Part II. Building Cinnamon

Debian-based systems

Add APT sources repositories

Open /etc/apt/sources.list. For each deb line, add the same line with deb replaced with deb-src. For instance, here's how it should look like in Linux Mint 13:

        deb http://packages.linuxmint.com maya main upstream import
        deb-src http://packages.linuxmint.com maya main upstream import

        deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse
        deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse

        deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse
        deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse

        deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main
        deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main

Get build dependencies

Then we install the packages needed to compile the cinnamon stack. Run the following in a terminal (as root):

        apt-get update
        apt-get install dpkg-dev
        sudo apt-get build-dep cinnamon cinnamon-control-center cinnamon-desktop cinnamon-menus cinnamon-screensaver cinnamon-session cinnamon-settings-daemon cinnamon-translations cjs muffin nemo

Now get the latest git code for everything. Run (not as root):

        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-control-center.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-desktop.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-menus.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-screensaver.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-session.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-settings-daemon.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon-translations.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/cjs.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/muffin.git
        git clone git://github.com/linuxmint/nemo.git

Compile and install the stack

Build and install in the following order. Some packages are required to be installed prior to building later packages. See below for how to build and install.

        cinnamon-translations
        cinnamon-desktop
        cinnamon-menus
        **INSTALL PRECEDING PACKAGES**
        cinnamon-session
        cinnamon-settings-daemon
        cinnamon-screensaver
        cjs
        **INSTALL PRECEDING PACKAGES**
        cinnamon-control-center
        muffin
        **INSTALL PRECEDING PACKAGES**
        cinnamon
        nemo
        **INSTALL PRECEDING PACKAGES**

To build a package:

        cd *package-name*
        dpkg-buildpackage
        cd ..

To install a package:

        sudo dpkg -i *packages produced*

Optional: Compiling from stable branch

The instructions above compile the Cinnamon stack from their "master" branch, which isn't always stable. To compile from the stable branch, instead of the usual building procedure, you need to to the following (for all packages):

        cd *package-name*
        git checkout stable
        dpkg-buildpackage
        cd ..