[Clarified] Cinnamon and Cinnamon Spices - Extensions

[juan_lutz]

Attention: I saw it was necessary to change the subject!

I am a little bit unhappy to realize that some cool effects from compiz are not available on Cinnamon.
1. You can find some of them as an extension on "Cinnamon Spices", but also some are "old" or not compatible with the last version of Cinnamon. (desktop cube and wobbly windows)
2. Compiz (between others) as a window manager is available on LM MATE and therefore these kind of effects are active there. Compiz seems to be not possible to activate or to install on any LM Cinnamon version.

In different forums the missing effects on Cinnamon are highlighted as a contra or a bug and even they are available es extension no one is looking to keep them updated.
Sad.
Has someone a different experience on LM ?

[Pjotr]

Off topic, and just for the record: stuff like that is notorious for making your desktop unstable and crash-prone. If you want a stable and reliable computer, stay away from that glittery garbage.

[antikythera]

Off topic, and just for the record: stuff like that is notorious for making your desktop unstable and crash-prone. If you want a stable and reliable computer, stay away from that glittery garbage.

To the point Clem's just posted compiz will no longer be installed by default for Linux Mint MATE. It may go down like a lead balloon with certain folk but the reasons are abundantly clear for not continuing to support it at distribution level.

viewtopic.php?p=1933783#p1933783

[juan_lutz]

Off topic, and just for the record: stuff like that is notorious for making your desktop unstable and crash-prone. If you want a stable and reliable computer, stay away from that glittery garbage.

To the point Clem's just posted compiz will no longer be installed by default for Linux Mint MATE. It may go down like a lead balloon with certain folk but the reasons are abundantly clear for not continuing to support it at distribution level.

viewtopic.php?p=1933783#p1933783

Interesting ...
I will pointed out 3 things:
1. I am a Cinnamon LM 20 user and I will continue to be one. The system is so good that the user experiences is still superb without compiz!
2. On Clem's arguments regarding Compiz, Ubuntu, and Mate, I can only absolutely be agree with them.
3. But as user, what I can not understand is the situation of some "extensions" offered in CINNAMON Spices (which I am following since years) specifically those that emulate Compiz effects. why are they in the offering?, Why they were run OK in old versions of Cinnamon? Are they part of the so called Compiz garbage?... If the idea is to avoid any development of CINNAMON ( or Muffin ) in this direction then please "delete" also these extensions from the offering specially those one without a proper update cycle! and keep so the trend of Clem's arguments above consequently.... and so the stability of CINNAMON too.

[JosephM]

The applets and extensions on the spices site are not developed by the Mint team. They are done by third party developers who want to add features to Cinnamon that are outside of the scope of the core Cinnamon development. At the point that they no longer function in supported versions of Mint, and no one steps up to continue there development and maintenance, they will most likely be removed. We don't dictate what 3rd party developers work on. If someone wants to continue them, then they may. I will say there is currently no work being done to add these types of features to Cinnamon itself.

[clem]

Whether they're developed by 3rd parties or not, we're responsible for the spices because we distribute them. It is my opinion that they either should work or be removed.

In Cinnamon 4.8 I made changes to the way compatibility with spices worked going forward and that will have a very positive impact on compatibility.

That said, extensions (extensions themselves, not applets/desklets) are closely tied to the actualy source code of Cinnamon, so they're made for particular versions of Cinnamon and can't work for all versions like applets/desklets.

With that said, we'll review these extensions and either fix them or remove them.

[juan_lutz]

The applets and extensions on the spices site are not developed by the Mint team. They are done by third party developers who want to add features to Cinnamon that are outside of the scope of the core Cinnamon development. At the point that they no longer function in supported versions of Mint, and no one steps up to continue there development and maintenance, they will most likely be removed. We don't dictate what 3rd party developers work on. If someone wants to continue them, then they may. I will say there is currently no work being done to add these types of features to Cinnamon itself.

Thank you for your reply Joseph....
1. My intention is not to start an endless discussion but to transfer the user view of a very good desktop environment like Cinnamon and .... We are not talking about compiz anymore.
2. As a Cinnamon user, is at least strange when you select some of the spices available in the system and suddenly you get a warning message that the selected one is not updated or can cinnamon crashes. This give me the impression that some corners of Cinnamon are still under development, even if you install the last version of cinnamon ... and this might be so far OK, since the system is an environment under a continuous development.
3. After your explanation however, I realized that those accessories in Cinnamon Spices might be in a grey zone. Despite I guess, that the core team should make available the proper programing tools to make it possible to program such spices easily and your "approach" over the status of them.
4. I see also, the only way as a user to influence the list of applets, desklets and extensions is to use the score system available. Even though the high score of some of these, the performance might be not improved, regarding the last cinnamon version. I think these situation offer a space for improvements or?
5. My final words is to invite all users to take a time to look into the Cinnamon Spices( https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/themes) and to score those applets, desklets and extension of your choice.
6. My favorite ones not updated "extensions" are: "desktop Cube" and "Wobbly Windows" ... my glittery effects wishes.
Thank you to all the LM Team.

[clem]

They both seem to work (desktop cube and wobbly windows) with Cinnamon 4.8. They're both ugly and slow here though on this machine (intel GPU) but they don't make Cinnamon crash or fail to load.

[juan_lutz]

They both seem to work (desktop cube and wobbly windows) with Cinnamon 4.8. They're both ugly and slow here though on this machine (intel GPU) but they don't make Cinnamon crash or fail to load.

Thank you so much for your feedback Clem.
I will tests all this stuff after the installation of LM 20.1
So in the meanwhile all the best for you, your family and all the LM team for the next festivities.
Keep healthy and safe.

[clem]

Thank you, to you too Juan

[pirxter]

I always loved the compiz effects on Gnome, they never crashed even once, and I really hoped to get them to work on my brand new, fast as a missile Star LabTop MKIV. Some advance eye candy can do a lot for the market share of Linux.

[Qurcus]

Wobbly Windows was just updated for Cinnamon. It works pretty good. It is leaving a bit of a trail on the desktop but the extension is getting better. The Cube was also updated 3 days ago but I haven't been able to get it to work.

https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/

[Klom Dark]

Have both Wobbly Windows and Desktop Cube running great on Mint 20.04 on an HP laptop with a Radeon HD 8610G GPU.

Had to add "CLUTTER_PAINT=continuous-redraw" to /etc/environment and reboot to get Wobbly Windows to work right and not leave artifacts all over the screen.

Very cool, feel like I'm running Linux in the old days.

I know it's silly, but this is fun!