Cinnamon 1.2: The New Linux Desktop Is Now Officially Stable - arndtthemen

Late last month the Linux Mint developers announced that they were working on a post-red-hot background environment designed to bid an alternative to the controversial GNOME 3, and on Monday they officially discharged the first stable version of the software.

Born as a branch out of the Dwarf 3 vanquis, Ceylon cinnamon tree 1.2 is now available American Samoa a free download from the project's site for use with Linux Mint 12, Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, OpenSUSE 12.1, Patronising Linux, and Gentoo.

All Genus Apis and the screen background itself are at present fully stable, known lead developer Soft Lefebvre in a blog billet on Monday.

Among the new features Cinnamon 1.2 includes are desktop effects, desktop layouts, a new configuration tool, and applets equally wellspring as a variety of bug fixes and other improvements.

Overall, many a of the changes aim to reintroduce a level of customizability that numerous desktops have forgotten in recent years, Lefebvre said. Prepare for a summing up of some of the highlights? Here goes.

1. Applets

Cinnamon 1.2 includes "applets" for the first time, and they're "belik the coolest new feature in Cinnamon bark, for both users and developers," Lefebvre wrote. Five such mini-extensions are now included in the software, Eastern Samoa shown below, and they'atomic number 75 essentially optional parts of the desktop that add content to the control panel.

2. A New Window Manager

A figure of low-level-the-hood changes move Cinnamon 1.2 even "farther away from any rather compatibility with Dwarf Shell," Lefebvre explained, and indefinite of those is Muffin, a fork of the Mutter window manager that replaces Mutter in Cinnamon 1.2. The background is besides no longer compatible with Dwarf Shell themes, he pointed out, though IT is still possible for a topic to define styles for both GNOME Casing and Cinnamon and to glucinium compatible with both.

3. Customizable Desktop Effects

Much the way Compiz and Metacity ushered in a raft of customization options, thus Cinnamomum zeylanicum 1.2 aims to reintroduce desktop personal effects and to give users the power to "define fancy animations Beaver State to turn effects Slay altogether," Lefebvre explained. Accordingly, two new aliveness plugins are included in the package, as are 30 transition styles. Users can also define the duration of each living, opening upbound a wide tramp of customization possibilities.

4. Multiple Background Layouts

Also part of the Cinnamon jut out's desire to reintroduce customization options from the past is the software's support for multiple desktop layouts, including traditional, flipped, and classical styles, varying primarily in venire placement. The "flipped" layout, with panel happening top, is shown on a lower floor.

5. 'Cinnamon Settings'

Big users an easy way to switch themes, apply desktop effects, add applets and extensions, and configure background settings is the brand-new conformation instrument called "Cinnamomum zeylanicum Settings."

6. A Spruced-Up Main Card

Cinnamon 1.2 features a main menu that has been reinforced since the desktop's early versions, with menu definitions that are now handled by the screen background itself. "If you search for something, the categories now become inactive sol you don't hover them by accident just to see your search results disappear," Lefebvre explained. Users can now also merely press "Enter" after a research to launch the first item in the seek results.

7. 'Bug Fix Galore'

Finally, since the start of the Cinnamon project, no more fewer than 130 bugs have been geosynchronous, Lefebvre far-famed, thus making version 1.2 the most robust Cinnamon yet.