Linux Mint Forums

I am in no way asking people to hate on Cinnamon. This thread is meant to be constructive, and I'd like it if people would keep it that way. That being said, I know that many people love Cinnamon. And rightfully so. Cinnamon is a much more attractive interface than, say, Unity, for those of us (98%) who are used to the "classic" Windows way of doing things. Sure, it's different enough from Windows to be considered something different. But, it's similar enough to not lose us entirely.

Despite all of the good things about Cinnamon, I know that there are some things that some of use don't like about it. Personally, I haven't got any complaint about it other than some bugs. And since this is not a place to report bugs, I'm not going to bring them up. So tell us, what are the things, if anything at all, that you don't like about Cinnamon.

Yes, I used "and" at the beginning of several sentences. What of it? lol

Note: Moderators and admins have the right to delete any of the posts here, or the entire thread, according to their own discretion. So let's not give them a reason to have to use their powers here.

It's very hard for me to say what I "Don't" like about Cinnamon. Most of my problems with "Interfaces" come from my immediate impressions. Gnome 3 Shell, Cinnamon, and even Unity are very simple to use right from the get-go. The difficulty is knowing how to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. In other words, "Where do I go to find (insert option here) ?"

I remember running Kubuntu 10.04, after an upgrade from 9.10, and not being able to find where they moved the "Wallet" interface. There was a menu option in the previous version, and now it's nowhere to be found! Well, I eventually figured it out after messing with it for many hours. My point is, that those changes can be done, even within the same interface.

We need to keep this in mind. Cinnamon 1.4 may be ENTIRELY different from Cinnamon 2.6 (future hypothetical example). In which case, bear in mind that Unity has made some incredible advances since its inception.

So, I tend to lean on what I like, instead of what I don't like. I like Cinnamon more than Unity, and therefore I use Mint.

I don't dislike CInnamon at all. However, if I had to single out one (or two) places where to me it falls behind Gnome Shell, it's in the integration of the messaging app into the notification bar, and the ability to view your calendar schedule from the desktop. Those two really put GS at the top for me right now.

To be honest, I think most of the things I don't like about Cinnamon are more about the eco-system surrounding it rather than the DE itself - I want a wallpaper randomiser that just works, and a few applets that either don't exist or don't work quite the way I want them to. In particular, the official window list applet, that pushes all the other things out of the way, rather than shrinking the button for each window, to make them fit.

I do think it needs an easy way to install new themes and applets, that doesn't involve manually copying them into hidden files or adding an unofficial PPA - something like the Gnome extension page would be wonderful, but them being in the repository would be good enough.

It's still a bit unstable when fiddling with the panel - installing and moving applet makes it crash a little too often - but that's not an everyday activity, and apart from that I've found it perfectly stable as my main operating system for the last couple of months.

I'm using it on top of Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit.
One niggle I have found is that adding and rearranging apps in the main menu is hit and miss. The menu program seems to have a will of its own and will organise things where it wants rather than where I told it to and duplicates entries sometimes. An irritation rather than a problem.
Overall, very good. Clean, simple, practical.

SallyK wrote:I want a wallpaper randomiser that just works, and a few applets that either don't exist or don't work quite the way I want them to.

The best wallpaper randomizer I have found for Gnome 3 is "Wallch". Unfortunately, you have to start it manually whenever you re-start your computer.

But I agree with the applets. I like the messenger integration in Gnome-Shell.

I like Cinnamon, but am still not completely happy with the menu. I hope they fix the known issue of it taking 2-3 seconds to pull up the first time you use the menu in a while. And in general I don't really care for the design/layout of menu. I am using the Classic Mint Menu, but it doesnt quite feel right to me.

Right now I use Cinnamon about 80% of the time and MATE about 20% of the time. Don't know which one I will choose when Mint 13 comes out.

Cinnamon is my favorite interface. The only thing I don't like is the problems with the ATI fglrx driver. At the moment, due to these problems, it is impossible to take a simple screenshot without problems

Does it still have a memory leak issue in Maya (13) ?

Here is why I opted for MATE instead of Cinnamon: Cinnamon menu is slow, and Cinnamon in general feels slower than MATE. I can add applets like hardware temp and weather in seconds to MATE, not a noob easy task in Cinnamon. Overall Cinnamon feels like it has a long way to go just to catch up to a mature desktop like Gnome 2/MATE. Having said that, I still think Cinnamon is miles ahead of Unity and Gnome Shell regarding usability.
kbd47

KBD47 wrote:I can add applets like hardware temp and weather in seconds to MATE, not a noob easy task in Cinnamon.

I haven't even seen hardware temp applet for Cinnamon. Does it exist?

