Cinnamon

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a free and open-source desktop environment for the Linux operating system. It provides an intuitive user interface and set of tools aimed at making the desktop experience easy and pleasant to use.
Cinnamon image
linux open-source desktop-environment user-interface

Cinnamon: Free Open-Source Desktop Environment

Cinnamon is a free and open-source desktop environment for the Linux operating system. It provides an intuitive user interface and set of tools aimed at making the desktop experience easy and pleasant to use.

What is Cinnamon?

Cinnamon is a free and open-source desktop environment designed for the Linux operating system. Developed as part of the Mint Linux distribution, Cinnamon aims to provide an elegant and intuitive user experience.

Some key features of Cinnamon include:

  • Familiar graphical desktop metaphor interface, making it easy for users coming from Windows or macOS
  • Fully customizable look, feel, and behavior through themes and applets
  • Supports modern graphics effects like blur and transparency
  • Left-side vertical panel for shortcuts and system tray
  • Easy to browse and launch applications from the start menu
  • Multiple virtual workspaces that can be spread across different monitors
  • Compatible with many popular Linux apps like Firefox, VLC, and LibreOffice

Cinnamon is built on the powerful GNOME technologies like GTK+ and Clutter but aims to provide a more traditional desktop layout. It offers a balance between the sleeker, more modern approach of GNOME Shell and the functionality of classical interfaces. Underneath its familiar feel, Cinnamon uses advanced features to enable a responsive and convenient experience for end users.

Cinnamon Features

Features

  1. Customizable desktop layout and appearance
  2. Supports desktop effects like windows wobble and minimize animation
  3. Includes system administration tools
  4. Has applets for calendar, notifications, weather etc
  5. Good performance and low resource usage

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Lightweight and fast

Highly customizable

Stable and mature codebase

Good community support

Cons

Less apps than GNOME or KDE

Some graphical glitches on certain hardware

Not many configuration options out of the box


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