Add Cinnamon to the list of available desktop environments

English Open Chat
1

I would love to see the Cinnamon desktop added to opensuse as I’m not a fan of the direction that GNOME is taking. I’m sure it’s fine for a lot of people, I just like the old desktop interface.
I know GNOME can be customized as the old desktop it’s just a pain and I just don’t want to have to do it when the changes to the environment may change my customization on a update.

Thanks

2

I believe it might have been in either LEAP 42.3 or 15.0 that the Installer was changed literally at the last second (last week) before the official release and never changed back after that.
For months, I wrote about and strongly objected to this change that removed the easy flow supporting installation of Desktops other than KDE and Gnome as the first Desktop on the system.
And, the response has been silence.
No one has bothered to comment one way or another or to provide the rationale for the change.

Despite the change dropping support for easy install, it’s still possible to install any “alternative” DE including Cinnamon as your first and only DE on the system which is significant because unlike adding a DE to a system installed originally with a different DE, this is the only way to get a “pure, unpolluted” install of the DE exactly as the Maintainers recommend. Anytime the DE is not the original installed, it will be using components and possibly configurations installed by the original DE, most notably the WM.

But, it’s still possible to install Cinnamon or any DE of your choice as the first and only DE on your system even if the openSUSE installer doesn’t make it obvious!

  1. Start the openSUSE installer as usual, it can be the DVD or NET, does not make a diff.
  2. When you are prompted to add online repositories, you should accept the option… It’s currently the default as of 15.1 (and TW). Not choosing to add the online repositories limits your available choices to what can fit in a DVD… and this applies to the NET install as well. When you do a NET install, you may be using online repositories, but the online image by default appears to be a DVD image and not the expanded repository if you choose “online repositories.”
  3. When you arrive at the following screen for the System Role, click the “Generic Desktop” radio button. This installs basic X11 components supporting at least a WM, nothing more.
    http://slides.com/tonysu/opensuse#/6
  4. Continue the installation until the “Installation Settings” screen which is actually a summary of all settings.
    http://slides.com/tonysu/opensuse#/10
    You should notice that this point you have not selected a Desktop, only support for a a graphical environment and with IceWM to be installed (a default install in all openSUSE graphical installs, regardless of any other components which may be installed).
    The Headers of each category on the screen is a hyperlink which is clickable.
  5. Click on “Software” and the following screen should display by default, which is the Patterns view. If you don’t see the Patterns view, click at the top of the left column and find the Patterns view.
    http://slides.com/tonysu/opensuse#/12
    For any other DE that’s not Cinnamon, find the pattern for your Desktop, select and install it.
    But, Cinnamon is a special situation because for whatever reason its maintainers don’t create a pattern for installation, it’s instead installed with a “master package”
    In the same place at the top of the left column which should display “Patterns” click on it and select “Search…”
    Type in Cinnamon to find the package and install that, it will pull in all the dependency packages to install the Cinnamon Desktop.
  6. Continue to end of Installation.
    When your system completes the install and reboots, you’ll have Cinnamon as your only Desktop on your system!

TSU

3

IMO it’s too bad this feature of the openSUSE install was suddenly lopped off…
This is probably one of the most requested and valued feature of Users looking for a distro they can settle on,

As every other distro other than openSUSE steadily removes Desktop options from their distros (Most major distros now install only one DE on install and often don’t support an easy way to install a different DE), openSUSE stands alone on the many graphical environmental choices…

I haven’t counted recently but openSUSE supports around 7 different Desktops and around 11 different Window Managers.
You can install no graphical DE if you wish.
But Users should know that if they’re installing either very limited hardware due to old age or a SBC, you can still install just a Window Manager (openSUSE installs IceWM by default in every install) which uses almost no more resources than running no graphical environment at all.
If you have a high end system with ample resources, you can install a DE that makes full use your your GPU’s capabilities like the Wayland versions of Gnome and KDE/Plasma or Enlightenment.

More than any other distro, openSUSE supports the entire range of possibilities for all Linux supported hardware.
openSUSE should advertise this front and center as a real differentiator that sets openSUSE apart on its own today.

TSU