Cinnamon awesomeness

[Condorman]

Just wanted to say, as a new user who previously didn't get the idea behind Mint beyond the adding of a few codecs and a different GTk2 theme, what a massive success Cinnamon is. You cannot underplay just how awesome it is, and just how much the Linux world needs this. I don't mind Gnome Shell too much, can cope with Unity, but when you use Cinnamon, you see just what a waste of time and space those DE's are on a Linux desktop. Cinnamon is just so...perfect. It's so much quicker than the alternatives, it's so much easier to use. It's so much easier to configure, and it looks amazing with its roster of inbuilt and attractive effects. It does everything you would want.

Since both Unity and Gnome Shell came out, I hadn't really noticed just how much distro-hopping I'd done, flitting here and there between distros and the various DE's. I just haven't been able to settle on something I can truly love. I wanted Debian/Ubuntu's underlying Linux technology, but not Unity or Compiz which is buggy and complicated. I wanted the new Gnome 3 and the new Mutter special effects, but not the Shell interface, which is OK but just unnecessary on a desktop/laptop. So the hunt has been difficult. Thank God for Mint then, which has suddenly put a nice stop to all that messing about.

So please keep it up. We need this perfect alternative more than ever before. I feel like I can breath again. Thank you.

[liquidstupid]

I am so glad you made this thread, because I wanted to get all testimonial about Cinnamon as well. I've been using Linux Mint since 11 - not long, but I'm a former Mac Nut. Love 'em, I do - but Apple's gotten too long in the tooth and their arrogance is just too much for my needs. Great for the average user, but being here means I'm not. I'm down with that.

I laid hands on a Toshiba laptop circa 2006 with a nice processor and garbage graphics (1.8Ghz T1350 + 945GM), and Linux Mint 12 was a hassle to get running well. It never did - i managed to get Cairo Dock (GL mode) installed and that helped, but hard drive polling just made the experience very tedious whenever I had too many apps running. Still, it was better than trying to run Windows on this beast. It's a great laptop, really - and it shines with Mint 13.

Pushing it just as hard as I did under 12 no longer drags the machine to a staggering halt. I can't wait to get more RAM and an SSD for it.

The hardware accelerated graphics were a stroke of brilliance. Not only is the machine usable, but it feels fast, even with extra software installed. It's got a "mesely" 1GB of RAM, but you lot have really outdone yourselves. Ubuntu's Unity interface is the wrong direction for desktop usage. Unity makes sense for touch interfaces and mobile devices, but for the touchpad and keyboard centric, the traditional experience is mandatory.

You all got it right, and I am so grateful for that.

I've needed a lot of patience to learn enough to be comfortable with this OS, but I don't regret a moment of it.

Thank you.

[bimsebasse]

All hail Cinnamon! The MATE edition seems to leave its customers satisfied as well and once again a Mint edition turned out a good move. Gotta give some props to the Ubuntu crew for providing a very solid base for Mint 13 with Precise.

[HappyLinux]

I use to be a fan of Ubuntu, or more precisely, the underlying technology in Ubuntu. However, when Ubuntu decided to switch to the Unity environment, I found myself in a predicament. I couldn't handle Unity one bit. KDE doesn't like my graphics card and monitor, XFCE was too minimalist and barely customizable, but also didn't like my monitor, I went looking for an alternative distro and found Mint which used Gnome. Gnome was the only environment to work fine with both my graphics card and monitor.

Then came Gnome 3, and sticking with Mint, I tried Gnome 3, MATE and Cinnamon. I'm now sticking with Cinnamon. I find it absolutely brilliant. It looks and feels great. Easy to customize etc. It doesn't feel as bulky and/or complicated, or even too minimalist than the other DEs. It's just right.

[liquidstupid]

All hail Cinnamon! The MATE edition seems to leave its customers satisfied as well and once again a Mint edition turned out a good move. Gotta give some props to the Ubuntu crew for providing a very solid base for Mint 13 with Precise.

Yessir - I have to say you were the fella who turned me on to some of the sweeter elements of the OS; it's customizability and flexibility. Thank you.

Even Mint's website makes it easy to WANT in - having reams of text thrown at you does not compel one to get wet, so to speak. I am talking about Fedora's long-in-the-tooth business savvy website. The entire site is a scary looking word salad that encourages me to be elsewhere.

I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with this OS.