FIX: Black screen at login for LMDE/Cinnamon

So, I installed a fresh copy of LMDE on a machine. Obviously, that will include doing an apt-get dist-upgrade to ensure every thing is all up to date.

After doing that, I restarted the box and got the Mint login screen, entered my password and got . . . . . a black screen with a mouse pointer and nothing else.

I couldn't find an answer on the Internet so eventually I took a punt and entered:

apt-get install cinnamon

and what would you know, Cinnamon wasn't installed at all. For some, the distribution upgrade had decided to remove Cinnamon altogether. After the install finished I rebooted and all was good again.

Set the Number of Workspaces in Cinnamon

After adding the "Workspaces" applet onto a Cinnamon taskbar you find it only has two workspaces configured by default

The trouble is, you want four.

gsettings set org.cinnamon number-workspaces 4

You will need to log out and in again for that chnage to take place.