I love cinnamon, but technically it makes no sense ...

[mister_playb]

Hi,

I love Cinnamon, but form a technical stand point it makes no sense, I hope I'm wrong. Cinnamon is a fork of Gnome 3.2, but Gnome is at the moment, at version 3.4, you loose all the development made by the Gnome guys, I know they made some stupid stuff, but it's not all bad. Cinnamon is for for Gnome 3 what MATE is for Gnome 2, good right now but has no future. This is like having someone in the hospital after an anccident, brain dead, but the machines (MATE and Cinnamon) keep what we love alive, why? Because we do not wannt to let go of what we love, but it has no future, its ok for the moment but it does not have a future, just costs so many resources. This UI wars ar killing me. I'm what problably all here are "the computer guy", the guy all frineds call when ther computer does not work. I tryed for years get them dual boots with Mint on there PCs. After a long battle, finaly, last year I got 6 of them, when they saw compiz, there was no going back. Now more and more wannt linux, and i told them since december we will wait for version 13. But here is the problem I have to make a decision, what UI do i give them, they are not geeks, they do not try a new UI every year, they have been windows UI brain wasches and "change" is a virus. Now I got them interested in linux, but the UI decision has to be long term, and I wannt to go with Cinnamon, but I do not see the future. I use Mint since version 6 as dual boot with windows. I saw the future with mint when it was a top 10 os on distrowatch, not nr 1, to have a distro with all the codesc, flash, java etc out of the box, not even windows has that, great vision. That was what made mint nr 1, you gave what normal people wanted, and not used the microsoft, "ubuntu unity" approach, you dont know what you want we will tell you what you want. Why waiste resources on something that has no future, just make "mint ui extensions" for gnome, kde and xfce. The amount of work for cinnamon is huge, for something facing extinction, as much as i love it today (1.4 crashes like crazy on lmde). You have the perfect os under your nose to rule not just the linux world but the os world, LMDE, the perfect os, in the future, put all the reasurces there, and in the software manager, and you have the perfect os, rolling release, all the codesc, all the plugins, fast as hell, it is a dream. I remember when it was posted on the forum as "just an experiment", i said to myself this will be the perfect os, its not there yet, but it can be in 1 year if you stop making this big big mistake. Ubuntu was nr 1, it looked like this will never end, when, they decided they need to develop unity. Do not make the same mistake, in the future, because right now cinnamon is fine, but like the brain dead guy in the hospital it has no future. Put the resources into LMDE, this is like world war 2, and LMDE is your manhattan project, once LMDE is done, the war is done. The guys form LAS have a similar opinion on cinnamon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7SgEivcxl8. Mint is well known for listening to the community, just do what you did in the past, custumize gnome every six moths and put the reasources in the software manager, LMDE etc. I dont use gnome, but hope to do some day again, they will turn it around, i hope, and if not mint will take care of it every 6 months. The ideea of Cinnamon in great, the problem is technical, long term it cannot work. Thank you to Clem and all the team.

Best regards,

Alex

[melbo]

I'm under the impression that Cinnamon is a DE that is going to be developed indefinitely, not just a stop gap like MATE (or so they say).
Most major distros have adapted Cinnamon to their offerings... Cinnamon is in the Arch-Linux SVN

Just because Cinnamon as you see it was built from a frozen G3.2 doesn't mean it will stay there. What makes you think it's bound for extinction?

"once LMDE is done" Not sure what you mean? Once we've reached the end of Debian or the end of the internet?

LMDE is a great experience for me now but I don't know that it can ever reach a state of being called 'done'.

