Cinnamon, the popular GTK desktop environment developed by the Linux Mint project, pushed out Cinnamon 6.2 today, which will serve as the default desktop for Linux Mint 22. It’s a relatively minor release, but it does contain a major new feature which is actually quite welcome: a new GTK frontend for GNOME Online Accounts, part of the XApp project. This makes it possible to use the excellent GNOME Online Accounts framework, without having to resort to a GNOME application – and will come in very handy on other GTK desktops, too, like Xfce.
The remainder of the changes consist of a slew of bugfixes, small new features, and nips and tucks here and there. Wayland support is still an in-progress effort for Cinnamon, so you’ll be stuck with X for now.
“Stuck with X……”, aka stuck with something that works!
cpcf,
In time they’ll switch over, but this is one of the things I appreciate about Linux Mint…they’ve always resisted the urge to shove things onto users just because the big players are doing it, and it’s one of the things I highly respect about them. I think it’s that very attitude that allowed them to draw lots of users from ubuntu.
Incidentally, just this week I installed Linux Mint on a computer for my brother, who isn’t technical. I really didn’t push linux on him, but he was annoyed with microsoft and wanted to give something else a try. I was very upfront that his windows software wouldn’t work, but he still wanted to give it a go so I chose Linux Mint for him. I don’t yet know how it’s going to go for him. So far all the hardware and software just worked, which gives me confidence that linux mint was a good choice for him.
Alfman
It’s the very reason I use Linux Mint for employees who want or need to switch over from MS or Apple, it just works and I don’t end up spending all day everyday fixing the basics. I hope it goes well for your brother, get him onto some of the great free everyday utilities like Boomaga and he’ll never switch back.
Have you even bothered to try Wayland in awhile? It actually works now, honestly better than X11 now. Depends on your distro though and how behind on updates they are.
colinstu,
Well, I think it’s fair to say that’s part of the problem, right? For better or worse wayland puts critical functionality into the compositor, which means that unlike X11, makes wayland responsible for more feature fragmentation. IMHO this decision did much more harm that good, especially in hindsight a common code base for shared features would have had merit. But it is what it is and since wayland devs have mostly focused on gnome it means those users have gotten a somewhat different experience than others. So now they have to work on other desktops.
Cinnamon is a DE on life support until they decide to move it to Wayland.
My guess though, is they never will, and will switch to an alternative instead when the time comes.
COSMIC is moving at a rate of knots and now has another distro on board (submitted as a new story here but didn’t get traction).
The main “pull” of cinnamon was that it was familiar for windows users. That’s no longer the case, especially windows 11 users. May still appeal to those XP holdouts though..
Adurbe,
I think “Life Support” is overstated because it conveys a sense of active urgency that doesn’t reflect X11 user experiencing relatively smooth sailing. It’s true that most development is focused on wayland X11 to eventually be replaced (even Linut Mint has a roadmap). But here’s the thing: despite legacy status, X11 doesn’t need much maintenance, it’s mature and just works for as is, sometimes better than wayland.
X11 will continue to work as it does now. Where the problem lies is finding volunteers to work on new hardware integrations. Especially once Redhat fully drop it in v10. With the Redhat (and Ubuntu) support also goes the funding. Mint have openly had to drop XApps because of lack of volunteers. Mint isn’t aimed at being a EL, it’s aimed at desktop/laptop users who won’t want to be held back
Adurbe,
Well, to be fair X11 still works fine right now and IMHO Linux Mint have been very pragmatic about the transition. Wayland is on the linux mint roadmap, there’s just no rush to do it at the cost of a negative user experience.
I understand some people want the latest and greatest now, and that’s absolutely fine, it’s the good thing about having a choice! But there are some of us who do appreciate that Linux Mint don’t subject users to this constant “this is the future and everyone must comply now” drama. For some people it really is better to step back and take it easy rather than rush. We’re not opposing change indefinitely, but waiting until it’s more mature is still sensible. All this pressure to rush things isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that can get tiresome. Cutting edge != best for everyone.
In short: different stokes for different folks 🙂
https://lemmy.ml/post/16811926?scrollToComments=true
Did this get fixed?
I want my daughter to try Mint, but I’m not going through all the trouble if this is an issue.
unix_joe,
I have never noticed this issue on my kid’s computer running LMDE, however the hardware is completely different and honestly I’ve never tried switching the monitor while the computer was asleep. That’s an interesting bug, not something most people would think to test. Now I’m curious what would happen if I tried to replicate it on my PCs. If it’s a deal breaker for you, you might be able to test it on a live thumb drive before installing.
I guess I can still install and also show her the coolness that is xscreensaver. She is on Debían/Gnome now but once her school term ends this week, I want her to try different environments.
unix_joe,
I guess I’m a bit confused. I am not trying to dismiss your concern or requirements, just trying to understand them. The commenters from your link were concerned because the bug could potentially reveal portions of the screen behind the screen saver, calling it a security issue. Is that your concern? If it is not, then I don’t quite understand why the issue you linked to needs to preclude your daughter from trying Linux Mint?
While I didn’t compare them side by side, I think the regular version of Linux Mint may be a bit more refined than LMDE.
I don’t want her to have an insecure computer. The download process takes several days here. I saw the thread a few hours into the first day`of downloading, where Mint doesn’t have a secure screen locker, and thought about aborting the process. But apparently switching to xscreensaver will resolve that issue. This weekend, I will resume the download and let her try it out.
So there is this GNU/Linux distribution called Linux Mint and according to DistroWatch is the preferred choice of many people. And the comments here are mostly about Wayland. Meh.