Linux Mint 20.2 Released With Cinnamon 5.0 Desktop

[tornado99]

One thing that doesn't use any extra RAM is a decent colour scheme. The current one for Linux Mint looks absolutely awful. Virtually all black with a weird green highlight. Even in the screeshot shown you can see some buttons blending into the menu, and the terminal icon is basically invisible.

If they can't get really basic things like that right, why would I even bother using Mint?

[scottishduck]

Cinnamon uses roughly the same amount of ram as XFCE and is much faster than Gnome 3 so its not clear why you recommend Gnome 3 over it when you claim Cinnamon is too slow.

Are you still running an ancient system with a SMR hard drive?

Cinnamon runs fast even on 10+ year old systems, as long as you have a SSD. And you can get a SSD for under $20.

Looking similar to Windows 95-10, with its 80%+ marketshare, is a feature. If you want a Mac buy one instead of using Gnome 3, which is just trying to clone it, eg Launchpad, etc.

And not trying to clone macOS isn't being stagnate. Gnome designers apparently feel like they are stagnating if they aren't actively breaking things with every release.

Saying GNOME is like MacOS would imply GNOME is nice to use as opposed to the reality of its tablet focused, anti-multitasking hell.

[calc]

Cinnamon seems to have seriously stagnated which is a shame.

boring desktop, slow like hell, looks like windows xp, much better to use xfce or gnome with dash to panel

Cinnamon uses roughly the same amount of ram as XFCE and is much faster than Gnome 3 so its not clear why you recommend Gnome 3 over it when you claim Cinnamon is too slow.

Are you still running an ancient system with a SMR hard drive?

Cinnamon runs fast even on 10+ year old systems, as long as you have a SSD. And you can get a SSD for under $20.

Looking similar to Windows 95-10, with its 80%+ marketshare, is a feature. If you want a Mac buy one instead of using Gnome 3, which is just trying to clone it, eg Launchpad, etc.

And not trying to clone macOS isn't being stagnate. Gnome designers apparently feel like they are stagnating if they aren't actively breaking things with every release.

[eydee]

boring desktop, slow like hell, looks like windows xp, much better to use xfce or gnome with dash to panel

The major difference is that xfce (and MATE) has unremovable screen tearing, while Cinnamon doesn't.

[furtadopires]

Are they still in denial with Wayland?

[david-nk]

Has it? Or is it polishing its desktop instead of finding new paradigms? Which makes it the most robust and boring desktop at the same time.

The UI is great and doesn't really need much additional changes. The problem is more under the hood. They forked from GNOME many years ago and now GNOME keeps getting a steady stream of commits that do not make it into Cinnamon. That includes important components like the window manager. Mutter keeps getting improvements for Wayland support, multi-monitor fixes, performance/smoothness fixes etc. while the forked Muffin does not. It might have been better to develop Cinnamon as a set of new components and patch sets built on top of upstream GNOME even if that brings its own set of challenges.

[perpetually high]

boring desktop, slow like hell, looks like windows xp, much better to use xfce or gnome with dash to panel

Exactly this.

Hate to break it to you MATE/GNOME2 zealots who just can't give it up (but again, do you), but the latest GNOME 3 is the best desktop environment out, for me. But I think for a bunch of others too, seeing as it is the default desktop. Sure, it needs customizations, but that's Linux. Do better. And yes, I know my setup looks like Windows. I like it. It's very useful and I have more desktop space.

[jageorge72]

boring desktop, slow like hell, looks like windows xp, much better to use xfce or gnome with dash to panel

I'm just an average user..... and I absolutely love it. I use it for e-mail, internet, video, pictures, documents, music, investments, banking, etc.... I went from Windows, to Mac, then to Linux.... settling on Mint after looking at a few, and couldn't be happier. Super clean and easy. I notice zero speed issues doing what I do.

[andre30correia]

It's the best desktop environment for Linux, but has the least developers. That's a discrepancy that ideally should change.

boring desktop, slow like hell, looks like windows xp, much better to use xfce or gnome with dash to panel

[guspitts]

Cinnamon seems to have seriously stagnated which is a shame.

Has it? Or is it polishing its desktop instead of finding new paradigms? Which makes it the most robust and boring desktop at the same time.

Although I don't use Cinnamon anymore, every time I look at it I feel they really spend their time refining their apps and experience, rather than reinventing the desktop.