Cinnamon 3.0

The open-source desktop-environment space is filled with options. While Unity and GNOME 3 stand out as the default environments for Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora, a number of choices can be found for those in favor of more traditional desktops. For a lightweight choice, XFCE and LXDE are available. For those nostalgic for the first decade of the 21st century, MATE continues the legacy of GNOME 2 as a fork of its codebase. For those who want to combine the benefits of modern graphical polish and effects with the ease of a classic desktop, there's Cinnamon, which reached its 3.0 release in April.

A project of the Linux Mint team, Cinnamon is the culmination of efforts to keep the distribution modern and user-friendly. In the wake of the release of GNOME 3, which replaced GNOME 2 and was controversial in some parts of the community, Linux Mint decided to chart its own path. At first it crafted a highly-modified version of GNOME Shell, using its own Mint GNOME Shell Extensions (MGSE). This let individuals use the new graphical effects of GNOME Shell while enjoying a traditional desktop experience.

With GNOME Shell as a moving target, however, this turned out to not be a long-term solution. The Linux Mint team then decided to fork GNOME Shell in January 2012 and develop a traditional desktop based on it; the result was the Cinnamon desktop environment. After four years of active development, the project has now reached its 3.0 milestone. Those interested in testing Cinnamon 3.0 can either install the Linux Mint Debian Edition or use a Personal Package Archive on Linux Mint 17, Ubuntu 15.10, or Ubuntu 16.04. One can also wait until June, when Linux Mint 18 will be released with Cinnamon 3.0.

The initial experience of using it is akin, in many ways, to that of the Windows 7 graphical shell. A taskbar decorates the bottom of the screen, with a button on the leftmost side that triggers a traditional "Start"-style menu. Clicking this button shows a menu with "favorite" applications and system options (e.g. screen off, logout, power off) on the left, with all other applications grouped under categories like Accessories, Games, Graphics, and Office on the right side. On the top of this menu is a search option to find applications and files on one's desktop. On the right-hand side of the taskbar is a clock and various "applets" for common tasks like volume control and connecting to the Internet.

Any desktop windows can be dragged to the top of the screen to maximize them, to a side to take up half the screen, or to a corner to take up one-quarter of the screen. One can navigate between running applications using Expo or Scale, which are application overviews similar to Mac OS X's Mission Control.

Those moving to Cinnamon from GNOME Shell will keep the fancy graphical effects of GNOME Shell while dispensing with some of the controversial restrictions for users out-of-the-box. For example, by default, GNOME Shell does not offer minimize or maximize buttons on windows, nor does it allow folders and files to be placed on the desktop. That can be quite jarring for some users. On the other hand, GNOME Shell offers a more intuitive interface for touchscreen devices, with its large icons and menu buttons.

Both desktops detect multiple monitors well and management of them is easy with built-in GUI tools. Since both environments use roughly the same computing resources, the decision to choose one or the other will depend on the user's comfort with different interface paradigms. Users should feel encouraged to try both environments, as each offers a polished, modern computing experience.

As with many other Linux desktop environments, customization options abound, in this case through the Cinnamon Spices website. This resource offers Themes, to skin the shell with different colors, textures, and application icons; Applets, to add utility to the taskbar, like live-updated weather information or a system monitor; Desklets, to add similar utility to the desktop itself; and Extensions, to make major modifications to the basic user interface, such as enabling the infamous "wobbly windows" first seen in the Compiz window manager.

The user-facing changes in 3.0 are small overall in comparison to the previous 2.x series. The changes are largely tweaks to previous behavior, as well as bug fixes. For example, the compositing window manager is a bit smarter at mapping and tiling windows to the screen. Animations on menus are automatically enabled, which is a change from previous versions. Touchpad two-finger scrolling and edge-scrolling are better supported. Those with accessibility needs will be pleased to see improved accessibility configuration options now available. There's also now an option to disable the favorite applications and system options part of the "Start" menu for less clutter.

The most notable changes center around the new focus of Linux Mint developers to develop cross-desktop core applications and software. As the Linux Mint team also assists in the development of the MATE desktop environment, providing it as an officially supported alternative desktop environment for Linux Mint, it realized that it could find itself duplicating work by writing "desktop-specific" applications. Enter the "X-Apps" effort, with the goal to provide a set of "generic, desktop-agnostic and distro-agnostic" Linux applications. These currently include: XEd, a text editor based on gedit; Xplayer, a Totem-based multimedia player; Xreader, a fork of the Evince document reader; and Xviewer, an image viewer forked from Eye of GNOME. More X-Apps may be developed in the future.

Development of Cinnamon and its sub-projects (such as Cinnamon Screensaver) takes place on GitHub. The project is active, with over 130 contributors and over 5000 commits; those who find bugs are invited to make a new GitHub issue. Cinnamon is written in JavaScript (for the user interface) and C (for the core libraries). Contributors are welcome to join; it is recommended that those looking to pitch in read the Linux Mint Contributing web page for guidance on how to start. To get in touch with the development team directly, the #linuxmint-dev IRC channel on irc.spotchat.org is the best approach.

Going forward, the project appears to be focused on continued gradual improvements, as reflected in its roadmap. The team is aware that the Wayland display server will be coming to major Linux distributions soon and has taken an interest in it; however, although the team is "happy to support Wayland, we’re not working on it at the moment."

Cinnamon's appeal extends beyond Linux Mint, with an official Fedora Spin using the desktop, as well as packages in the official repositories for Debian and Arch. It will be interesting to see the project progress as a unique, modern-yet-classic open-source desktop experience.