CinnXP Desktop Theme in Mint Cinnamon 19

This tutorial explains in step by step how to install Windows XP theme on Mint Cinnamon 19 LTS. You will download and install CinnXP to make your desktop looks like XP. The CinnXP theme is licensed under GNU GPLv3. You will need some additional programs to be installed and a few steps to enable them all. The purpose of this tutorial is solely to help everybody setup GNU/Linux for their closed people who have been heavily familiar to XP. I hope this helps everyone a lot in using GNU/Linux. Enjoy!

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Result Talks First

Here's the result.

Requirements

• At least Mint 18 
• The CinnXP theme package file (download it here)
• Packages: built-essential git 
• Additional programs: sassc libsassc

1. Install The Requirements

This installs two different set of programs from two different sources. First is APT, and second is Git.

Install packages:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential git 

Download additional programs:

$ make
$ cd ~/Public && pwd && ls 
$ git clone  https://github.com/sass/sassc.git
$ git clone  https://github.com/sass/libsass.git

Install additional programs:

$ pwd && ls
$ cd sassc
$ SASS_LIBSASS_PATH=../libsass make
$ sudo SASS_LIBSASS_PATH=../libsass make install

2. Install CinnXP Theme

$ mkdir ~/.icons
$ mkdir ~/.themes 
$ cd ~/Downloads/CinnXP
$ pwd && ls
$ ./compile-theme -g 20

This creates a new directory named 'pkg'. The produced themes are saved in pkg/usr/share/icons/CinnXP and pkg/usr/share/themes/CinnXP-Luna. Still in the same directory, do:

$ cp -r pkg/usr/share/icons/CinnXP/  ~/.icons/
$ cp -r pkg/usr/share/themes/CinnXP-Luna/  ~/.themes/

3. Enable Theme

Go to System Settings > Theme. Change everything to CinnXP-Luna.


To this point, you should have full desktop in XP look.

Some Problem

CinnXP theme is only desktop theme + window decoration + cursor. It does not provide icon theme so you should install an icon theme manually. The problem is that this setup missed the XP icon theme. Your icon will be the icon of the original Mint Cinnamon.

Actually, there is a perfect-look icon theme named Windows XP published by Elbullazul the owner of B00merang Project. This icon theme is said as a continuation to the one from YlmfOS GNU/Linux (now StartOS). But unfortunately, I cannot present it here, nor I can recommend you, because it is published without any license (thus renders it nonfree). I really hope the icon theme can be re-published in free license such as GNU GPL so I can add it as part of tutorial above. However, I must admit it looked perfect in combination with CinnXP:

References

• https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=272018
• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/202751/themes-app-not-showing-preview-for-installed-gtk-themes-window-borders-and-cont
• https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=272414
• https://github.com/juhaku/loginized/issues/3