Cinnamon (software)
_Cinnamon.png)
The Cinnamon desktop environment in Linux Mint 17 Qiana, showing mintMenu and the welcome screen.
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| Original author(s) | Linux Mint team |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Linux Mint team |
| Initial release | 2011 |
| Stable release |
3.2.8 / 7 January 2017
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| Repository | github |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C, JavaScript, and Python |
| Operating system | Linux, BSDs |
| Type |
|
| License | GPL v2 |
| Website |
cinnamon-spices github |
Cinnamon is a desktop environment that is based on the GTK+ 3 toolkit. It was released in 2011. Cinnamon originally started as a fork of GNOME Shell, thus initially as a mere graphical shell of the GNOME software, but became its own desktop environment in Cinnamon 2.0. Cinnamon was developed by (and for) the Linux Mint distribution, with wider adoption spreading to other distributions over time.
Because the Cinnamon desktop environment intends to implement a graphical user interface (GUI) distinct from the GNOME desktop environment, many of the GNOME Core Applications were forked, so that their GUIs can be rewritten appropriately.
The Linux Mint development team was initially unsure about the future of the distribution after the release of GNOME 3. Its new graphical shell, GNOME Shell, did not fit the design goals the team had in mind for Linux Mint, but there were initially no available alternatives. Linux Mint 11 "Katya" was released in May 2011 with the final release of GNOME 2, but it was clear that a better solution was needed, as GNOME Panel was no longer being developed. Therefore, the team set out to improve GNOME Shell so that it would fit Linux Mint's goals, and the result was the "Mint GNOME Shell Extensions" (MGSE). In the meantime, the MATE desktop environment was forked from GNOME 2. The Mint team decided to incorporate MATE into Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" alongside MGSE, to give users a choice whether to use the traditional GNOME 2 desktop or the GNOME 3-based MGSE.
However, MGSE fell short of expectations. Since GNOME Shell was going in a different direction than the Mint developers had in mind, it was clear that MGSE was not viable in the long run. In response to this problem, GNOME Shell was forked to create the Cinnamon project, allowing the Linux Mint developers better control over the development process and to implement their own vision of the GNOME interface for use in future releases of Linux Mint. The project was publicly announced on 2 January 2012 on the Linux Mint blog.
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