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Cinnamon - ArchWiki

Cinnamon
From ArchWiki
Cinnamon (http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/) is a Linux desktop which
provides advanced innovative features and a traditional user experience. The
desktop layout is similar to GNOME Panel (GNOME 2); however, the
underlying technology was forked from GNOME Shell (GNOME 3). The
emphasis is put on making users feel at home and providing them with an easy
to use and comfortable desktop experience. As of version 2.0, Cinnamon is a
complete desktop environment and not merely a frontend for GNOME like
GNOME Shell and Unity.

Related articles
Nemo
GNOME
MATE
Desktop environment
Display manager

Contents
1 Installation
2 Starting Cinnamon
2.1 Graphical log-in
2.2 Starting Cinnamon manually
3 Configuration
3.1 Cinnamon Settings
3.1.1 Networking Support
3.1.2 Bluetooth support in cinnamon-settings and the panel
3.2 Installing applets/extensions
4 Tips and tricks
4.1 Creating custom applets/themes
4.2 Default desktop background wallpaper path
4.3 Show home, filesystem desktop icons
4.4 Adding custom command launchers to the Menu applet
4.5 Workspaces
4.6 Hide desktop icons
4.7 GTK themes and icons
5 Troubleshooting
5.1 QGtkStyle unable to detect the current theme
5.2 Pressing power buttons suspend the system
5.3 Laptop lid power management settings are ignored
5.4 Volume level is not saved
5.5 Applets not working
5.6 cinnamon-settings: No module named Image

Installation
Cinnamon can be installed with the package cinnamon (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?
name=cinnamon), available in the official repositories.
To install additional Cinnamon themes, applets and extensions, you may wish to add the Cinnamon
unofficial repository to your pacman.conf.
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Starting Cinnamon
Graphical log-in
Simply choose Cinnamon or Cinnamon (Software Rendering) session from your favourite display
manager. Cinnamon is the 3D accelerated version, which should be normally used. If you experience
problems with your video driver (e.g. artifacts or crashing), try the Cinnamon (Software Rendering)
session, which disables 3D acceleration.

Starting Cinnamon manually

If you prefer to start Cinnamon manually from the console, add the following line to your ~/.xinitrc
file:
~/.xinitrc
exec cinnamon-session

If the Cinnamon (Software Rendering) session is required, use cinnamon-session-cinnamon2d instead

of cinnamon-session.
After the exec command is placed, Cinnamon can be launched by typing startx. See xinitrc for
details.
Note: Versions before Cinnamon 1.9 used the GNOME session manager. For versions of Cinnamon
currently in the official repositories, use cinnamon-session instead of gnome-session-cinnamon.

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 (http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets)
and extensions (http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions), and also it supports theming
(http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/themes).

Cinnamon Settings
Simply run the following command:
$ cinnamon-settings

Each settings panel can be accessed directly with the following commands:
$ cinnamon-settings panel
$ cinnamon-settings calendar
$ cinnamon-settings themes
$ cinnamon-settings applets
$ cinnamon-settings windows
$ cinnamon-settings fonts
$ cinnamon-settings hotcorner

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and so on.
Networking Support
To enable networking support in cinnamon, install and enable NetworkManager.
Bluetooth support in cinnamon-settings and the panel
Warning: cinnamon-bluetooth (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cinnamonbluetooth/)is incompatible with GNOME 3.10. See the Bluetooth article for alternatives.
A GNOME bluetooth frontend for Cinnamon Panel and Cinnamon Settings is available in the AUR under
the name cinnamon-bluetooth (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cinnamon-bluetooth/).

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 (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?O=0&K=cinnamon&do_Search=Go) (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 (http://cinnamonspices.linuxmint.com/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 Alt+F2 and type r and
press Enter. This will restart cinnamon and likely, the new applet.
The process is analogous for extensions, with the only difference being that directories titled "applets" can
be changed to "extensions".

Tips and tricks

Creating custom applets/themes
The official tutorial on creating an applet can be found here (http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=156), and
on creating a custom theme can be found here (http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=144).

