Cinnamon 1.3.1 is the latest version of Cinnamon, a new desktop environment forked from GNOME 3 by the developers of Linux Mint. Given the need for a desktop other than Unity on Ubuntu, Cinnamon just might be the best GNOME 3 alternative desktop environment available.

This tutorial gives the simple steps required to install Cinnamon 1.3.1 on Ubuntu 11.10.

Cinnamon is a new desktop environment, forked from GNOME 3 by the developers of Linux Mint. It is intended as an optional desktop for those who have not taken kindly to GNOME 3 or Unity desktop environments. While it is still very rough around the edges, I find it a lot better to use than GNOME 3 and slightly better than Unity. It has nothing on KDE, though.

Cinnamon is a very recent addition to the list of desktop environments available for Linux, BSD and other UNIX-like operating systems. It was started by Clement Lefebvre and his crew at Linux Mint and it is an attempt to make the GNOME 3 desktop more user-friendly.

For those set of users, suitable alternatives are: Modify the interface with extensions, as I showed how to do here, or install Cinnamon desktop, a project from the developers of Linux Mint. Cinnamon appeals to many because it offers the familiar look and feel of the type of desktop environment they are used to.

There is Linux Mint 13 MATE, which features MATE, a desktop environment forked from GNOME 2, and Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon, which features Cinnamon, a desktop environment built atop GNOME 3. So, Linux Mint joins a growing list of Linux distributions that do not ship an edition running the GNOME 3 desktop in its default state.

This tutorial will show you how to install the Cinnamon desktop, Mint's new desktop environment to be used in Linux Mint 13, on Fedora 16 as well as on OpenSUSE 12.1. Cinnamon concentrates on holding on to classic design and functionality in times where Gnome 3 and Unity come up with different innovations to the user interface.

The Cinnamon desktop is one of those aspects that you can run on your system right now. But keep in mind that because there is no separate installation image for Cinnamon, the only way you can run it is by installing its packages from an existing installation of Fedora.

Aside from the KDE, GNOME 3, LXDE and Xfce desktop environments, users also have the option of running the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environments. The only problem, and a very minor one, is that there are no separate installation images for MATE and Cinnamon.

GNOME 3 is a perfect example, but it is not the only one. I could cite many examples from the K Desktop Environment too. Even Cinnamon, a desktop environment that was created out of dissatisfaction with the stock GNOME 3 interface, has it share of one-too-many-mouse-clickers.