Linux Mint Forums

I’ve just installed Ubuntu 12.10 today and then immediately installed Cinnamon 1.61. Gnome Classic works fine – so I’ve already got a big improvement over Unity! If I choose Cinnamon at login I’m left with a screen which is blank apart from my wallpaper. There are no menus of any sort and no key combinations or mouse movements have any effect.

No idea to be honest but did you install muffin?
Maybe try to load the meta/default packet (that includes mint menu and such iirc) for cinnamon from the linux mint repository?

Installing Muffin (note correction) doesn't make any difference.

If I log in as "Guest", Cinnamon works perfectly. This suggests to me that all the necessary software is installed, but that something, perhaps the window manager, isn't being started when I log in with my own account - . Any suggestions what I might check?

uncheck compiz from auto-start.

I couldn't find auto-start anywhere so I googled it - and found the command gnome-session-properties recommended by someone called zerozero lol.

Using that I was able to inspect the list of startup programs, there was no compiz, but gnome-wm was. I put it there a while ago when I was using Ubuntu + gnome-session-fallback because otherwise I had no window titles or buttons.

Removing it makes no difference to Cinnamon but causes problems with Gnome Classic as above.

I tried replacing it with Compiz/Metacity/Mutter/Muffin - all gave the same result, they stopped Gnome Classic working properly but didn't help Cinnamon.

So that is not the answer - but I think you are on the right track, it might be something to do with a window manager.

hi,
i believe that is an interaction between compiz and muffin (mutter's fork and cinnamon's wm); they don't play together, the same happens in gnome-shell (any attempt to use compiz in there breaks the shell.
gnome-session-fallback uses metacity that's why has no problems with compiz.

now to this:
1- are you (re)using an old HOME? or is this an in-place upgrade from precise to quantal? this because if the guest account has no problems, there's 1 config somewhere in your account that is killing cinnamon;
2- in .config/autostart check if you have any compiz-desktop

I'm sure you are right. As I mentioned, I get no window buttons or title in Gnome Classic unless I include compiz or metacity in the startup list and when I tried MATE it didn't work either. I'm convinced it's something to do with window manager(s).

1- are you (re)using an old HOME?

I have formatted "/" but kept "/home" and I agree that there may be

1 config somewhere in your account that is killing cinnamon;

Next you suggest:

2- in .config/autostart check if you have any compiz-desktop

All removed - see attached.

I also got a Ubuntu error message last time I tried logging into Cinnamon which seems quite relevant:

the more i think about this the more i'm convinced that it's a config file messing around. now the problem is find out which.
the guest account works well, so it's not the installation that is somewhat broken, same for gnome-fallback.
in my experience here in the forum (re)using previous HOME isn't worth the trouble.

I'm sure you are right zerozero, but I want to keep my data from "/home". If I were to copy it all out, re-install the system then copy it back I would copy the problem configuration file back too wouldn't I? On the other hand, if I copy everything except "." files I will lose things like Tomboy notes.
My conclusion is that I would need to work out which files I can afford to lose and then not copy them - in which case I could just have deleted them from "/home" couldn't I?

sorry for taking this time to get back to you
Chris,
applications config files/folders are not the problem (and are not those almost for sure that are causing these issues):
.mozilla
.thunderbird
.xchat
.opera
.purple
are safe to keep (and /or backup and restore afterwards)
ofc you'll add here any specific app that you use (you mentioned tomboy; should be one safe as well)

the issue are the system config files/folders (as opposed to the applications above): those can/will be troublesome.

and as a foot note: why (re)using a previous HOME is nowadays more problematic than it was say until one year ago?
- until one/one and a half year ago gnome was evolving quiet slowly (the 2.xx was up for ages) and most of the code was fairly compatible >> this scenario is not true today anymore: gnome is evolving at a fast pace (a major release every 6 months)
- furthermore (and to add to the problem) until then we had 1 gnome shipped more or less tweaked in all major distros; today we have gnome proper, unity, cinnamon ,pantheon soon (and we can add mate to the mix) all with different config (and sometimes incompatible )

No worries. Again what you say makes good sense. The problem for me is knowing what is application data that I need to keep and what is operating system stuff which I can dump. There are about 100 "." directories and there isn't any way for me to know the difference apart from a few obvious ones like .config.

I am going to use Ubuntu+Gnome Classic with gnome-wm in the startup list. This suits me very well - apart from it being clumsy to add launchers to a panel. I'll wait until Cinnamon and MATE have matured a bit, then try again in the hope that they cover configuration issues more comprehensively.

Thanks very much for your help.

ChrisOfBristol wrote:I'll wait until Cinnamon and MATE have matured a bit, then try again in the hope that they cover configuration issues more comprehensively.

It has now got to that point. I tried Mint-14/Cinammon instead of Ubuntu+Cinammon and had the problem stated in the first posting again, so I bodged it to make it work. It ran without seizing (unlike 13 http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 3&t=102836) so I decided to stick with it. I then had an inspiration about how to get rid of the 'old configuration file' problem without having to trust everything to a backup. I have done that and it works fine (explained on http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 3&t=102836).