Default desktop background wallpaper path

When you add a wallpaper from a custom path in Cinnamon Settings, Cinnamon copies it to
~/.cinnamon/backgrounds. Thus, with every change of your wallpaper you would have to add your
updated wallpaper again from the settings menu or copy / symlink it manually to
~/.cinnamon/backgrounds.
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Show home, filesystem desktop icons

By default Cinnamon starts with desktop icons enabled but with no desktop icons on screen. To show
desktop icons for the home folder, the filesystem, the trash, mounted volumes and network servers open
Cinnamon settings and click on desktop. Enable the checkboxes of the icons you want to see on screen.

Adding custom command launchers to the Menu applet

The Menu applet supports launching custom commands. Right click on the applet, click on Configure...
and then Open the menu editor. Select a sub-menu (or create a new one) and select New Item. Set Name,
Command and Comment. Check the launch in terminal checkbox if needed. Leave unchecked for
graphical applications. Click OK and close the menu editor afterwards. The launcher is added to the menu.

Workspaces
A workspace pager can be added to the panel. Right click the panel and choose the option 'Add applets to
the panel.' Add the 'Workspace switch applet to the panel. To change its position right click on the panel
and change the 'Panel edit mode' on/off switch to on. Click and drag the switcher to the desired position
and turn the panel edit mode off when finished.
By default there are 2 workspaces. To add more move the mouse cursor into the top left corner to enter
'Expose mode.' Click the plus sign button on the right of the screen to add more workspaces.

Hide desktop icons

The desktop icons rendering feature is enabled in nemo by default. To disable this feature, change the
setting with the following command:
$ gsettings set org.nemo.desktop show-desktop-icons false

GTK themes and icons

Linux Mint styled themes and icons can be installed from AUR using packages mint-themes
(https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mint-themes/)and mint-x-icons
(https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mint-x-icons/). The theme can edited in System
Settings/Themes/Other settings.

Troubleshooting
QGtkStyle unable to detect the current theme
Installing libgnome-data (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=libgnome-data)solves
the problem partially, and QGtkStyle will detect the current GTK+ theme. However, to set the same icon
and cursor theme, users must specify them explicitly.
The icon theme for Qt apps can be configured by the following command:
$ gconftool-2 --set --type string /desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme Faenza-Dark

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This sets the icon theme to Faenza-Dark located in /usr/share/icons/Faenza-Dark.

The cursor theme for Qt apps can be selected by creating a symbolic link:
$ mkdir ~/.icons
$ ln -s /usr/share/icons/Adwaita ~/.icons/default

This sets the cursor theme to Adwaita located in /usr/share/icons/Adwaita.

Pressing power buttons suspend the system

This is the default behaviour. To show the shutdown menu for example, change the setting for the
respective button:
$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-power 'interactive'

Laptop lid power management settings are ignored

Note: This workaround is no longer needed with cinnamon-settings-daemon
(https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=cinnamon-settings-daemon)version

2.0.8-4.

If your system ignores the laptop lid close action, which set in Power Management tool, you have to edit
the file /etc/systemd/login.conf and uncomment/modify the following two lines:
HandleLidSwitch=ignore
LidSwitchIgnoreInhibited=no

Volume level is not saved

The volume level is not be saved after reboot. The volume will be at 0 but not muted. Installing alsautils (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=alsa-utils)will solve the problem.

Applets not working

If audio or network applets don't work the user may be required to be added to the relevant groups (audio,
network):
$ gpasswd -a [user] [group]

cinnamon-settings: No module named Image

If cinnamon-settings does not start with the message that it cannot find a certain module, e.g. the
Image module, it is likely that it uses outdated compiled files which refer to no longer existing file
locations. In this case remove all *.pyc files in /usr/lib/cinnamon-settings and its sub-folders.
Retrieved from "https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Cinnamon&oldid=313278"
Category: Desktop environments
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This page was last modified on 4 May 2014, at 00:03.

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