[mister_playb]

Well that is the thing if they make every 6 months or so a new version of Cinnamon, but based on the new version of Gnome, for example now with mint 13 to have cinnamon 1.5 based on gnome 3.4, it will be fine, but the amount of work is huge, and will be in the future. With "done" in LMDE edition I "done = user friendly", this is a step linux itself hat to do, becoming easy to use even for normal people, mint has made a step with the installer. With done a mean to reach a point where this will no longer be on the "release" page: "LMDE requires a deeper knowledge and experience with Linux, dpkg and APT." or "Debian is a less user-friendly/desktop-ready base than Ubuntu. Expect some rough edges." I use LMDE and love it (just Cinnamon 1.4 on it is hell, crashes all the time), but when I install linux to my friends I have to go with the main edition, it has to get polished, user friendly and so on, to be done = ready for broad use not just for people that have no idea how to use the terminal, then you can go and fight the big dogs. And after ist done and ready for the broad public use because its user friendly and polisched like ubuntu is right now, or the mint main edition, the development cand go on in other areas.

[zerozero]

Cinnamon is a fork of Gnome 3.2,

sorry, i didn't care to read the rest because all the idea stands in a wrong assumption: technically cinnamon is a fork of gnome-shell that runs on top of gnome 3.x

[dalcde]

Every time a new version of GNOME, clem makes modification to make them compatible (it doesn't have to be done every time, but a component of GNOME which Cinnamon depends on was changed in 3.4 so some of the Cinnamon code has to be changed). They don't re-do it.

As zerozero has pointed out, we don't fork the whole of GNOME, but just the shell (the UI). We don't really care about the changes in the shell since we are heading a totally different direction. So Cinnamon will not be based on GNOME Shell 3.4, but 3.2 (and compatible with whatever version GNOME is at).

Moreover, basing off a new version every six months is not nonsense. We fork Ubuntu every six months and do (almost) the same modifications to create Mint. Would you call that nonsense?

[proxima_centauri]

* Moved to Chat About Linux Mint section

[altair4]

For the benefit of those of us over the age of say ... 40 or so you might want to use far less commas and think about the use of an olde tyme writing convention called the paragraph. Maybe this is the price of something created from a Phone or Tablet that I'll just have to get used to but at the moment I try to get through a few sentences and then move on.

Just a suggestion.

[selittl]

I second Altair! Learn how to create a sentence, spell correctly, use correct grammar, on such a long post. It will be much easier to understand and would be taken seriously. I'm not trying to start a flame war, just want to understand your point.

[Lumikki]

I don't see the Orginal posters point.

Linux Mint 13 is with Cinnamon and is design directly for Gnome 3.x versions. Linux Mint main editions follows Ubuntu development lines.

it's like OP is saying that Ubuntu or/and Gnome has no future.

[mister_playb]

@zerozero go look at the LAS video I posted, then you will see my point, but maybe you have the same problem with reading and watching something to the end.
@dalcde Yes it is nonsense to fork ubuntu every 6 months, LMDE is right way to go.
@altair4 & @selittl your comments are based on ignorance. Many people that have english as their mother language think this is the only language on the planet and we all get born with it. You have the same problem of ignorance with oil, you think its all yours. In school we learned french and german as our second and 3rd language. My knowledge of english comes from Cartoon Network, Animal planet as a kid, then movies, and as a fan of NE Patriots, and San Antonio Spurs. You try and learn a language just by watching TV. I came here to have a discussion about linux not to be educated by ignorants.
@Lumikki go look at the LAS video I posted, the see my point. I did not say ubuntu has no future, just that it makes no sense to fork something every 6 months, LMDE is the way to go. I did not say gnome has no future, just forking gnome has no future.
Forking ist most of the times a bad idea. To have a choise is great, but the problem that linux has is to much defragmentation. We do not need another UI, just make some extensions for gnome, and you get the same result. With cinnamon you have alot of work for a little benefit. We have the same problem with .deb .RPM .taz this is not choise its defragmentation, in windows you have .exe and thats it. Just go in to the the software center, and see how many video editors you get and none of them work even decent. Windows 95 had better video editor then we have in linux today and this is not just me trying to make a point. Every 6 months forking ubuntu, forking kubuntu, forking lubuntu, now we are forking gnome, this is just stupid. LMDE is the future put the resources there.