Introducing the Fedora Cinnamon Spin

Fedora 23 features the brand new Cinnamon Desktop Spin for users craving a more traditional user interface. The Fedora 23 Cinnamon Desktop Spin features version 2.8.3 of the Cinnamon Desktop which by default features a taskbar and applications menu at the bottom of the screen, and includes many applications that are also present in Fedora Workstation such as Firefox and Terminal. In addition to the applications it shares with Fedora Workstation, the Cinnamon Desktop Spin also ships with its own versions of some applications, including the Nemo file browser. The Cinnamon Desktop Spin also prides itself on being highly configurable by default with Cinnamon Spices, allowing you to easily customize your desktop with new themes, applets, desklets, and extensions.

cinnamon

Nemo File Manager

The Fedora 23 Cinnamon Desktop spin features Nemo as the default file browser, which is based off the GNOME file browser Nautilus, but with extra features and tweaks. Nemo features a compact view of files and folders in a directory, and also has the ability to display a treeview in the left side panel.

nemo

Taskbar and Applications menu

Cinnamon, by default, also features a taskbar and applications menu at the bottom of the screen allowing you to easily browse the applications you have installed, and to view the applications you currently have open, and switch between them with the mouse.

taskbarThe panels in the Cinnamon Desktop spin are also highly customizable using controls built in to the panel. You can add new panels and move items like the taskbar, clock, and applications menu to different locations and panels. The built-in controls allow you to add new applets to the panels, and panels can also be easily resized and made to autohide.

panels

Default Applications

The Fedora 23 Cinnamon Desktop spin comes standard with a range of applications designed to get things done, including Firefox for browsing the internet, Thunderbird for email, the LibreOffice suite, Pidgin for instant messaging, and Hexchat for IRC.

Cinnamon Spices

Cinnamon also features “Spices” that allow you to customize and tweak your desktop further. Cinnamon Spices come in four forms: Themes, Applets, Desklets, and Extensions. Each of these Spices comes with an interface in Cinnamon for finding, downloading, installing, and enabling your Cinnamon Spices.

Theme Spices

Cinnamon Theme Spices allow you to easily change the look and feel of your desktop. There are hundreds of different themes that can be browsed and installed directly from the Cinnamon Desktop.

voidtheme

Applet Spices

Applets in Cinnamon are small programs that you can configure to display in your Cinnamon taskbars. There are many different applets that can be browsed and installed from inside Cinnamon to do a range of tasks, including displaying the weather, displaying hardware usage graphs, even a quick button to take a screenshot or screencast.

applets

Desklet Spices

Desklets in Cinnamon are small applications that live on the desktop, and provide quick access to information or performing simple tasks. Like all the other Spices, Cinnamon provides a GUI for searching, installing, and configuring desklets. Some examples of desklets in the Fedora Cinnamon spin include Clocks, stickynotes, and a calculator.

desklets

Extension Spices

The final type of Spice in Cinnamon is extensions. These allow you to tweak some of the underlying behaviors of the Cinnamon Desktop, like changing how Alt+Tab behavior works or enabling windows that wobble when you move them.

Get Fedora Cinnamon

Fedora 23 with Cinnamon is available for download now. For support, you can visit the #fedora-cinnamon channel on Freenode IRC or use the Users Mailing List.

Using Software

19 Comments

  1. Grant Swinger

    This is what I’m switching to. Gnome developers seem to think their users are morons who have to be protected from themselves. The continued “dumbing down” of Gnome in general and Nautilus in particular have finally driven me away. And I’ve been Gnome user since v1.0!

    When long-term users like me start heading for the exit it might be time for the Gnome developers to rethink their attitude.

    • Jeremy (mystro256)

      To each their own, but I much prefer the simplified interface of GNOME. Cinnamon is the best alternative for people who aren’t on board with this. I mean its an open community for a reason and I wouldn’t judge the user base that prefers something you don’t like.

      • Brian Falk

        I’m also giving up on Gnome. For power users like me Nautilus has been getting more and more painful to use. The current release has finally pushed me into considering alternatives and it’s either going to be KDE or Cinnamon. At work I’ve already told Red Hat that we do not want to see this on any future version of their Enterprise Desktop.

        I really can’t understand what the Gnome developers are thinking. If they’re trying to attract users who need their hands held they are wasting their time. Those people will never run Linux.

        • Samuel Sieb

          I’m a power user, developer, sysadmin, etc. I’ve been using Linux since Redhat 5 (not RHEL). When I first saw the Gnome-shell idea, I thought it looked a bit crazy and I would never use it. But I decided I might as well try it and I’ve been very happy with it. It was a little rough at first, but it’s been rapidly improving. Like any software, there’s still some small issues I would like to be different, but overall it’s pretty good. I certainly wouldn’t go back to Gnome 2. I don’t use Nautilus that much, I’m more likely to use the terminal. But for the times I do use it, I have no complaints about it.

          As for the users who need their hands held, no, they don’t install Linux. I do that for them and they are very happy with it. I even had one user ask if I could put Fedora on her macbook because she liked it (Gnome shell) better than MacOS X.

  2. Cory Hilliard

    It’s about time! 🙂

    I’m so glad someone finally got on board and did this. I was going to attempt it when I’m finished school in a year, but now I don’t have to.

    I just have two requests (for now) for those that are developing this. First is the menu icon. Why not use the fedora logo? It would be so easy to do. Secondly, how about using the awesome fedora-icon theme? It comes with the Gnome 2 blue folders as well. Much sexier than the ugly tan/brown ones that we currently have.

