Let's talk about Cinnamon.

Let's talk about Cinnamon, quite a new desktop environment, in fact I think it is the newest we have within the desktop ecosystem GNU / Linux.

Well, I think everyone should already know what the hell I'm talking about but none of them should have tried it or are actively using it now, maybe some, I'm not going to generalize, but well, in the absence of information about this new environment and specific opinions, I'm going to give the task of talking a little about it.

Note: Images at the end of the post.

It should be noted that I use this environment as the main one and actively participate in the reporting of bugs and discussions within the project in Github, for which to all interested I recommend searching on github linuxmint / cinnamon and sign up for issues.

A bit of theory:

We all already know that Cinnamon is a fork of Gnome Shell, based on Gnome 3. It has a minimalist but quite pretty appearance and the functionality of Gnome 2 mixed with some things from Gnome 3 as the area of ​​applications and desktops already well known in Gnome Shell.

But let's move on to what interests us, the environment itself and my opinions about it.

First of all, it must be made clear that, although it is already in a "stable" phase, it is still in a vertiginous development since it is not more than 3 months old, so now this desk needs to grow, in fact , I dare say that in less than three more months we will have a fairly complete environment capable of standing up to the greats like Shell, Unity, Xfce, KDE and others, and I say stand up, not overcome or compete directly, but defend yourself even with your eyes.

I'm testing it low Ubuntu 11.10 (Courage doesn't take long to jump to try to cut my neck) and so far it has been going pretty well for me; quite a bit better than expected.

At the level of resource consumption, the environment is heavy, it must be admitted, before adding the PPA and reinstalling the packages, it consumed me 1.1GB of RAM while doing almost nothing, that's a smack when you don't have a lot of RAM (thank goodness that I have enough and with good speed / latencies) but as minimalist as it looked, it wasn't light. After reinstalling with everything updated I could notice that Cinnamon went on a diet and now does not eat so many resources, has dropped to 600-700MB while I have Firefox, Banshee, Deluge y Empathy open, although from time to time it still shoots me to 1GB of consumption, I am not going to lie to you, although we must not forget that there is still A LOT to polish this desktop environment and that in new versions they will surely stabilize this problem that I have already reported linuxmint / cinnamon on the GitHub issues.

Bugs? Of course it does, I'm not going to lie, I'm giving you my full and honest report and opinion, the environment presents some annoying but not serious bugs; At least not for me.

The first is that it does not show some programs in the mintmenu, entre ellos UbuntuOne y Software Center, so if you don't know how to move around the terminal, I still don't recommend using Cinnamon since I, at least, do everything from the terminal and if I don't get or don't know the names of the packages then I do:

$ sudo aptitude search

And now, delete it, all set.

But if I still can't find what I want, then nothing:

$ software-center

And voila, I run the program.

But it is still something that they must correct within this environment, I do not know if it happens to others but it does to me.

Another little problem that I found is that I can't change the theme of the windows, I don't know why but I only recognize the one that comes by default, but it's not a bad thing to die so it doesn't bother me, in fact, I find it nice so Why make balls out of this?

Outside of that and consumption, nothing bad more to report on my part ... for now.

Now, regarding usability I must say that I am very satisfied, it is simple, everything is within reach of a couple of clicks and it is not even remotely complicated to understand.

The management in the notification area is super simple, the music area is comfortable and the windows are clear and easy to understand, in use I give it a 10 out of 10.

And… The configuration, extensions, customization and tools of the environment?

Well, it is not that he is very strong in that area if we compare him with monsters like KDE that has more than ten years in constant development and evolution, or with Xfce who even has his own look.org, or with his brother Shell that has infinite themes to customize ...

It has, as far as I know, a climate extension (that I don't use for now) and at least 5 own songs (very cute, but few), obviously Gnome TweakTool and its own configuration system "Cinnamon settings" that has just appeared, so in that aspect it is still very basic but I repeat again, all this has been achieved in less than three months and we must give credit to the community for this since we are not going astray.

So in my personal opinion I can say many things, the first is that Cinnamon I love it, I really like it, it's scary and period, it can stand up in simplicity to the famous desktop mouse called XFCE (I'm ready to fight you bald) and it's very pretty, like KDE (also against you Gaara), but it needs to grow to really be able to say that it can make a space next to the greats.

When dealing with the issue of efficiency, the poor man is still somewhat maimed, but he is evolving and this has to be changed because it has to be changed, although I am not bad with my 4gb of ram (ddr3 @ 1600mhz, without eagerness to believe anything, it is just one piece of information) and my other hardware.

If we get into tools, configuration, etc, then I say yes it is lazy here too but the repentant dog returns; all this has been achieved in a short time, give credit to clem and the community, that if you do not make a cucumber to help you cannot speak either.

It only remains for me to say that I feel a little bad for not being able to do much more for the environment since I do not program well, I am still a rookie of the 3rd semester and I am stumbling, but I support as I can and that is reporting bugs, solving doubts and participating in all kinds of tests and discussions to at least give my grain of sand. If they want they can do the same and thus help the project a little, or if not, do it with any other, it does not matter, the point is to give something back to the community that gives us so much.

For my part, I have achieved my environment and it tastes like earth, I mount sewers what they say, the bald man with Xfce, Mr. anime with KDE and me with Cinnamon, to see who else joins with another environment.

Images:

Peladito desk ...

The mint-menu, simple right?

Dialogs for anchors.

Music, networks and calendar dialogues soon extendable.

Easy to change themes and retains that Shell preview feature that I love.

The consumption skyrocketed, this is the downside of Cinnamon at the moment.