Although I have been living in Archlinux for many years, the transition from KDE4 a plasma 5 temporarily catapulted me into environments GTK3, when I come across small bugs and bugs -minors- that for one reason or another I don't feel like putting up with it (am I getting old?). Luckily so much Cinnamon as Gnome Shell are already much more rolled and offer stability almost rocky by now.
After tasting the simplicity of Gnome Shell for months - although I was never convinced by its rigid approach and lack of options that I consider basic - I decided to unconditionally embrace Cinnamon, the default environment of Linux Mint, and I have to confess that its classic desktop paradigm has made me fall in love. It would not be unreasonable to say that both Cinnamon and Plasma 5 share a very similar path, which is to refine the classic desktop concept, which has existed for decades, without adding bizarre inventions with unforeseen results to the mix. If it works, do not touch it.
In Cinnamon, currently at version 2.6, I feel at home; the arrangement of the elements and their operation are extremely logical to me, striking a balance between simplicity and an enviable number of options. As if that were not enough, and for those who love to customize "in detail" of their Linux work environments, there is a highly flexible applet that replaces the default system menu, which we will talk about below: Configurable Menu.
Installation
The installation process couldn't be easier. Just right-click on any panel and choose "add applets to the panel." In the window that opens, we switch to the "Available Applets (online)" tab, look for "Configurable Menu", check the box and click on "Install or update the selected elements". There is no need to compile any packages, nor to make a pilgrimage to a holy place.
Once the applet has been added to our system by fast track, we can add it to the panel as we would any other element. I like to use a top panel in conjunction with a dock, although lately I am doing quite without the second, so in my case the menu stays in the upper left corner.
Configuration
The configuration of this applet is simply insane, due to the number of modes available and the corresponding minor modifications. You wouldn't think that I was going to go over them all, right? I recommend that you prepare a good cup of coffee -or a 10-liter carafe- and proceed to review the options without much haste, if you like a level of control and precision similar to that of Swiss watches.
I have counted 18 different menu modalities, including a Windows 7 type menu, another Gnome 2 type (ah, nostalgia), a Whisker variant, the Mint Menu of all life, a Kicker tracing ... A menu is missing Windows 95 type, which is the best in the world, which prevents me from giving it the highest mark (note the irony).
But the flexibility does not end there, since we can refine each variant from top to bottom: add boxes to the power buttons, put them in a list, show or hide the favorite applications, deactivate the search boxes, hide the arrows of the categories to troll other users, Destroy the world, etc.
No epicurean of graphical excellence should lightly ignore this applet. A must have!
I use Cinnamon in Mint. My configuration is: top panel, bottom panel only with the list of open windows and dock (docky) on the left side
That distribution is very Gnome 2 style, I also use it from time to time. The dock is my habit, but I think the window list is more efficient in every way.
When kubuntu came out with Plasma I gave it its chance and it worked fine until they updated something and then everything went down, the processor was heating up very quickly, the desktop was restarting, the update manager stopped working, showing desktop no longer worked as it should and I had no choice but to go back to Mint with Cinnamon.
Cinnamon became quite stable I think and many will agree that it is one of the best options for the desktop.
: )
Plasma 5 lacks a bit of filming, whatever they say. When I try to add plasmoids, my desktop completely resets to its initial configuration, and I don't like it. At this point in the film, what I ask is stability and that everything works; I'll never understand why so many distros have already chosen Plasma 5 as their default.
What theme does your Cinnamon have that white looks pretty
The Cinnamon theme I use right now is Zukitwo Transparent Panel. And the GTK, just in case, is Ambiance Colors.
I love what you mean by compiling and the sacred places ... the irony is excellent although it is essential ..
regards
In my opinion, a little humor never hurts,;).
I was testing and in all configurations the search engine does not work. Somebody got a silly salba .XD
Very rare. What version of the applet are you using? I have seen that in the 1.7 beta they have fixed the search engine issue.
Download the .zip from the official page (it comes in the article, in the third paragraph I think) and copy it to: ~ / .local / share / cinnamon / applets
I forgot to comment that you copy the unzipped content, of course.
