Recreate Cinnamon on KDE technologies.

[MintBean]

Okay, I know this one will go down like a lead balloon- it's an easy ask but I imagine a considerable task to implement.

My reasoning is that there are some architectural issues with Cinnamon's GNOME base which are not easy fixes and these impact the performance of the desktop. Gnome is generally considered a 'heavy' desktop, whereas KDE with recent releases has become very snappy. So here's what you'd get for the effort-

-Improved performance.
-Wayland support - not a big issue now, but may become a necessity in future as xorg loses support. Plus I believe it fixes the mouse/window 'lag' Mint exhibits.
-Uses QT toolkit - okay it's another technology to learn but it's more stable than GTK and not so driven by the needs of a single product (Gnome.)
-No need to port x-apps to QT, you can keep them GTK.

The Solus project has recently taken exactly this direction and Ikey's a very smart man so I truly believe it's a good move long term.

[karlchen]

Hi, MintBean.

Cinnamon is developed for Linux Mint for sure, but not only for Linux Mint.
Would therefore your suggestion not have to be placed on the Cinnamon Github somewhere: Cinnamon?

Best regards,
Karl

[gm10]

Okay, I know this one will go down like a lead balloon- it's an easy ask but I imagine a considerable task to implement.

May I shoot it down? Nah, I'll let the Mint devs do it:

Mint's reasoning for killing off the KDE edition:

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3418

And more specifically just recently regarding a Qt-based Cinnamon specifically:

viewtopic.php?p=1506453#p1506453

[MintBean]

May I shoot it down? Nah, I'll let the Mint devs do it...

Hey, that's what the suggestions forum is for, however I don't think your first link is really relevant. The second link, well if the Mint devs are totally against it then that's a pretty good indicator that it's never going to happen. Whilst I agree with Karlchen that Cinnamon is not just a Mint thing these days, I'm sure the development is primarily driven by Mint so if it's a no-goer here then it's a no goer I strongly suspect.

As to the Gnome bashing mentioned on the other thread, that's not my angle. I believe KDE is demonstrably faster and lower on CPU usage. That's something anyone can test and confirm/deny.

[gm10]

Well, I think the first and second links go in the same direction of reasoning, that's why I gave them both. And Cinnamon is very much a Mint thing insofar as it's Mint's signature desktop and is specifically being developed for Mint. Because of that limited scope the devs have also said time and again that e.g. Wayland support is not something they will actively be working on themselves for Cinnamon because they do not need it for the Mint user base right now. Support would have to be contributed from outside sources. So what you suggest is just not going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, personally I enjoy Qt-based desktops, so I'm purely relaying to you what I've seen the Cinnamon devs state, not my personal opinion.

[rene]

Because of that limited scope the devs have also said time and again that e.g. Wayland support is not something they will actively be working on themselves for Cinnamon because they do not need it for the Mint user base right now.

... which is something I do think should be reconsidered. There really is hardly anyone left in developer circles with any kind of love for X11 and it is as soon as Wayland is considered stable and shipped by the majority of major distributions fairly likely to drop from relevance quite a bit faster than one might expect. Sure, the (major part of, the kernel part) graphic drivers are not Wayland-specific for now and, sure, GTK supporting Wayland already gets also Cinnamon most of the way there but I'm still not sure Mint should chance being left behind in legacy-land for any amount of time. Reputations are easy to get, hard to get rid of.

Personally I can by the way also safely say to have no love whatsoever for X11 left and although I'd consider myself at the moment very much non-distrohopping, I'll likely jump ship when/if Mint becomes an X11 straggler.