Default Desktop for Ubiquity

[RobertLM78]

As I am not completely sure if MATE is going to make it to the next release, nor the future of Gnome "Classic" I would just like to suggest that whatever the default desktop is for "vanilla" Mint 13 Ubiquity install, it should be light-weight. I had real problems with Gnome 3 not completely loading on an older (9 y.o.) computer that I was installing Mint 12 on. The main panel with the menu never shows up, and I can't even use Alt+F2 to run a program. Since Linux tends to agree well with older machines, I think it's inappropriate to use a default desktop that uses up so much resources for an OS install.

(Other than this complaint though, I am really impressed and happy with Mint - so keep up the excellent work ! )

[xenopeek]

No need to worry. With Linux Mint 13 both MATE and Cinnamon are getting their own dedicated editions. See the "News and summary" section in this blog post: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2000

[RobertLM78]

No need to worry. With Linux Mint 13 both MATE and Cinnamon are getting their own dedicated editions. See the "News and summary" section in this blog post: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2000

Thanks for the reply! That's some good news there. I was a little concerned when I had read that MATE was going to be abandoned. Other than Xfce which is pretty light on resources, it is the best DE for that machine. KDE works, but it's a little slower, and Gnome "classic" works, but isn't really very classic as I understand - its okay. I really like how MATE has put all the settings in the "Control Center" (well, just about everything - I haven't found the screen saver settings in there).

[xenopeek]

The Linux Mint developers are also involved with MATE development; it's not being abandoned MATE is one of the four desktops on which Linux Mint will focus for next editions (see the same blog post).

What has been abandoned is MGSE, which are the Gnome Shell extensions that were included in Linux Mint 12. That didn't work good enough for the developers, hence the birth of Cinnamon which replaces Gnome Shell and MGSE for next editions (and is installable on Linux Mint 12).

[RobertLM78]

I wish I could find the article that mentioned abadoning MATE, I looked without success. This is good news for anyone that has an older machine. It looks like I need to do some more research into the next edition, and I hope that the MATE version will install using the MATE desktop. Incidentally, after the installation, Gnome 3 does start up, with the panels loaded, however the text in the panel and menus is partially missing - Cinnamon gives the same performance, so MATE is the only thing that I think will run well on this machine.

[xenopeek]

MATE development seems active enough: http://mate-desktop.org/

If you are seeing the two panels at top and bottom, with the classic Gnome menu (Applications Places System), then the problem is your graphics card driver. It needs to be enabled for 3D acceleration, which is for Linux Mint 12 needed to run Gnome Shell or Cinnamon (else it will go to the fallback mode you are seeing). Linux Mint 13 will no longer require 3D acceleration for Cinnamon, so if you don't do anything about your graphics card driver you could upgrade later if you want to see Cinnamon. But MATE is improving nicely in Linux Mint 13 also