cinnamon-settings-daemon

cinnamon-settings-daemon [OPTION…]

--help
    Display help message and exit

--version
    Output version information and exit

--verbose
    Enable verbose logging

--debug
    Enable debug output

--replace
    Replace any existing running instance

--session=NAME
    Specify session identifier

--exec-with-session
    Execute plugins tied to session lifecycle

The cinnamon-settings-daemon is a background service central to the Cinnamon desktop environment, a popular Linux DE based on GNOME technologies. It manages various user-configurable settings by providing D-Bus interfaces and loading plugins for functionalities like power management, clipboard handling, keyboard shortcuts, media key bindings, screensaver integration, printing notifications, and accessibility features.

Running unobtrusively, it responds to configuration changes from tools like cinnamon-settings, applying them dynamically without session restarts. Plugins activate on-demand to optimize performance and memory usage. Typically started by the session manager (cinnamon-session), it ensures consistent behavior across Cinnamon components such as the desktop shell and control center. Developers can extend it via plugins, making it modular and adaptable to user needs.

Not intended for direct manual invocation; managed by cinnamon-session. Manual runs may conflict with session-managed instances. Requires D-Bus session bus.

Key plugins include power (battery/AC events), keyboard (shortcuts), media-keys (volume/mute), clipboard, and screensaver-proxy. Listed via debug logs.

Use --debug and check ~/.xsession-errors or journalctl for plugin issues.

Introduced with Cinnamon 1.6 in 2012 as a fork of gnome-settings-daemon, evolving alongside Linux Mint's Cinnamon edition to diverge from GNOME Shell's direction while retaining GTK compatibility.

cinnamon-session(1), cinnamon-settings(1), dbus-daemon(1)