14 DAY TRIAL // The Linux Mint developers are also working on the Cinammon desktop environment, so the distribution is not their entire focus. They are now trying to make it load faster and they say they already had some success.
Cinnamon is a very popular desktop environment that features a classic design that it's easily recognizable by anyone. It's a light DE, but that doesn't mean that the loading time can't be improved and this is exactly what the devs are working on. Making the entire desktop load faster is not an easy task and they need to achieve this goal without having to compromise any of the current features and functionalities.
The Linux Mint developers are the kind of guys that usually implement something, and only after it's ready, they share it with the community. This way they don't have to work on a precise timetable and there's no pressure. From the looks of it, they have been trying various methods to make Cinnamon load faster and they now have something to show for it.
Cinnamon is light, but it doesn't load fast enough
Many of the users already have powerful processors and fast SSD drives, so the loading process is not really an issue. When you are throwing computing power at a problem, it tends to go away, but that's not really a solution. This is why the Cinnamon developers want to improve the loading time, for the people who don't have all that power at their disposal.
"A huge amount of work went into making Cinnamon load faster. Sadly, we’re only half-way there and the results aren’t conclusive yet. On one of our test machines Cinnamon is able to load in less than a second in normal conditions, but can take up to 12 seconds to load the very first time the computer is turned on," wrote Clement Lefebvre.
They found the culprits for the delays that were registered, cinnamon-menus and cinnamon-desktop, and with optimization that average loading time has been reduced from 12 seconds to 7. They don't feel that this is enough and they want to do better, so that means we'll keep an eye on the Cinnamon updates and we'll let you know as soon as more improvements are implemented.