# Cinnamon

Related articles

- Nemo
- GNOME
- MATE
- Desktop environment
- Display manager

Cinnamon is a desktop environment which combines a traditional desktop layout with modern graphical effects. The underlying technology was forked from the GNOME desktop. As of version 2.0, Cinnamon is a complete desktop environment and not merely a frontend for GNOME like GNOME Shell and Unity.

## Installation

Cinnamon can be installed with the package cinnamon.

## Starting Cinnamon

### Graphical log-in

Choose Cinnamon or Cinnamon (Software Rendering) from the menu in a display manager of choice. Cinnamon is the 3D accelerated version, which should normally be used. If you experience problems with your video driver (e.g. artifacts or crashing), try the Cinnamon (Software Rendering) session, which disables 3D acceleration.

### Starting Cinnamon manually

If you prefer to start Cinnamon manually from the console, add the following line to Xinitrc:

    ~/.xinitrc

     exec cinnamon-session

If the Cinnamon (Software Rendering) session is required, use `cinnamon-session-cinnamon2d` instead of `cinnamon-session`.

### Restarting Cinnamon

From a command line, execute the following line:

    $ nohup cinnamon --replace > /dev/null 2>&1 &

## Configuration

Cinnamon is quite easy to configure — most common settings can be configured graphically. Its usability can be expanded with applets and extensions, and also it supports theming.

### Cinnamon settings

cinnamon-settings launches a settings module specified on the command line. Without (correct) arguments, it launches System Settings. For example, to start the panel settings:

    $ cinnamon-settings panel

To list all available modules:

    $ pacman -Ql cinnamon | awk -F'[_.]' '/cs_.+\.py/ {print $2}'

Printers
  For configure printers, install the system-config-printer package.
Networking
  To add support for the networking module, enable Network Manager. In order for NetworkManager to store Wi-Fi passwords, you will need to also install GNOME Keyring.
Bluetooth
  For Bluetooth device support, install the blueberry package.

### Applets and extensions

While an applet is an addition to the Cinnamon panel, an extension can fully change the Cinnamon experience. They can be installed from the AUR, (package search), or from inside Cinnamon (Get more online):

    $ cinnamon-settings applets
    $ cinnamon-settings extensions

Alternatively, install manually from Cinnamon spices.

Note: If applets do not appear, restart Cinnamon with `r` in the `Alt+F2` dialog box.

### Pressing power buttons suspend the system

This is the default behaviour. To change the setting open the `cinnamon-settings` panel and click on the "Power Management" option. Change the "When the power button is pressed" option to your desired behaviour.

### Manage languages used in Cinnamon

Note: The language module was removed from the Cinnamon Control Panel with the release of Cinnamon 2.2. [1]

- To add/remove languages: see Locale.
- To change between enabled languages: install the mintlocaleAUR package.
- To change the keyboard layout: navigate to System Settings > Hardware > Keyboard > Layouts.

## Tips and tricks

### Creating custom applets

The official tutorial on creating a Cinnamon applet can be found here.

### Default desktop background wallpaper path

When you add a wallpaper from a custom path in Cinnamon Settings, Cinnamon copies it to `~/.cinnamon/backgrounds`. Thus, with every change of your wallpaper you would have to add your updated wallpaper again from the settings menu or copy / symlink it manually to `~/.cinnamon/backgrounds`.

### Show home, filesystem desktop icons

By default Cinnamon starts with desktop icons enabled but with no desktop icons on screen. To show desktop icons for the home folder, the filesystem, the trash, mounted volumes and network servers open Cinnamon settings and click on desktop. Enable the checkboxes of the icons you want to see on screen.

### Menu editor

The Menu applet supports launching custom commands. Right click on the applet, click on Configure... and then Open the menu editor. Select a sub-menu (or create a new one) and select New Item. Set Name, Command and Comment. Check the launch in terminal checkbox if needed. Leave unchecked for graphical applications. Click OK and close the menu editor afterwards. The launcher is added to the menu.

### Workspaces

A workspace pager can be added to the panel. Right click the panel and choose the option Add applets to the panel. Add the Workspace switch applet to the panel. To change its position right click on the panel and change the Panel edit mode on/off switch to on. Click and drag the switcher to the desired position and turn the panel edit mode off when finished.

By default there are 2 workspaces. To add more, hit `Control+Alt+Up` to show all workspaces. Then click on the plus sign button on the right of the screen to add more workspaces.

Alternatively, you can choose the number by command-line:

    $ gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4

Replacing 4 with the number of workspaces you want.

### Hide desktop icons

The desktop icons rendering feature is enabled in nemo by default. To disable this feature, change the setting with the following command:

    $ gsettings set org.nemo.desktop show-desktop-icons false

### Themes and icons

Linux Mint styled themes and icons can be installed with the mint-x-themeAUR and mint-x-iconsAUR packages. The themes can be edited in `Settings → Themes → Other settings`.

Official Linux Mint Cinnamon themes can be installed using the mint-cinnamon-themesAUR package.

### Sound events

Cinnamon does not come with sounds used for events like the startup of the desktop that are also used in Linux Mint by default. These sound effects can be installed with the cinnamon-sound-effectsAUR and mint-soundsAUR packages. The sound events can be edited in `Settings → Sound → Sound Effects`.

### Resize windows by mouse

To resize windows with `Alt+Right click`, use `gsettings`:

    gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences resize-with-right-button true

### Portable keybindings

To export your keyboard shortcut keys, you should do:

    dconf dump /org/cinnamon/desktop/keybindings/ >keybindings-backup.dconf

To later import it (for example) on another computer, do:

    dconf load /org/cinnamon/desktop/keybindings/ <keybindings-backup.dconf

### Screenshot

As explained in Taking a screenshot, installing gnome-screenshot will add this functionality. The default shortcut key is `Prt Sc` key. This binding ca be changed in the applet Menu > Preferences > Keyboard under Shortcuts > System > Screenshots and Recording. The default save directory is `$HOME/Pictures`, but can be customized with eg.

    $ gsettings set org.gnome.gnome-screenshot auto-save-directory file:///home/USER/some_path

## Troubleshooting

### cinnamon-settings: No module named Image

If cinnamon-settings does not start with the message that it cannot find a certain module, e.g. the Image module, it is likely that it uses outdated compiled files which refer to no longer existing file locations. In this case remove all `*.pyc` files in `/usr/lib/cinnamon-settings` and its sub-folders. See the upstream bug report.

### Video tearing

Because muffin is based upon mutter, video tearing fixes for GNOME should also work in Cinnamon. See GNOME/Troubleshooting#Tear-free video with Intel HD Graphics for more information.

### Disable the NetworkManager applet

Even if you do not use NetworkManager and remove the Network Manager applet from the default panel, Cinnamon will still load nm-applet and display it in the system tray. You cannot uninstall the package, because it is required by cinnamon and cinnamon-control-center, but you can still easily disable it. To do so copy the autostart file from `/etc/xdg/autostart/nm-applet.desktop` to `~/.config/autostart/nm-applet.desktop`. Open it with your favorite text editor and add at the end `X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false`.

Alternatively you can disable it is by creating the following symlink:

    $ ln -s /bin/true /usr/local/bin/nm-applet

The ability to blacklist particular icons from the system tray (such as the nm-applet icon) has been requested upstream.

Category:

- Desktop environments