After a year of development, the Linux Mint community has announced the release of the desktop environment Cinnamon 6.6. Cinnamon is a fork of the GNOME Shell, Nautilus file manager, and Mutter window manager, designed to provide a classic GNOME 2 style environment with elements from the GNOME Shell. It is based on GNOME components but is shipped as a periodically synchronized fork with no external dependencies on GNOME. The new release of Cinnamon will be included in the upcoming Linux Mint 22.3 distribution, set to be released in the second half of December.
Main News:
- The menu applications in Cinnamon 6.6 have been redesigned with a sidebar that includes the user’s avatar, favorite directories, and frequently used applications. Tooltips with program descriptions now appear when hovering over application names. Bookmarks and favorite directories are displayed separately, and menu navigation using the keyboard has been simplified. The list of program categories is designed more compactly with symbolic icons to highlight categories. System buttons have been moved to the top right corner, and new settings have been added to customize their placement. Settings for hiding menu items have been added to the configurator, allowing users to customize the contents of the sidebar and hide specific elements.
- The “System Reports” utility has been expanded and renamed to the “System Information” application in Cinnamon 6.6. The application now includes new sections with detailed information about connected USB devices, PCI components, GPU, and BIOS. Users can access general system information, send problem reports, and view information about firmware, motherboard, and boot modes.
/Reports, release notes, official announcements.