This is actually a developer's question, but needs to be asked of the
Users as well.
Does anyone know if LO works with the Cinnamon, which is a "shell" [I
think that is the correct term] that is placed over GNOME 3.x so it
looks and works like GNOME2.x? I remember that there was some issues
with LO working with GNOME 3.x desktop environment's way of displaying
"windows". Since the 2.x project is closed and people were going to
other distros and desktops due to their dislike of GNOME 3.x, Linux
Mint decided to develop a way for people to have their GNOME 2.x
style of desktop on 3.x. It seemed that people were going to Mint
since they still supported 2.x, but when they could no longer get it
from their source [Mint is a fork of Ubuntu, with another Mint a fork
of Debian] they had to provide a GNOME 2.x style of desktop shell to
keep their users happy.
Cinnamon is not stable, according to the web site. It is on Linux
Mint 12, and either in the repository, a Git repository, or in a PPA
for; Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, OpenSUSE 12.1, Arch Linux, and Gentoo.
I have not tried it, since I am still using Ubuntu 10.04. I did not
like Ubuntu's switch to GNOME3 and could not use it with my needs. So
I was stuck with 10.xx. If LO will support that desktop shell
combination, I will now be able to look into having a more up-to-date
OS, other than what Ubuntu places in its 10.04 repository updates. At
least 10.04 now shows LO 3.4.4-402 as the latest version in the
repository, which I installed from LO's web site when it came out.
http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?page_id=61
With Win 8 going to the Tablet-style of desktop environment, like
GNOME 3 seems to be as well, there is talk about many users will
either have to back-port it to Win 7 or go to Linux. If Linux is
chosen, then they have to use something other than the standard GNOME
3 desktop.
For myself, I use a combination of GNOME2.x and KDE since there are
packages in KDE that are better than GNOME 2.x's version and some of
GNOME 2.x works better than KDE for me for the actual desktop. Many of
the KDE system monitoring and modification packages are easier for me
to use over GNOME 2.x versions. So I have a "interesting" setup.
Now, if I can get a replacement drive for my test system, I will try
Mint 12 with Cinnamon, but it may take time to get that really old
system [bios will not work with any Windows newer than Win ME, not
even Win2000] a replacement drive. So it will be awhile before I can
test Cinnamon with LO, and I would like to know if it does work well
with LO.