Mate Desktop Environment

[is977]

Anybody known when this environment should be in Fedora repo?

[ordealbyfire83]

I'm not aware of anyone setting up a repo yet. You can compile it from source though. The instructions here are for Ubuntu 11.04 but should work fine with Fedora 15. I just built it all myself and everything works as far as I've tested it, and there are no conflicts with GTK3 programs (no need to uninstall any gnome stuff; your display manager (GDM, KDM, etc.) will pick up MATE automatically if everything works).

[chuchII]

I keep finding a random reference of MATE being in fedora 16, but I can't confirm anything (haven't upgraded yet). looks like someone just made a mistake in a post, but it got me excited.

http://alllinuxstuff.blogspot.com/20...esktop-on.html

[DBelton]

MATE isn't in Fedora 16, but is in Mint 12.

Looks like they made a slight mistake in their article.

[chuchII]

yeah that was my thought. def had me excited though

[ordealbyfire83]

Maybe in another year... http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...tem&px=MTAyNTU

It seems like Fedora is looking for any excuse possible not to support this meanwhile it has been the established desktop of choice for many years.

The Mint version of Mate seems ok, but I got way more bells and whistles compiling it from source on Fedora 15...Also whether or not Mint 12 is anywhere near stable enough for daily use is another matter. If you like Gnome 2 and want a distro that's going to be around a while, maybe have a look at Mepis 11. Although based on Debian Squeeze (it essentially IS Debian Squeeze) it includes KDE 4.5 (rather than 4.3) and installing Gnome 2.30 is a snap, and it's as customizable as you'd want it to be (as long as you remove the qtcurve gtk2 engine)...

[Gareth Jones]

I'm neither a Red Hat / Fedora nor a GNOME developer, so take with a pinch of salt, but as I see it:

Originally Posted by ordealbyfire83

It seems like Fedora is looking for any excuse possible not to support this meanwhile it has been the established desktop of choice for many years.

GNOME2 has for years, not MATE. If MATE shows it has acquired the developer community that a code-base of that size realistically needs for long-term maintenance while the system that surrounds it continues to evolve (this is after all a desktop environment, not a self-contained application), then I think it would be reasonable to expect official Fedora support. At the moment it's a brand new unproven project with an awful lot of code.

It'd be nice if a community repo made it available though, something like RPMFusion or the other specialist repos that you can add to yum's list. This would probably make it easier to get it accepted into Fedora-proper in due time too.

Gareth

[clearer]

Originally Posted by Gareth Jones

I'm neither a Red Hat / Fedora nor a GNOME developer, so take with a pinch of salt, but as I see it:



GNOME2 has for years, not MATE. (...)

Gareth

MATE is GNOME2 and GNOME2 is MATE for all intents and purposes the two are indistinguishably (except, perhaps, any desire to troll -- and just in case someone is reading this wrong, that's my final word on that matter).

[Gareth Jones]

Originally Posted by clearer

MATE is GNOME2 and GNOME2 is MATE for all intents and purposes the two are indistinguishably

Just to clarify, I'm talking about the projects, not the source code. Yes MATE is a continuation of the GNOME2 and GTK+2 source code, but under new developers and leadership. Unless it can acquire enough people to work on it, fix bugs, and keep up-to-date with the surrounding software (GTK+/GNOME/MATE integrate into the surrounding system a lot more than LibreOffice or Firefox for example, or even the "light-weight" desktop environments). It's a big job.

Gareth