It's already rebooted and it worked. thanks
Well, I think so, I'll try it to see how it works.
Well, I'll try it to see how it works.
Regards!
I met that applet a few months ago, but something in cinnamon still doesn't convince me ... and I went back to kde ...
Its developer is Spanish-speaking so they can send you suggestions through github….
Is there a global menu, ubuntu-unity style in cinnamon or mate? Thank you ... I experienced the same thing a week ago when I decided to try several alternative desktops to gnome 3.16 in archlinux and I agree with you on almost everything ...
Yes there is, but it is still in beta and apparently has minor bugs. You can try it on http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/229
However, it requires packages from the AUR. These days I'm a bit busy, but when I have a little while I look at it and if necessary I upload a tutorial.
Yes, there is how to install some support in Arch, but I think that you are going to lack the support for some applications. There are some applications that are not standard and need some patches. Canonical, made them a client-independent patch. That is, within an application module, but in Arch this is done within the panel applet (it is actually made for xfce) and not as a standalone module I believe. As javascript is not a low-level language, I cannot patch it and have to use existing ones. Then the dilemma. You can install it and tell the Xcfe author to move that code out of the panel applet and from there export the menu so it can be read by any implementation and not just the xcfe one. Anyway, if I can do something, it was largely thanks to him (an Arch developer), so he knows the situation very well and I think he will try to solve it. My Arch installation is on a saturated partition, when I reinstall Arch, if I have time I will try to help you move the code out. Regards.
PS: Does anyone know how to enable hardware acceleration for cinnamon, it's the error that pops up every time I log in, and it causes me to have a little lag ... My distro is archlinux and I use proprietary nvidia drivers.
4 months ago I left cinnamon and mint, I got to configure it in a thousand different ways, it was a very pleasant hobby. The configurable menu came to make it similar to gnome 3 without having known it yet, and when I realized its existence, I switched to debian gnome nn
Hey.
Excellent extension of Cinnamon this. What I missed the most about Whisker, Unity Gnome Shell was being able to search for something on the internet from the home button. Apparently this extension would fix my problem, however I do not know how the online search works nor do I know if it is supported on Arch Linux. The developer page for Configurable Menu seems to have a grudge with the Arch community. Anyway, do you know how to make internet search work on Arch Linux? Maybe I need to install a package that does not come pre-installed in the Arch database or as a dependency on cinnamon?
Nope, the quarrel was with those who run Arch's site (in English) on G +, not with anyone from Arch itself. It was precisely when I was developing the advanced search in Configurable Menu, that I went to ask for help there, because I needed specific documentation from pamac, but they did not want me to upload anything from Cinnamon to the community, so as usual, I got upset. Regarding the web search, I had a problem, download it again from the development site to see if it works for you now.
Greetings.
Excellent and fun article. If I ever switch to Cinnamon I'll give it a try. For now I continue with XFCE and its Whisker menu, which I think is the best in the world (without irony ;-))
Hello, I have been using Cinnamon for a long time and one of the main reasons is this menu, the option of "helena light" in full screen and that it can be opened and closed from the windows button I love it, however since I updated to mint 17.3 I have had some problems, it does not always respond as well, sometimes when I go to configure it or even delete it it blocks everything and I am forced to restart and I always get a message "repos surgeActor in undefined" for which I cannot find a solution (looking for it I have reached this article) and comment to see if any other user has happened and knows how to solve it.
Hi Luis, Configurable Menu is being restructured, mainly due to the poor performance it has when it is necessary to display many items on the same screen, change the menu size, change categories, etc. Initially Configurable Menu was intended as an extension of the Cinnamon menu, so that any change in the Cinnamon menu structure would also apply to Configurable Menu. However, recent events have led me to take a different perspective. Relying on the internal code of Cinnamon more than an advantage has become a disadvantage, since Cinnamon can take very different paths than the Configurable Menu professes and consequently its functionalities are spoiled, as you have already realized. I hope that under the expected changes (which are not few), that Configurable Menu can be used without errors at least in Cinnamon 3.0, but perhaps it can be earlier, it depends on the time it finds.
Greetings.