How to customize our desktop in Cinnamon

Lately we have dedicated several articles to the Ubuntu customization. We recently wrote an article on how to change Ubuntu system sounds, so you can take a look. Even so this time we want to return to the graphic realm.

Now that Linux Mint 18 is now available, we want to show you how we can customize Cinnamon desktop, changing their themes and editing it through a series of changes that may interest you, such as resizing the icons, changing the fonts ...

One of the aspects that most attract users when it comes to customizing the desktop, is changing the cursor, icon and window themes. If you already have some experience in GNU / Linux and you like to customize your desktop, you probably already know how to do this. Still, just in case, we want to show you in this article.

Changing the theme of the windows

To change the theme of the windows, we have to go to System configuration and then to Themes. As you can see, there are a number of pretty beautiful themes already installed in Cinnamon, but surely our intention is to install the themes that we have downloaded over the internet, for example from Cinnamon Spices.

Once we have downloaded the theme that we like the most (in tar.gz, tar.bz ... format), we have to proceed to unzip it. Then, we have to move the unzipped folder to the directory /usr/share/.themes. How will you see the directory .themes it is hidden so if we do this graphically, we will have to press Ctrl + H to be able to view it.

Once we have moved the folder to the mentioned directory, the theme will be ready to be applied. Since System Settings -> Themes we can now choose the theme that we just installed, in the taba Other Options, as we see in the following image:

Changing the theme of icons and cursor

The procedure to change the theme of the icons and the cursor is practically the same as that mentioned in the previous section, only now we will have to move the theme folder in the directory / usr / share / icons.

Once again, from System Settings -> Themes We can also change the theme of both the icons and the cursor. A good place to download themes can be Gnome-Look:

Adding an Application Dock

Another aspect that most attracts users is the possibility of add a Dock to the desktop Of applications. Personally, the one I like the most and the one I have used the most (beyond the GNOME Dock) is Cairo-Dock. To install it is as easy as running the following in Terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa: cairo-dock-team / ppa

sudo apt-get install cairo-dock cairo-dock-plugins

And that's it! After restarting the system you should already see the Dock on your desktop.

Resizing and organizing the icons

Something that we may be interested in changing is the size of the icons. To do this, we just have to right-click on the icon and click on Resize Icon we can give you the size we want.

In addition, we can also organize icons, keeping them aligned or organizing them by name, from the options that we will see when we right-click on an empty point on the desktop.

Changing the font of desktop icons

It may also be that according to your taste, you don't like the font that comes by default in the desktop icons, or that you simply want to change it. This procedure will only change the font for the desktop icons, and not for the entire system.

To do this, we recommend that you install the dconf-tools package with:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

And then it is enough that we execute dconf-tools in the terminal to open that application. Then we have to go to Editor -> Org -> Nemo -> Desktop -> Font, and then we choose the font we want and its size.

Install Desklets (Widgets)

Another aspect to highlight when customizing our desktop is the possibility of adding small applications that provide us with information of some kind, or other useful functionality. These applications are called Desklets or Widgets, and in Cinnamon we can also add.

We just have to go to Cinnamon Configuration and then Get more on the net to find the ones we like the most.

We can also download them from pages like Cinnamon Spices and follow a similar procedure to the one we have mentioned to install themes. That is, it is enough that we copy the unzipped folder in one of the following two directories:

/ usr / share / cinnamon / desklets / if we want the changes to be made throughout the system.
/home/user/.local/share/cinnamon/desklets/ if we want the changes to affect only the current user.

As we have seen, there are many ways to customize our desktop, in this case Cinnamon. And surely we are leaving many more possibilities. What do you say, did you like the article? How do you personalize your desktop? Until next time 🙂

Fuente: <a href="http://hatteras-blog.blogspot.com.es/2014/04/editar-el-escritorio-de-cinnamon.html">Blog de apuntes de Hatteras</a>

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