KBD47 wrote:Here is why I opted for MATE instead of Cinnamon: Cinnamon menu is slow, and Cinnamon in general feels slower than MATE. I can add applets like hardware temp and weather in seconds to MATE, not a noob easy task in Cinnamon. Overall Cinnamon feels like it has a long way to go just to catch up to a mature desktop like Gnome 2/MATE. Having said that, I still think Cinnamon is miles ahead of Unity and Gnome Shell regarding usability.
kbd47

kind of agree, oddly the performance of cinnamon is fast on lowly hardware but if your using a nice shiny new dedicated graphics card i think there may be some sort of driver problem?

cinnamon is definatley a lot slower than MATE and only really brings a glossy finish and expo .. both worth while but it needs to be light on its feet like DamnSmallLinux type performance, it should be a slick fast addition not some bloat ware, anyone cant get windows to do simular things but the main reason for doing it on linux should be the integration and peformance

still ultimatley Cinnamon would be my main choice, im running MATE until its optomised and the ati drives thing gets sorted out

Monsta wrote:

KBD47 wrote:I can add applets like hardware temp and weather in seconds to MATE, not a noob easy task in Cinnamon.

I haven't even seen hardware temp applet for Cinnamon. Does it exist?

I think it's possible, but nothing noob friendly about it. Clicking on the add applets option takes you to links describing how to install things if I remember correctly. In MATE you simply right click on the panel and add the applets.

phill1978 wrote: kind of agree, oddly the performance of cinnamon is fast on lowly hardware but if your using a nice shiny new dedicated graphics card i think there may be some sort of driver problem?

cinnamon is definatley a lot slower than MATE and only really brings a glossy finish and expo .. both worth while but it needs to be light on its feet like DamnSmallLinux type performance, it should be a slick fast addition not some bloat ware, anyone cant get windows to do simular things but the main reason for doing it on linux should be the integration and peformance

still ultimatley Cinnamon would be my main choice, im running MATE until its optomised and the ati drives thing gets sorted out

To me, Cinnamon is the best of the Gnome 3 options next to Fallback, but MATE gives the complete picture.

KBD47 wrote:I think it's possible, but nothing noob friendly about it. Clicking on the add applets option takes you to links describing how to install things if I remember correctly. In MATE you simply right click on the panel and add the applets.

I think Cinnamon is very 'noob' friendly. By 'noob' I mean a 'Windows convert'. The menu is in the same place, the structure is similar, the max/min/close buttons are on the right hand side of the window. It's more comfortable to make that transition.

Cinnamon also has a lot more going for it. There are cinnamon extensions, themes, and more advanced options than Windows is capable of. In other words, it's got the simplicity, and the depth to stay advanced.

How's that for an testimonial.

The one thing I don't like, and the reason I am not using it, is It does not seem to have anyway of switching user on a multi-user system, without actually logging out. I'd like to keep the programs I am currently using left open where I left them while someone else is on the computer. Then when they are done, I can just log back in and continue my stuff where I left off.

Update: I loaded up the Live DVD of LM 13 Cinnamon 64 bit, and found that a work around to this issue has been included. Under System Tools. there is found "New Login", with the description - Log in as another user without logging out.

It may not be included under the Quit screen, but at least it's there, so thanks guys, You Rock

Only two things I have to complain right now on Cinnamon (I am running on top of Ubuntu 12.04 btw)

1-notification position. I don't like the notifications on top of screen, as I use my panel on bottom. Should be any configuration to change the notification position, like on XFCE.
2-Some Ubuntu indicators (like indicator-cpufreq) and Empathy appears on notification area with buggy icons, like white borders or Empathy icon appearing too big for the notification area, cutting more than half of it.

If is hard to understand #2, I can post a screenshot if you guys want.

There are several things I don't like about Cinnamon:

First: Cinnamon seems to be created to make things easier for those who come from Windows XP or who like GNOME 2. However MATE is a better solution for those guys (I can't understand why Mint guys are developing two DE that have the same goal). With Cinnamon you get a tweaked gnome shell that looks like Gnome 2 without their advantages (ie compiz effects) and without the Gnome shell application view (I really like this feature), and with a weird notification system.

Second: I don't like the menu (I prefer the GS app menu, is much nicer and can be used in touch screens ), and specially I don't like the favourite bar in that menu. I think it would have been more interesting to use the classic mint menu in Cinnamon (if that is possible).

To sum up, I prefer MGSE to Cinnamon.

Shibblet wrote:

SallyK wrote:I want a wallpaper randomiser that just works, and a few applets that either don't exist or don't work quite the way I want them to.

The best wallpaper randomizer I have found for Gnome 3 is "Wallch". Unfortunately, you have to start it manually whenever you re-start your computer.

But I agree with the applets. I like the messenger integration in Gnome-Shell.

If you want wallch to start automatically, you need to open your wallch app, go to preferences, startup options and choose the second option, then, when you finish configuring wallch, close the wallch window by clicking the keys ctrl and Q at the same time. Next times you start your PC, wallch will start automatically.

KBD47 wrote:Here is why I opted for MATE instead of Cinnamon: Cinnamon menu is slow, and Cinnamon in general feels slower than MATE. I can add applets like hardware temp and weather in seconds to MATE, not a noob easy task in Cinnamon. Overall Cinnamon feels like it has a long way to go just to catch up to a mature desktop like Gnome 2/MATE. Having said that, I still think Cinnamon is miles ahead of Unity and Gnome Shell regarding usability.
kbd47

How do you choose between the two? I am finding that the Cinnamon/MATE version of the LMDE to be significantly slower than the Xfce version too, so I'm looking to cut down on its footprint as much as possible.