Recently Linux Mint’s developer team released Cinnamon for Linux Mint 13 which is the new desktop environment, it follows the layout of traditional desktops. If you want to try out Cinnamon but you don’t have Linux Mint installed on your system and you are using Ubuntu instead, then you can use the method given below to install it on your Ubuntu machine.

Cinnamon is available in a PPA (personal package archive) for Ubuntu. First of all open the terminal and run the following command:

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:merlwiz79/cinnamon-ppa

 

Press Enter when it prompts you. After that update the available packages list by running the command given below:

 sudo apt-get update

Now you can install Cinnamon with this command:

 sudo apt-get install cinnamon cinnamon-session cinnamon-settings

Press Y and Enter when it prompts you.

If you are not using Ubuntu then you can go to Cinnamon’s official page to find instructions on how to install cinnamon on your distribution.

Starting Cinnamon

Installing Cinnamon will not replace your default Ubuntu desktop environment. It will just add an option of Cinnamon at your login screen. To enable Cinnamon log out from your current session and from the login screen select Cinnamon and log back in.

What you see now is Cinnamon. Start playing with it and check out its features.

set Cinnamon as the default desktop environment

If autologin is enabled in your system then every time the system gets rebooted it will come up with unity by default, then you will have to logout each time you want to switch back to Cinnamon. It will be better to make Cinnamon your default desktop environment, here’s how to do that.

 sudo /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-set-defaults -s cinnamon

Removing global menu of Ubuntu

You will see Ubuntu’s global menu bar is still there (at the top of the screen). If you want to remove it then run the command given below, log out and log back in:

 sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt

If you want to get it back then use the same command by replacing “remove” with “install”

sudo apt-get install appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt