Linux Mint 14 Cinammon review

7/30/2019 Linux Mint 14 Cinammon review

1/8

Perhaps the most well-known and/or notorious derivative of Ubuntu: Linux Mint, has released its

fourteenth version, codenamed: Nadia.

Priding itself on being for newbies and being a power user, Linux Mint is not among my favourite

Linux distributions. Nevertheless, Ive downloaded the latest version, with their Cinnamon desktop, to

give it an in-depth review.

First Impressions

Upon first login youre greeted in familiar Linux Mint style: a single panel along the bottom -with a

plethora of menus, buttons and indicators- and the usual desktop icons atop a minty wallpaper.

Out-of-the-Box

Unlike Ubuntu, Mint comes preloaded with a wealth of pre-installed software. This includes

applications likeGIMP&GThumbfor graphics,Pidgininstead

ofEmpathy, andBanshee,MPlayer&VLCfor audio and video playback.

In addition to all of this, Mint provides its own set of minty tools, which include a custom update

manager & software centre.

Mint also includes proprietary software like Adobe Flash andJava, and multimedia codecs, so you can

play all your music and video and browser the web with ease.

Personally, I think the Mint team could slim down the amount of pre-installed applications as there are

duplications (and triplication in the case of VLC, MPlayer and Totem) of function, which seems

unnecessary.
https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gimp/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gimp/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gimp/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gthumb/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gthumb/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gthumb/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/pidginhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/pidginhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/pidginhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/empathyhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/empathyhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/empathyhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/bansheehttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/bansheehttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/bansheehttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/mplayerhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/mplayerhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/mplayerhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/vlchttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/vlchttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/vlchttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/openjdk-7-jre/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/openjdk-7-jre/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/openjdk-7-jre/http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/01-first-impression.jpghttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/openjdk-7-jre/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/vlchttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/mplayerhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/bansheehttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/empathyhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/pidginhttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gthumb/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/gimp/


2/8

Cinnamon

Cinnamon being a complete fork of Gnome Shell, has a similar experience, but it provides a more

traditional desktop metaphor of a panel with menus.

Look & Feel

The default colour scheme in Mint relies heavily on pale greens and dark & light greys, which is garish at

times (particularly in the file browser). Mints application theme appears to be a variation on

elementarys with a hybrid of green andFaenzaicons throughout.

Something that bugs me deeply is the blurriness of the panel icons and menus -could definitely use

some polish.

Mint Menu

The Cinnamon menu is more akin to a typical application menu than

say the Unity Dash or the GNOME Shell overview; it provides users

access to all installed applications, places and recent files, either

through the menu or via the search box.

It also has a rudimentary dock built in for your favourite

applications & places, as well as to house the session buttons.

The menu itself doesnt seem to be extensible nor does it provide

results from online sources (like Amazon).

Nemo

Nadia comes with the Mint developers fork of the Nautilus file manager -Nemo-installed by default.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/faenza-icon-set-updates-adds-new-app-iconshttp://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/faenza-icon-set-updates-adds-new-app-iconshttp://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/faenza-icon-set-updates-adds-new-app-iconshttp://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/02-mint-menu.jpghttp://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/10/faenza-icon-set-updates-adds-new-app-icons


3/8

Nemo returns some of the features that the Gnome developers were removing from Nautilus; bringing

back features and configurability to the toolbar, like addtion of removeable Home, Computer,

Refresh and Up buttons

Nemo also retains the compact folder layout that has been removed from the Nautilus 3.6 series.

Cinnamon Panel

The slim panel along the bottom hosts a variety of applets, from left to right: the menu, a Show

desktop button, a favourite applications launcher, the window list, the panel settings button, the usual

system indicators and a window switcher

However my favourite of these is a recent notifications indicator, which stores what on-screen popups

you may or may not have missed -something Id personally like to see in Ubuntu.
http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mintpanel.jpghttp://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/11-nemo-home.jpg


4/8

Unlike Gnome Shell and Unity, Cinnamons panel is heavily configurable by default, allowing users to

configure its size, placement and items on the panel.

Hot Corner

Cinnamon comes with support for one hot corner which is configured to the top left and triggers the

workspace overview, which is nifty.
http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/06-cinnamon-settings-panel.jpghttp://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/03-mint-notifications.jpg


5/8

Extensibility

Cinnamon, like Gnome Shell, can be enhanced via what Mint calls Spices. Users can download these

spices in the form of applets for the panel as well as themes and extensions for Cinnamon itself -

accessed either directlyonlineor through the settings manager.
http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/04-cinnamon-settings-main.jpghttp://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/21-workspace-hotcorner.jpghttp://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/


6/8

Performance

Throughout my whole experience using Linux Mint 14 for this review, I was surprised at how quick

Cinnamon was, even in a live boot environment. Applications (the notoriously slow aside) opened

promptly and window and workspace management was a breeze.

Cinnamon does have a 2D variation for lower spec machines, but as afar as I could tell it was

simply normalCinnamon with the desktop effects disabled, which one can do through the Cinnamon

settings.

Configurability

Being partially Gnome, Mint suffers from having two separate settings panels; the Gnome Control

Panel exists in tandem with the Cinnamon settings. While it is lovely to see the level configure-ability of

Cinnamon, it would be nicer if the two were concatenated somehow.

Software Management

Installing Applications

Despite being a spin-off of Ubuntu, Mint does not use the Ubuntu Software Centre, instead it providesits own in-built software tool, dubbed Software Manager.
http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/22-system-settings-cinnamon-settings.jpg


7/8

While it bears some similarities to the Ubuntu Software Centre, such as applications categories, starratings and user-based reviews, it excels in performance launching much quicker than the USC

Mint includes theSynaptic Package Manager, for more direct package management.

Updating Software in Mint

Mints views updates more conservatively than most; it ranks the importance of an update numerically

and by colour.
https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/synaptic/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/synaptic/https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/synaptic/http://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/23-mint-update.jpghttp://cloudfront.omgubuntu.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/18-software-manager3.jpghttps://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/synaptic/


8/8

The Update Manager presents all the info to the user, which -for a distro aimed at Linux newcomers-

is arguably overwhelming. Having said that it is quite robust and its features are better suited for

power users.

In SummationIts true that working well out-of-the-box is great for inexperienced users, but presenting them with

an over-abundance of apps isnt entirely the way to do it.

Cinnamon is maturing as a desktop environment but it is still rough around the edges; Ill give it some

pluses for configurability, but it needs some work in improving its user-friendliness.

For power-users, the inclusion of more advanced system and package management tools, the features

of the minty tools and the overall configurability of the system may be to their liking .

Performance-wise, I was surprised; I run Ubuntu with Unity and Linux Mint with Cinnamon

was noticeably faster and more responsive.

While I try not to hold it against Mint for being partially responsible for the fragmentation of desktop

Linux, it is a solid distribution if youre looking for alternatives.

Download Linux Mint 14 Nadia

The default edition comes with either the Cinnamon (Gnome Shell fork) desktop or the MATE (a Gnome

2 fork) desktop. Both are offered for download with or without multimedia codecs included.

Usually, some times after the official release, community editions that have KDE and XFCE by default

and a Debian-based version become available.

Documents

Linux Mint 14 Cinammon review