NOTE: For Cinnamon to work, your system must provide 3D hardware acceleration. If your system does not have 3D hardware acceleration, you will only see the “traditional” GNOME desktop.

This is a limitation of GNOME 3 (on which Cinnamon is built). According to gnome.org:

GNOME Shell uses relatively primitive 3D capabilities that have been available from essentially all computing devices made in the last four or five years.

This seems to imply that the if your video card is pre-2007, there is a good chance Cinnamon (and GNOME) will not display as expected.

What it Looks Like

The basic, straight-out-of-the-box, look of the desktop is:

Quick Instructions

If you are comfortable using a terminal entering commands then open a terminal and enter the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

Restart your system.

Detailed Instructions

If you are not comfortable opening a terminal and entering commands, or have never done so before, these step by step directions should guide you through the process:

Opening a Terminal

Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a terminal. (Detailed instructions for opening a terminal can be found here.)

You should now have something that looks like this:

Adding Software Sources

1) Enter the following line exactly in the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable

You can type it or cut and paste it.

It should look something like this when you are done:

2) Press the Enter key.

3) Enter your password (this is the password you use to log into Ubuntu) and press the Enter key:

When you are done, it will look like this:

Updating the Software Sources

1) Enter the following exactly:

sudo apt-get update

2) Press the Enter key.

3) Enter your password and press the Enter key.

Ubuntu will then spend several minutes updating your software sources. The amount of time will depend on the speed of your Internet connection.

When it is done, it should look something like this:

Installing the Cinnamon Desktop

1) Enter the following exactly:

sudo apt-get install cinnamon

2) Press the Enter key.

Some text will scroll across the screen showing exactly what is going to be installed. You will be prompted to continue with the installation:

3) Press the Enter key to proceed with installation. (You can also type y followed by Enter.) If you don’t want to install it, then press n followed by the Enter key.

Installation time will depend on your Internet connection speed (how quickly you can download the code) and computer speed (how quickly you can compile everything).

4) After installation is finished, click on the System icon in the upper right corner of the desktop and select Shut Down… from the drop down menu:

5) Click on Restart:

Selecting the Desktop

After the system has restarted, it is necessary to select the new desktop from the login screen.

1) Click the icon in the top right of the Login box:

2) Select Cinnamon:

3) Login:

The post Ubuntu 12.04 – Installing the Cinnamon Desktop appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

After a while, you start to see how similar they all are. In fact, they are just custom tailored versions of Ubuntu (which itself is a custom version of Debian). They come with a customized GUI, have their own look and feel (and pretty background picture), but ultimately rely on the Ubuntu Software Center and Software Updates to keep running. One I tried out, Elementary OS, even prompted me to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04.

Two days ago, Linux Mint, released version 12 of its OS. I thought that was a bad idea. Not because I think there is anything wrong with Linux Mint – it’s a fine distro, just like many other Linux distros.

I thought it was a bad idea because the average person isn’t interested in installing a particular Linux distribution. They are interested in installing an Operating System (OS), applications and using that combination to do work. If they already have a Linux distro installed, then then they aren’t interested in replacing it, but upgrading it.

This is why Ubuntu was nice. When a new version came along, you could upgrade to it and keep all your data and applications.

When a new Linux distro comes out, you don’t have the option of upgrading, you have to delete your old installation (along with applications and data), install the new Linux distro, reinstall all the applications you were using and, finally, restore all your data. whew! That is way too much work for the average user.

When Ubuntu 11.10 came out, a lot of people were unhappy that Unity was the default interface (sure, you can change it, I even wrote instructions for it here). It was not possible to roll back the upgrade. This has caused Ubuntu to drop in popularity and other distros (like Linux Mint) to rise in popularity. Unfortunately, if Ubuntu is your main work computer, it has YOUR apps installed, it has YOUR data, it is configured to work the way YOU like it, why in the world would you want to destroy all that just so you can install a different Linux distro? It doesn’t make sense.

A better option, and one I haven’t seen exploited, would be to provide “upgrades” from one distro to another. If you are unhappy with Ubuntu 11.10 and Unity, then why not be able to “upgrade” to Linux Mint 12?

The reason is simple, each distro reflects a different approach or philosophy. Some focus on being lean, others focus on being cutting edge, others focus on being “pure” (in the sense of no proprietary software). Being able to install a “lean” distro over one considered “bloated” would kind of negate the reason for the lean distro to exist.

It could be argued that what I’m really going on about is just installing a new Window Manager or desktop (like GNOME or KDE or LXDE or XFCE) – which is pretty much true. Most users don’t care what’s under the hood, they care about how they interact with it – the look and feel.

Is Linux Mint interested in releasing a Linux Mint Desktop package for Ubuntu? Or Elementary OS in releasing an Elementary OS Desktop for Ubuntu? Or any other Ubuntu derivative interested in releasing their desktop to run on Ubuntu? Probably not – why would they want to position themselves as nothing more than an add-on to Ubuntu? The only Ubuntu derivative desktops you can install on Ubuntu are Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, and Xubuntu (which are all official Ubuntu derivatives).

The post Why aren't there Linux Upgrades? appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.