version 42 in March 2022, which changed the default text editor to GNOME Text E ...
/
pluma
Pluma ( "feather") may refer to:
Places
* Pluma Hidalgo, a town and municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico
* Pluma de Pato, a village and rural municipality in Salta, Argentina
Science
* Pluma (fish), a name in the West Indies of a fish, ''Calamus ca ...
* Xviewer is an image viewer based on
Eye of GNOME
Eye of GNOME is the official and default image viewer for the GNOME desktop environment, where it is also known as Image Viewer. There is also another official image viewer for GNOME called gThumb that has more advanced features like image org ...
* Xreader is a
document viewer
A file viewer is a Software application that represents the data stored in a computer file in a human-readable form. The file contents are formatted in a meaningful way and then displayed on the screen or printed out. Also, they may be read al ...
based on
Evince
Evince (), also known as GNOME Document Viewer, is a free and open source document viewer supporting many document file formats including PDF, PostScript, DjVu, TIFF, XPS and DVI. It is designed for the GNOME desktop environment.
The develo ...
/Atril
* Xplayer is a
media player based on
GNOME Videos
GNOME Videos, formerly known as Totem, is a media player (audio and video) for the GNOME computer desktop environment. GNOME Videos uses the Clutter and GTK+ toolkits. It is officially included in GNOME starting from version 2.10 (released in ...
(Totem)
* Pix is an
image organizer
An image organizer or image management application is application software focused on organising digital images. Image organizers represent one kind of desktop organizer software applications.
Image organizer software is primarily focused on imp ...
based on
gThumb
gThumb is a free and open-source image viewer and image organizer with options to edit images. It is designed to have a clean and simple user interface and follows GNOME HIG, it integrates well with the GNOME desktop environment.
Features
...
Features
Features provided by Cinnamon include
* Desktop effects, including animations, transition effects and transparency using composition;
* Panels equipped with a main menu, launchers, a window list and the system tray can be adjusted on left, right, upper or lower edge of the screen
* Various extensions;
* Applets that appear on the panel
* Overview with functions similar to that in GNOME Shell; and
* Settings editor for easy customization. It can customize:
** The panel
** The calendar
** Themes
** Desktop effects
** Applets
** Extensions
* Volume and brightness adjustment using
scroll wheel
A scroll wheel is a wheel used for scrolling. The term usually refers to such wheels found on computer mice (where they can also be called a mouse wheel). It is often made of hard plastic with a rubbery surface, centred around an internal rotary ...
while pointing at the respective taskbar icon.
*
Hot corners on the screen
there was no official documentation for Cinnamon itself, There is documentation for the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint, with a chapter on the Cinnamon desktop.
Overview mode
New overview modes have been added to Cinnamon 1.4. These two modes are "Expo" and "Scale", which can be configured in Cinnamon Settings.
Extensibility
Cinnamon can be modified by themes, applets 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. Extensions can modify the functionalities of Cinnamon, such as providing a dock or altering the look of the
window switcher.
Developers can upload their themes, applets and extension to Cinnamon's web page and let users download and rate.
Adoption
Reception
In their review of Linux Mint 17, ''
Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
'' described Cinnamon 2.2 as "being perhaps the most user-friendly and all-around useful desktop available on any platform."
In their review of Linux Mint 18,
ZDNet
ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures.
The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication.
Hist ...
said: "You can turn the Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop into the desktop of your dreams."
Gallery
File:Linux Mint 19.1 "Tessa" (Cinnamon).png, Cinnamon 4.0 Menu showing on Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa.
File:Cinnamon 1.6 Alt-Tab Window Previews.png, Cinnamon 1.6 showing an Alt-Tab
is the common name for a keyboard shortcut that has been in Microsoft Windows since Windows 2.0 (1987). This shortcut switches between application-level windows without using the mouse; hence it was named ''Task Switcher'' (''Flip'' in Window ...
thumbnails and window previews.
File:Cinnamon 1.6 Notifications Applet.png, Cinnamon 1.6 showing a Notification Applet.
File:Cinnamon 1.6 Workspace OSD.png, Cinnamon 1.6 showing a Workspace
Workspace is a term used in various branches of engineering and economic development.
Business development
Workspace refers to small premises provided, often by local authorities or economic development agencies, to help new businesses to estab ...
OSD.
File:Cinnamon System Settings 4.0.10 screenshot.png, Cinnamon Control Center in Cinnamon 4.0.10
See also
*
GNOME Shell
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, switching between windows and is also a widget engine. ...
*
MATE (software)
MATE () is a desktop environment composed of free and open-source software that runs on Linux, BSD, and illumos operating systems.
Name
MATE is named after the South American plant yerba mate and tea made from the herb, mate. The name is s ...
- fork of GNOME 2
References
External links
*
Spices: Cinnamon - Official addons repositoryCinnamon Desktop in OpenSourceFeed Gallery
{{GTK
Desktop environments based on GTK
Free desktop environments
GNOME
Graphical shells that use GTK
Software forks
X Window System