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Introducing Cinnamon

With Gnome 2 no longer an option we lost one of the most important upstream components our Linux Mint desktop was based on. Our entire focus shifted from innovating on the desktop, to patching existing alternatives such as Gnome Shell. We used MATE and MGSE to provide an easier transition away from Gnome 2, but without being able to truly offer an alternative that was better than Gnome 2. Both MATE and Gnome Shell are promising projects but MATE’s ultimate goal is to replicate Gnome 2 using GTK+ and Gnome Shell doesn’t provide what we need in a desktop and is going in a direction we do not want to follow. So for these reasons we’re designing a new desktop called Cinnamon, which leverages new technology and implements our vision.

If you like Linux Mint you’ll probably like Cinnamon. Both projects share the same philosophy and the same vision of what a desktop should be. In this vision, the computer works for you and makes it easy for you to be productive. Things aren’t hidden away but easy to access. With easy to use interfaces, a familiar layout, advanced technologies and principles you’ve already got to to use in Linux Mint, you’ll quickly find yourself at home. Configuration is also something important in Cinnamon as one of its fundamental goals is to make you feel at home… thus giving you the ability to change the way the desktop works, looks and behave.

Under the hood Cinnamon is forked from Gnome Shell and based on Mutter and Gnome 3. It’s already available for Linux Mint 12, Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, OpenSUSE 12.1 and Arch Linux and will soon make its way (along with MGSE and MATE) to LMDE when Gnome 3.2 enters Debian Testing.

The latest release, Cinnamon 1.1.3, brings stability and improvements to what has already become our favorite desktop. Going forward, Cinnamon will gain themes, extensions and a control center. It will likely replace Gnome Shell / MGSE as the main desktop in Linux Mint, and we will continue to support MATE (which goal and technology are different but which is also getting better and better by the day).

A few cool things already in Cinnamon

  • One unique bottom panel which you can auto-hide (and which location will be configurable in the future)
  • Window list, “show desktop” button, systray icons and all the features introduced in MGSE
  • A menu featuring the same layout as mintMenu, with options to add applications to favorites, to the desktop or to the panel
  • Custom panel launchers
  • A sound applet which lets you launch and control your music, and switch your sound from your speakers to your headphones and vice-versa.

Installing Cinnamon

You can install Cinnamon alongside other desktops (including MATE and Gnome Shell/MGSE). Install the package “cinnamon-session“, log out and choose the “Cinnamon” session at the login screen.

More information about Cinnamon

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A lot of things are happening at the moment. Here are some news to keep you up to date.

LXDE

I would like to thank all the people who commented and sent us their feedback on Linux Mint 11 LXDE RC. Althought we were and we’re still really happy with the quality of this release, the fact that it sporadically failed to load X from the live session for many people was identified as a serious problem and a release breaker. We switched LXDM to GDM as the default login manager and we believe this addresses the problem. However, due to the fact that this bug wasn’t always reproducible, we need your feedback again and so we decided to release another RC before going stable.

Linux Mint 11 LXDE RC2 should be out early this week.

KDE

Linux Mint 11 KDE has been in testing for a couple of weeks and during its testing a couple of design decisions were made, including important changes in the software selection and the look and feel. The lack of performance and the amount of resources needed by the Kubuntu base were identified as an issue, along with a regression in the installer affecting the detection of other operating systems. Although we’re close to a release in terms of quality, a discussion is ongoing about the possibility of switching the KDE edition to LMDE. This would give it the performance it needs and make KDE a viable alternative on mid-spec computers.

Depending on this discussion, we could see a Linux Mint KDE 11 RC release this month, or an LMDE-based rolling Linux Mint KDE RC some time in August.

LMDE

We were planning the following for LMDE:

  • Improving the way people roll and update their system
  • Improving the installer
  • Improving the way people install proprietary drivers
  • Re-spinning the ISOs

We made really good progress on the Update Manager, the update packs and the new repositories and we’re now focused on improving the installer.

The installer now detects your language automatically and lets you choose keyboard variants as well as layouts and models. We’re just started with the installer and more improvements should follow.

Because of breakages in Debian Testing between MESA and proprietary drivers we won’t work on improving the way people install them this time around. This is something we’re planning to do in the future, and whether it’s by porting Jockey from Ubuntu to Debian or by making a better alternative ourselves, we will tackle this at some stage. But for now, after the installer is ready we’ll work on respinning new LMDE ISOs for Gnome and Xfce before focusing on Linux Mint 12.

Some decisions are hard to make and I appreciate the fact that people are waiting and that nobody likes to see a release delayed or a design decision changing something people like. This is for the best though, and with the quality of our desktops in mind. A restrospective look at a release, the fun people have with it and the pride we have in having delivered it.. it’s all to do with quality. This is the reason we do not announce release dates and the reason even though these two editions have been in testing for respectively 3 and 4 weeks, we’re not releasing them yet. I hope you understand and I would like to thank everybody for their patience.

Our testing is public and you can follow it at http://community.linuxmint.com/iso

If you’re interested, you can also follow our progress on the installer at https://github.com/linuxmint/live-installer/commits/master

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Linux Mint signed a new partnership with AYKsolutions. The American hosting company is now the 3rd largest Linux Mint sponsor and provides our project with the bandwidth it needs for its repositories.

AYKsolutions becomes the 3rd largest Linux Mint sponsor

We’ve got two servers with AYKsolutions, both located in Denver, USA. The first one hosts the Linux Mint repositories with 100Mbps unmetered bandwidth. The second one was recently set up to host the new “Incoming” and “Latest” Debian Testing repositories used by LMDE, and it features 1Gbps unmetered bandwidth.

We turned to AYKsolutions after experiencing problems and downtime on our repositories, a few months ago. At the time, we were simply looking for additional bandwidth and so we got a server from them and used it in a cluster along with our existing German server. We were surprised with the performance it delivered and the fact that it could cope with our growing user base without any problems, so in time it became the main server for our repositories.

When designing the new update mechanism for LMDE, one of the key challenges for us was to deliver bandwidth and to ensure users could use our servers in replacement of the Debian ones. Again we turned to AYKsolutions, acquired a new server, this time with a 1Gbps output, and so far we’ve been really happy with it.

Access to fast and unmetered bandwidth is extremely important for Linux Mint. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re extending our relationship with AYKsolutions with this new partnership.