How To Install Cinnamon Desktop on Ubuntu 24.04

Cinnamon is an open source desktop environment developed by Linux Mint team for Linux and other Unix operating systems. It is released under the open source license terms and is free to use for everyone. The project began as a fork of GNOME 3 after it changed its course in the design principles and it is now an independent desktop environment that doesn’t depend on any Gnome components. The initial release of Cinnamon without components of Gnome was done in October 2013, this was version 2.0. At the time of updating this post, the latest release of Cinnamon Desktop Environment is version 6.

Cinnamon aims to maintain the traditional desktop user experience while providing advanced innovative features to its users. For many, the design might look conservative but it guarantees stability and reliability for daily use. In Linux Mint, Cinnamon is configured as the default desktop environment, but you will have to install it manually and enable it as default on Ubuntu Linux system.

Before we can do the installation of Cinnamon Desktop on Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat), let’s first update Ubuntu system repositories.

$ sudo apt update
Get:1 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble InRelease [255 kB]
Get:2 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates InRelease [89.7 kB]
Hit:3 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports InRelease
Get:4 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/main amd64 Packages [1,410 kB]
Hit:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security InRelease
Get:6 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/main Translation-en [512 kB]
Get:7 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe amd64 Packages [15.2 MB]
Get:8 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe Translation-en [6,050 kB]
Get:9 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/multiverse amd64 Packages [241 kB]
Get:10 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/multiverse Translation-en [115 kB]
Fetched 23.8 MB in 11s (2,133 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done

If you are sure no application dependencies will be broken, consider performing a system upgrade.

sudo apt upgrade -y

Depending on upgraded packages, a reboot could be required.

[ -e /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot

To install Cinnamon desktop on Ubuntu from default OS repositories run the commands below.

sudo apt install task-cinnamon-desktop

The following commands will give similar results.

sudo apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment

Accept installation by hitting the y key in your keyboard.

0 upgraded, 620 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 715 MB of archives.
After this operation, 2,272 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

After the installation, reboot your system

sudo shutdown -r now

While on the login screen, click on the gear icon in the lower-right corner.

Select Cinnamon from the list to use the desktop environment.

Provide the login username and password to proceed into newly install Cinnamon Desktop Environment.

The same gear icon available in the login screen can be used to switch back to a separate Desktop Environment. But remember you will be required to logout of the current session or reboot the OS. Enjoy your daily Ubuntu Desktop usage with Cinnamon Desktop Environment and also consult the official Cinnamon documentation website for more setup details and to get software release updates.