Cinnamon

Template:Article summary start Template:Article summary text Template:Article summary heading Template:Article summary wiki: GNOME is the framework that Cinnamon is based on. Template:Article summary wiki: Another fork of GNOME that is geared towards a GNOME 2 experience. Template:Article summary end

Cinnamon is a Linux desktop which provides advanced innovative features and a traditional user experience. The desktop layout is similar to GNOME 2; however, the underlying technology was forked from GNOME Shell. The emphasis is put on making users feel at home and providing them with an easy to use and comfortable desktop experience.

Note: Cinnamon is not in the official repositories, so it is not supported by official Arch developers.

Installation

Install cinnamon^AUR from the Arch User Repository. Alternatively, you can install cinnamon-git^AUR.

cinnamon^AUR has two dependencies. Using makepkg -s will not retrieve the following packages:

• muffin-wm^AUR
• gnome-menus2 now included in cinnamon (community repository)

If you are installing cinnamon-git^AUR, the packages change only slightly:

• muffin-git^AUR
• gnome-menus2

Note: Previously, cinnamon-extensions-git^AUR and cinnamon-themes-git^AUR were used to install some themes and extensions, but they are now deprecated (see here). Instead, visit http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/.

Because Cinnamon is a fork of the GNOME3 shell you can install the whole gnome group from the official repositories, or just the packages you need.

At last you have to add this to your ~/.xinitrc:

exec gnome-session-cinnamon

Note: See xinitrc for details, such as preserving the logind (and/or consolekit) session.

Configuration

Cinnamon is quite easy to configure - a lot of the configuration that most people will want can be done graphically. Its usability can be customized with applets and extensions, and also it supports theming.

Cinnamon Settings

Configuring Cinnamon is simple. Run any of the following commands:

cinnamon-settings
cinnamon-settings panel
cinnamon-settings calendar
cinnamon-settings themes
cinnamon-settings applets
cinnamon-settings windows
cinnamon-settings fonts
cinnamon-settings hotcorner

and so on.

Installing Applets/Extensions

The difference between an applet and an extension is that an applet is basically an addition to a panel, whereas an extension can completely change the Cinnamon experience and can do much more than an applet.

There are quite a few packages in the AUR (AUR package search for cinnamon). The process described here is a generic installation process.

Installing applets in Cinnamon is relatively easy. First visit Cinnamon Applets to see all of the current applets. Download the zip file for the desired applet, and extract to ~/.local/share/cinnamon/applets/ or /usr/share/cinnamon/applets. Then run

cinnamon-settings applets

to bring up the graphical applets manager. If the applet does not show up, press Template:Keypress and type r and press enter. This will restart gnome-shell and hopefully allow you to see your new applet.

The process is analogous for extensions, with the only difference being that directories titled "applets" can be changed to "extensions".

Creating Custom Applets/Themes

The official tutorial from Clement Lefebvre on creating an applet can be found here.

The official tutorial from Clement Lefebvre on creating a custom theme can be found here.

Troubleshooting

QGtkStyle was unable to detect the current GTK+ theme

If it turns out that QT applications are not able to detect the GTK theme, then you have to specify the theme explicitly. In case of the default Adwaita theme it would look like this:

gconftool-2 --set --type string /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme Adwaita

If you further want to set the same icon and cursor theme, then you have to specify them, too.

gconftool-2 --set --type string /desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme Faenza-Dark

This sets the icon theme to Faenza-Dark located in /usr/share/icons/Faenza-Dark. For the cursor theme you first have to set the gconf value.

gconftool-2 --set --type string /desktop/gnome/peripherals/mouse/cursor_theme Adwaita

Then you will have to create the file /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme with the following lines:

[Icon Theme]
Inherits=Adwaita

Pressing power buttons suspends the system

This is the default behaviour. If you want to change this to show the shutdown menu for example, change the dconf setting for the respective buttons:

GSETTINGS_BACKEND=dconf gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-power 'interactive'

You might need to do this for the hibernate button as well:

GSETTINGS_BACKEND=dconf gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-power 'interactive'