We are reaching out to the community for collaboration on an important initiative: the creation and maintenance of a Cinnamon desktop fork whose primary goal is to preserve long-term X11/Xlibre compatibility, ensure fast integration of critical fixes and new features, and provide a stable, performant desktop environment for users who rely on or prefer the X11 display server.

Background

Recent developments in major desktop environments have signaled a shift away from X11 toward Wayland. Notably, the KDE project has announced plans to drop X11 support in favor of Wayland-only builds in upcoming releases. While Wayland offers certain advantages, many users and organizations continue to rely on X11 for reasons including hardware compatibility, legacy software support, remote display protocols, and proven stability.

For users with older hardware, specialized workflows, or strict stability requirements, an abrupt transition away from X11 can be disruptive. Moreover, the XLibre project represents a promising effort to provide a modern, maintained X11 server with improved performance and security features, making it a viable foundation for the future of X11-based desktops.

The Need for a Cinnamon Fork

Cinnamon, as a desktop environment, offers a polished, traditional user interface that balances functionality, aesthetics, and resource usage. It has been a cornerstone of the AliveOS experience due to its coherence and suitability for both general and development workloads.

However, as the broader GNOME ecosystem (which underlies many of Cinnamon’s dependencies) continues to prioritize Wayland, there is a growing risk that future versions of Cinnamon will increasingly depend on Wayland-specific features, libraries, or assumptions that complicate or prevent clean operation on pure X11/Xlibre setups.

To safeguard the ability to run a modern, well-maintained Cinnamon desktop on X11/Xlibre systems, we propose establishing a dedicated fork of Cinnamon with the following goals:

  • Preserve X11/Xlibre Compatibility: Ensure that all core components, applets, applets, and applets remain functional and well-tested on X11/Xlibre without reliance on Wayland-only dependencies.
  • Fast Tracking of Fixes and Features: Rapidly integrate critical bug fixes, security patches, and meaningful new features from the upstream Cinnamon repository while filtering out changes that introduce hard Wayland dependencies or degrade X11 compatibility.
  • Community-Driven Maintenance: Leverage the collective expertise of developers, testers, and users who value X11 stability to review, test, and contribute to the fork.
  • Compatibility with AliveOS Goals: Align with the AliveOS philosophy of providing a lightweight, coherent, and bloat-free desktop environment that works well on a wide range of hardware, including older systems.

How You Can Help

We invite developers, testers, packagers, and enthusiastic users to join this effort. Contributions can take many forms:

Development

  • Review and adapt upstream Cinnamon commits for X11/Xlibre compatibility.
  • Implement fixes for issues discovered during testing.
  • Assist in maintaining the fork’s build system and CI/CD pipeline.
  • Help port or maintain Cinnamon applets, extensions, and settings that may require X11-specific adjustments.

Testing

  • Run the fork on diverse hardware configurations, including legacy systems.
  • Test compositing, window management, file operations, desktop effects, and integration with AliveOS-specific tools (e.g., Dory file manager, Respite media player).
  • Report regressions, conflicts, or missing functionality via the project’s issue tracker.

Documentation and Support

  • Help maintain documentation regarding installation, configuration, and known issues.
  • Assist in triaging user reports and guiding newcomers.
  • Contribute to translation efforts if desired.

Packaging and Distribution

  • Assist in building and testing packages for various distributions (including AliveOS, Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, etc.).
  • Ensure that the fork integrates cleanly with AliveOS’s custom repository and package management workflow.

Getting Started

If you are interested in contributing, please:

  1. Fork the repository (to be announced) on GitHub.
  2. Clone your fork and review the contributing guidelines (to be provided).
  3. Join the discussion in the AliveOS Discord or open an issue on the repository to introduce yourself and share your interests.
  4. Look for issues tagged help-wanted or good-first-issue to begin contributing.

We especially welcome those with experience in Cinnamon development, GTK/GNOME libraries, X11/Xlibre programming, desktop compositing, or packaging for Linux distributions.

Why This Matters

A stable, modern X11-capable desktop environment is essential for:

  • Users with older GPUs or drivers that lack full Wayland support.
  • Environments requiring remote display solutions (e.g., VNC, RDP, X11 forwarding) that are mature and well-understood under X11.
  • Workflows dependent on specific X11 extensions or proprietary software that assumes an X11 server.
  • Users who value the stability, predictability, and long-term support of a well-established display stack.

By maintaining a compatible Cinnamon fork, we aim to provide a sustainable path forward for those who wish to continue using X11 without sacrificing access to a modern, polished desktop experience.

Conclusion

The future of the Linux desktop need not be a binary choice between abandoning X11 or stagnating. With community effort, we can preserve a viable, high-performance X11-based desktop that evolves alongside the broader ecosystem. If you believe in the importance of choice, stability, and user autonomy, we invite you to join us in building this future together.

Thank you for your consideration and potential support.

After me.