Asrevealed last month, Linux Mint is working on an improved default theme for the Cinnamon desktop – and today we got our first look at what’s coming.
The way Cinnamon looks in Linux Mint (the distribution) is not the way it looks if you install the Cinnamon desktop yourself on a different distro. There, assuming a theme pack is isn’t pulled in as a dependency, you’ll see the default built-in Cinnamon theme.
And it’s that built-in theme that Linux Mint is currently improving.
Mint says “the new default theme [is] much darker and contrasted than before. Objects are rounded and a gap was introduced between the applets and the panel.”
Dialogs and prompts sport a new design with separate buttons that has a passing similarity to the look of dialogs and buttons in GNOME 47 (included in Ubuntu 24.10).
There are also new Clutter-based ‘app is not responding’ dialogs, having previously been fashioned in GTK, and a “more modern and much cleaner” look to OSDs (e.g., volume, brightness, workspaces).
Other things planned, but not yet ready for a show-and-tell, including redesigned notifications, session dialogs, animations, the main menu applet, and a new status applet.
Revolutionary isn’t the aim, but based on jus a handful of screenshots I kinda find myself preferring this revamped stock theme to the one Linux Mint uses in its own distribution – just me?
If you use Linux Mint you will be able to use the improved default as it will be part of the Cinnamon desktop that (assuming no gremlins emerge as this effort continues) will be present in the December’s Linux Mint 22.1 release.