Evince - PDF document viewer question

[wpshooter]

I did a hard drive installation of Linxu Mint 13.

When I go into package manager and do a search for "Evince", it comes back showing that "Evince - Common" & "Libevince3-3" are installed BUT "EVINCE" itself is NOT shown as being installed.

Why would these other 2 dependency applications be installed by Linux Mint and not the Evince application itself ????

Is this a flaw in the Linux Mint installation process ?

Should Evince itself also be installed or is there some reason why it should not be installed ?

Thanks.

[xenopeek]

That depends. What desktop environment did you install Linux Mint with? (e.g., Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, KDE.) For example MATE doesn't use Evince but Atril for PDF viewing, but it may be that some other programs depend on the Evince libraries being installed.

[wpshooter]

That depends. What desktop environment did you install Linux Mint with? (e.g., Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, KDE.) For example MATE doesn't use Evince but Atril for PDF viewing, but it may be that some other programs depend on the Evince libraries being installed.

Sorry, yes it is MATE.

Looking at package manager, I see that Atril (which I have never heard of before) IS installed.

But that leads to the question, as to, why when I right click on a PDF file, the viewer that is listed as the default program for opening the PDF is shown as EVINCE and not Atril. If Atril is what is being installed, why would it not be listed as the default viewer for PDF type files ?

Sounds like to me that MINT is sort of mixing apples and oranges - both fruits but not the same fruit !!!!

Thanks.

[xenopeek]

I don't have Linux Mint 13 installed here, but that is running an older version of MATE. Might be that not all the work for the fork of GNOME 2 was completed then. If you didn't know, MATE is a fork of GNOME 2. So Atril is a copy of the Evince code, which was abandoned by the GNOME developers and is now being maintained and developed further by the MATE developers. The rename action was needed so that MATE applications can exist on the same system as GNOME 3 applications (as GNOME 3 uses the same names as GNOME 2).

You might have a better experience running a newer version of MATE. You can upgrade easily: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2225

[eanfrid]

If you have Atril installed then you don't need Evince since Atril replaces it in MATE DE. Evince is for Gnome/Cinnamon only.

[wpshooter]

If you have Atril installed then you don't need Evince since Atril replaces it in MATE DE. Evince is for Gnome/Cinnamon only.

Then why was "Evince - Common" installed, it was NOT installed by me - had to have been installed during OS installation ???

Thanks.

[xenopeek]

You can remove it probably. On Linux Mint 14 MATE it is also present, but not any packages are installed that are dependent on it. Note that if you have experimented and also used Cinnamon or Gnome Shell or Unity on your installation, that would have pulled in such GNOME applications as Evince.