14 DAY TRIAL // Cinnamon developers have just released a new version of the desktop environment today, 2.6.3. The packages are now available for testing in Linux Mint 17.1 and Linux Mint Debian 2, via the Romeo unstable repository.
You might wonder why a stable release of the software is available in the unstable repositories and why it isn't pushed in the regular repos so that everyone can enjoy it. Well, the short answer is that even if something is dubbed stable, you can't really know if it will create any problems when a large number of users get their hands on it.
A desktop environment is a very complex piece of software, and it needs to be properly tested before it reaches a larger public. In fact, the 2.6 branch made its debut a while ago, we're already at the 2.6.3 version, and it's still not available in the stable repos.
Cinnamon 2.6.3 update is a big one
Most of the big changes have been done in main 2.6 release of Cinnamon, and the current update is just for bug fixes and other small improvements. It's quite easy to test the new version, and it's described in a short tutorial. Before enabling the Romeo repo to your system, please understand that it's still not considered stable and that you should not use a production machine.
According to the changelog, the Pidgin tray icons have been updated, the 'use-systemd' configuration key has been split into three different keys for cinnamon-settings-daemon, cinnamon-session and cinnamon-screensaver, icons are always displayed in Open With and Templates submenus, the calendar applet is now refreshed properly, the on-screen keyboard has been refined, the date format setting is now respected in the notification applet, an image has been added for the default screensaver preview, and many more changes have been implemented.
You can download the source package for Cinnamon 2.6.3 right now from Softpedia if you want to compile that yourself or you can enable the Romeo repos.