    Thank you to everyone who made this possible. Especially Leigh Scott (leigh123linux). Whom I don’t know personally, but I know has done a lot of work to make this possible. 🙂

    • M Leffelman

      I agree it’s about time!!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you to whomever made this possible. The Gnome was so aggravating to use on my laptop… extra mouse clicks and keyboard entries to get anything done. Downloaded and installed this spin the first day I saw it available. Very happy now!

  3. Hello, I have recorded the extended video of this Spin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNVhKhgYuy0
    Nice work, Cinnamon is very comfortable environment.

  4. Jim

    Instead of having to download and install the Cinnamon version, I simply ran sudo dnf install @cinnamon-desktop rebooted and then was able to choose the cinnamon desktop from the login screen.

  5. Joseph Rodriguez

    I have used Fedora for awhile, going back in the CORE days. I have always used Fedora on my main PC and my main laptop. But for some of my novice friends, I usually send them to one of the Ubuntu’s or forks like Linux Mint. They do not seem to understand Fedora’s install or way of doing things (They want easy replacement of XP or VISTA on older laptops.) Most of them seem to prefer Cinnamon over Gnome, Unity or KDE when they first start. So I found myself loading, or helping them load Linux Mint with Cinnamon in the end. Now that they Fedora has a nice Cinnamon spin, I just upgraded my personal laptop a fresh install of 23’s Cinnamon spin. I like it so far, so will use it as my main/daily use laptop. I will start to recommend it to friends also since it looks nice and seems to work great.

    Also for Cory, I switched out the Menu Icon with Fedora one I found on the net and it looks great. I have not tried switching the theme yet.

    • Cory Hilliard

      Yeah the fedora icon in the menu makes it feel more like the old Gnome 2 days back when computers were diesel powered. 🙂

      Here’s an installer script to make the title bar more like the old-school Gnome 2 as well. I have to update it so that the time settings work again, but it makes the title bar so much better. If you don’t like it, you can always switch it back in the settings. http://geekface.ca/downloads/settings.sh

      Run that as a user and I’m sure you’ll love it.

  6. Westerj

    Can we get a systemd free spin?

  7. Andre Gompel

    The clean, neat minimalist however not oversimplified of Gnome 2, now exist (as a fork) MATE.

    Try it with

    sudo dnf groupinstall “MATE Desktop

    To have full functionality (i.e more applets to the MATE toolbar) I had to install a dnf-plugin, forgot which one !

    The MATE file manager, is CAJA (Nautilus, enhanced) I love (just hit f3) the dual pane like old Norton Commander.

    Hopefully LxQt (a fusion between LxDe and RazorQt) , will use the same layout as MATE, with the superb (and consistent) Qt libraries framework
    I have the feeling that LxQt will be the best Linux GUI Desktop (Windows manager), at this time (Dec 2015) LxQt is still missing a few things (like fully functional Nework manager applet), for being fully usable.
    Hope there will be a LxQt version of Caja, and also gparted, yumex-dnf, etc…

    Nothing prevent you to install LxQt to try it, but it is not ready yet. (easy to do).

    Andre.

  8. Here is my opinion. Previously when GNOME 3 first launched, I thought the desktop were very limited (without knowing there were extensions to expand the capability of gnome 3) : Gnome Settings didn’t provide so much customization (even now), unable to set custom color theme, etc. Then I switched to Cinnamon as it was shipped by default in Linux Mint. Some time after, I gave the GNOME 3 another try. Then I feel how simple this was and how easy to use. Available extensions made this desktop could stand against the cinnamon. Overview mode made window switching fast and easy, Search mode in application launcher was more time saver than digging deeper inside the menus to find an application we want to launch, and GNOME Shell theme developers are pretty much there compared to cinnamon. And I stick with it for a couple of times. Weeks ago when Linux Mint 17.2 launched, I tried playing with Cinnamon again, and you know what … how clunky I was with the desktop: uninstalled it and switched to Ubuntu GNOME. Overall, if you want a pile of “customizations”, maybe GNOME 3 doesn’t suit you. But for daily works (at least for myself), it does the job; yet not perfectly.

    • Brian Falk

      We’ve been going in opposite directions. When the Gnome Shell first came out in Fedora 15 I really liked it. I thought it was a fresh but usable desktop. Unfortunately, I liked each subsequent release less and less until I finally had move to something else.

      It seems that the Gnome developers don’t know when to quit. A case in point is the application launcher. In Fedora 15 it used a menu-like system that was well organized and easy to use. Now they’ve got a system borrowed directly from the iPad. That works fine on a tablet but not on a desktop like this. You can’t just drag icons on top of each other to form groups, No, you have to go through the clunky Software application to do. It’s a pain and it’s pointless. Who knows what they’ll change it to next. The constant breakages and changes (and downright hostility from the developers) have caused all the good theme developers to give up.

      A least with Linux you have a choice. If one desktop doesn’t suit you try another!

  9. iain

    I run Fedora Mate which works brilliantly well for me. I tried Cinnamon which looks great but ran one core on my CPU at quite high rates all of the time. The culprit is a Cinnamon process. The result was that the laptop fan ran all of the time at varying speeds to keep everything cool. No other desktop does this, not even KDE. It is a pity as I would switch to this desktop. I will stay with Mate which is a great spin, thanks to everyone who worked on it. Loving Fedora BTW , converted to it in Fedora 22 and think I will be here for some time.

  10. bmoser

    I’m downloading it now, I hope it has Orca. If not, maybe in near future?

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