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[LUG] Debian + Cinnamon

 

I don't know if this is of any interest to anyone, but...

I've just had a new laptop fall into my hands and have been busily getting it set up for the last couple of days. I really did mean to install Debian Testing this time around, but somehow, just like always, I ended up installing Sid instead like I always do. Sure I'll be regretting that before long, but hey, at least when it breaks I'll get to keep all the bits. I like a challenge anyway.

Whilst I don't actually mind gnome-shell too much, and I tend to use the awesome DM quite a bit for it's elegant minimalism, I thought I'd try and get Cinnamon on it, which isn't in the Debian repos. As I've been packaging up my own custom stuff for a local repo anyway, I was halfway through getting my build chain in order to compile it myself when I chanced across a thread* where someone mentioned the Romeo** repo from Mint had compatible packages, although they were thought to be broken. So, I fired up a Sid VM and gave it a test - and to my surprise, it seems to work perfectly: no package collisions, no dependency hell - it just works. Excellent! So, if anyone else wants to know how, here is your answer.

Put the following in a suitable place, for example, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mint-romeo.list:

# linux mint repo for cinnamon
deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main import backport romeo upstream

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linuxmint-keyring
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install cinnamon

Obviously, log out and then choose "cinnamon" from your login greeter. I have only tested this on Sid, but presumably it *should* work on Testing, and maybe Stable as well.

Cheers


* http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=190&t=90277
** http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Debian#romeo
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