[pkg-cinnamon] Bug#789122: Cinnamon Desktop Freezes with Debian 8 Jessie

[Antony Cube]

Package: cinnamon
Version: 2.2.16


The Cinnamon desktop freezes using the new Debian 8.1 Jessie release.
While the mouse pointer continues to move after the freeze, it is
impossible to interact with the desktop environment.  Contrarily to
bugreport #766819, the situation does not resolve after a short period of
time.  The only solution is to escape to a tty1 session and reboot the
system.

My expertise with Debian is limited but I will do my best to document the
bug.  I believe the problem is related to my graphics card, a NVIDIA
Corporation GM107 [GeForce GTX 745].  My initial Cinnamon session, right
after installing Debian 8, was automatically launched in "Software
Rendering Mode" with a notification indicating an issue with the drivers
and that graphics acceleration was not available.  I installed the Nvidia
driver following the instructions at
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers.  This allowed me to use
Cinnamon in normal mode.  However, the desktop environment froze
continually after the driver was installed, making it virtually unusable.

I have tested five other desktops under Debian 8 and the exact same
machine: Gnome 3, Gnome classic, KDE, Xfce and MATE.  All five seem to work
properly using both the Nouveau driver or the non-free Nvidia driver that I
needed to install for Cinnamon (version 340.65).  Moreover, I have not
experienced any freeze using those alternative desktops.

I believe there is a compatibility issue between Cinnamon and the Nvidia
driver for this graphics card.

My system is a personal desktop computer, a Dell XPS 8700 with a i7-4790
CPU.

I understand the work and effort behind this new Debian release and I am
thankful for that.  However, a solution to this bug would be very
appreciated.  I find the Cinnamon desktop very efficient for multitasking
and would love to be able to use it, as I am sure other users do.

Here is the output of:
# apt-cache showpkg cinnamon

Package: cinnamon
Versions:
2.2.16-5
(/var/lib/apt/lists/Debian%20GNU_Linux%208.1.0%20%5fJessie%5f%20-%20Official%20amd64%20DVD%20Binary-1%2020150606-14:19_dists_jessie_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
(/var/lib/dpkg/status)
 Description Language:
                 File:
/var/lib/apt/lists/Debian%20GNU_Linux%208.1.0%20%5fJessie%5f%20-%20Official%20amd64%20DVD%20Binary-1%2020150606-14:19_dists_jessie_main_binary-amd64_Packages
                  MD5: 85a575fee9af55bc8d39cbd88a551b9d
 Description Language: en
                 File:
/var/lib/apt/lists/Debian%20GNU_Linux%208.1.0%20%5fJessie%5f%20-%20Official%20amd64%20DVD%20Binary-1%2020150606-14:19_dists_jessie_main_i18n_Translation-en
                  MD5: 85a575fee9af55bc8d39cbd88a551b9d
Reverse Depends:
  cinnamon-core,cinnamon 2.2
  cinnamon-common,cinnamon 2.2.14-1
  cinnamon-common,cinnamon 2.2.14-1
Dependencies:
2.2.16-5 - caribou (0 (null)) cinnamon-common (5 2.2.16-5)
cinnamon-control-center (2 2.2) cinnamon-desktop-data (2 2.2)
cinnamon-screensaver (2 2.2) cinnamon-session (2 2.2)
cinnamon-settings-daemon (2 2.2) cjs (2 2.2) cups-pk-helper (0 (null))
gir1.2-accountsservice-1.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-caribou-1.0 (0 (null))
gir1.2-clutter-1.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-cogl-1.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-gconf-2.0
(0 (null)) gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-gkbd-3.0 (0 (null))
gir1.2-glib-2.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-cmenu-3.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-nmgtk-1.0 (0
(null)) gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 (0
(null)) gir1.2-gtk-3.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-gtkclutter-1.0 (0 (null))
gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-networkmanager-1.0 (0
(null)) gir1.2-pango-1.0 (0 (null)) gir1.2-polkit-1.0 (0 (null))
gir1.2-soup-2.4 (0 (null)) gir1.2-upowerglib-1.0 (0 (null))
gir1.2-webkit-3.0 (0 (null)) gkbd-capplet (0 (null))
gnome-icon-theme-symbolic (2 2.91) gnome-session-bin (0 (null))
gnome-settings-daemon (2 2.91.5.1) gnome-themes-standard (0 (null))
gsettings-desktop-schemas (2 0.1.7) libjs-jquery (0 (null)) mesa-utils (0
(null)) nemo (2 2.2) network-manager-gnome (0 (null)) policykit-1-gnome (0
(null)) python-dbus (0 (null)) python-gconf (0 (null)) python-gi-cairo (0
(null)) python-imaging (0 (null)) python-lxml (0 (null)) python-pam (0
(null)) python-pexpect (0 (null)) python-pyinotify (0 (null))
gir1.2-meta-muffin-0.0 (0 (null)) dconf-gsettings-backend (16 (null))
gsettings-backend (0 (null)) python:any (2 2.6.6-7~) libatk1.0-0 (2 1.12.4)
libc6 (2 2.14) libcairo2 (2 1.10.0) libcanberra0 (2 0.2)
libcinnamon-menu-3-0 (2 2.2.0) libcjs0 (2 2.0.0) libclutter-1.0-0 (2
1.10.0) libcogl-pango20 (2 1.17.4) libcogl-path20 (2 1.17.4) libcogl20 (2
1.17.4) libcroco3 (2 0.6.2) libdbus-glib-1-2 (2 0.78) libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (2
2.22.0) libgirepository-1.0-1 (2 0.9.2) libgl1-mesa-glx (16 (null)) libgl1
(0 (null)) libglib2.0-0 (2 2.37.3) libgstreamer1.0-0 (2 1.4.0) libgtk-3-0
(2 3.9.12) libmozjs185-1.0 (2 1.8.5-1.0.0+dfsg) libmuffin0 (2 2.0.5)
libpango-1.0-0 (2 1.14.0) libpangocairo-1.0-0 (2 1.14.0)
libpulse-mainloop-glib0 (2 0.99.1) libpulse0 (2 0.99.1)
libstartup-notification0 (2 0.11) libx11-6 (0 (null)) libxfixes3 (2 1:5.0)
libxml2 (2 2.7.4) multiarch-support (0 (null)) python-opencv (0 (null))
cinnamon-l10n (0 (null)) gnome-terminal (16 (null)) x-terminal-emulator (0
(null)) gksu (0 (null)) cinnamon-common (1 2.2.14-1) cinnamon-common (1
2.2.14-1)
Provides:
2.2.16-5 - x-window-manager notification-daemon
Reverse Provides:
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