14 DAY TRIAL // Cinnamon developers are working to implement a new interesting option for the upcoming 2.4 release, namely background slideshows.
The Cinnamon development work is done by the same people who also make Linux Mint, so all the changes and improvements that are made for the desktop environment quickly land in the latest edition of that distribution.
The Cinnamon 2.4 version of the desktop environment has been in the works for some time and it will be a very interesting release. The devs have implemented quite a few new features that will certainly be noticed by its users.
Cinnamon 2.4 to get background slideshows
We take for granted some of the features that we see in other operating systems. "Background slideshows" is just such a feature and it's usually not high up on the developer's radar. In fact, most of the big desktop environments out there don't have this particular feature and it needs to be implemented by other means, which are usually quite complicated.
Clement Lefebvre, the leader of the Linux Mint and Cinnamon projects, has explained that, so far, only two types of background collections are supported: "Cinnamon background collections, which are XML collections provided by the OS or installed via the Software Manager (in the screenshot above we can see mint-backgrounds-qiana and mint-backgrounds-petra), and Filesystem directories, which you can add or remove via the interface."
The rest of the interface remains pretty much the same and users will be able to easily choose between a static background and a simple slideshow.
When will users get this feature?
Cinnamon 2.4 is still under development and we suspect that there is still a lot of work left to do. It will most likely ship with Linux Mint 17.1, which will be the first point release in the series. The launch date is unknown, but the developer says that users will have the option of not upgrading to 17.1, although some of the features and software, like Cinnamon 2.4, might only be present in the latest and most advanced version of the OS.
For now, users can download Linux Mint 17 and give it go as it is. As soon as the updates are online, users will be able to get them without having to re-install. Linux Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) and the new version, 17.1, will use the same base. The system has a five-year support period.