Overview

Cinnamon is a desktop environment developed by the Linux Mint team that provides a modern yet traditional desktop experience. It was forked from GNOME 3 in 2011 after the GNOME team adopted a new interface paradigm. Cinnamon focuses on providing a familiar, polished experience with a bottom panel, application menu, and system tray that feels immediately comfortable to users migrating from Windows or older desktops.

Key Features

• Traditional Layout: Bottom panel with application menu, window list, system tray, and desklets — familiar and intuitive for users coming from Windows.
• Extensible via Spices: A rich ecosystem of applets, desklets, extensions, and themes downloadable from the Spices website (cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com).
• Exposé-Style Overview: Scale and Expo overview modes for managing windows and workspaces with smooth animations.
• Nemo File Manager: A powerful file manager with built-in file system browsing, split-pane view, bulk rename, and extensive right-click actions.

Platforms

Linux, BSD, other Unix-like systems

Latest Stable Version

6.6.8 (April 14, 2026)

Licence

GPL-2.0

Website

projects.linuxmint.com/cinnamon

Parent Organisation

Linux Mint team