Fedora Proposal To Use Cinnamon Desktop By Default

A new Fedora 19 feature proposal has surfaced, which is rather interesting but sure to spark controversy: replace the default GNOME Shell desktop with Cinnamon.

Published on Thursday was this proposal for Fedora 19: "This feature proposes that Fedora switch the default desktop interface from Gnome 3 to Cinnamon. Cinnamon provides a desktop interface that is more familiar to Windows and Gnome 2 users than the standard Gnome Shell interface, while being built from Gnome 3 components."

The feature specification goes on to add:

The Gnome 3 interface is substantially different that the traditional desktop interfaces on both Linux and Windows. While it is good that there is research into new user interface concepts, many users prefer to have a traditional interface that they are accustomed to. Unfortunately it is difficult or impossible to assess what fraction of the user base prefers Gnome Shell vs. a more traditional interface. I'm not trying to start (or continue) a flame war here, so I won't state any of my own criticisms of Gnome Shell here, but I will observe that a number of very high profile people in the Linux community, such as Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, have publicly announce that due to problems with Gnome Shell they are switching to a different desktop and/or Linux distribution.

I submit the proposition that it is easier for a user doing a new Fedora install to start with a traditional desktop, and switch to the Gnome Shell if they prefer that, than to start with Gnome Shell and switch to a traditional desktop.

The Cinnamon desktop provides a traditional desktop while being based on the latest Gnome and GTK components, so it seems like a better candidate for a default desktop than MATE, which is based on older components.

Cinnamon became an option in Fedora 17 but not as the default desktop of the Red Hat sponsored distribution. For further details, see Fedora Clarifies Stance On Forks Like Cinnamon, Mate.

While the Fedora Engineering & Steering Committee has yet to vote on this feature proposal, I'm willing to bet this feature will be shot down and in this next Fedora release will be the GNOME 3.8 Shell as the default desktop environment. The feature proposal can be found on the Fedora Project Wiki.

For other Fedora 19 features, see this article.