MATE desktop

[Fred Smith]

On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 01:43:28PM -0700, Dave Johansen wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Les Howell <hlhowell at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > My wife doesn't like the GNOME3 desktop.  She did like GNOME2, so I have
> > found that MATE desktop is a fork of GNOME2.  I have looked at the
> > software menu (on x86_64 F19) and see lots of stuff related to MATE.
> > What is the key to getting MATE installed and run on a user?  Will the
> > GNOME3 version of Evolution, Firefox, etc all run?
> >
> > If you have installed and used the MATE desktop, please give me your
> > opinion.
> 
> I couldn't get GNOME3 working with dual monitors on my laptop (
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/2013-July/438593.html
> ), so I gave MATE a try and it worked just fine. It basically felt
> just like GNOME2 (which makes sense since is just a fork of it) and I
> didn't have any issues with it.
> 
> This article ( http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/installing-the-mate-and-cinnamon-desktops-on-fedora-18/
> ) recommends using the net install for "best results" and that
> probably is the recommended way to go, but I did it as a post install
> addition and it worked just fine.

FYI, YMMV, FWIW, I did it from a DVD install, installed no other desktop
at all, just Mate. Mostly works fine. There are some odd things that have
been reported as bugs, some fixed, some not.

One that has been fixed is that on a laptop it wouldn't sleep when the
lid was closed. some related symptoms that seem to go away once that
was fixed include several of the computer-specific function keys on 
my Acer Aspire netbook didn't work but now do, and an inexplicable long
delay during login. Still to be solved is that now and then on login
ten copies of Caja (the file manager) will auto start when the desktop
appears.

But I can say i like it about a million percent better than Gnome 3.

I've also dabbled with XFCE, LXDE, and KDE, and while it's likely the
case that "I like what I like", I find they don't satisfy me as well.

-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us ----------------------------
                    Do you not know? Have you not heard? 
    The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. 
  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
----------------------------- Isaiah 40:28 (niv) -----------------------------