Mate Desktop Environment - GNOME2 fork

[Suchy]

Well I still cannot install either power manager or mate applets because it shows that some dependancies are missing and it won't install them.

[voss749]

I like Cinnamon but I still think its gonna take quite a bit longer to get that to where I want it.
MATE is gnome 2.32 more or less which is more than good enough for me, and the more recent versions seem to be very stable.

Gnome-shell is a mess, Gnome classic is just usable enough to get MATE and Cinnamon installed.

[AlexSL]

Hello.
I was posted here a bug with LibreOffice, but no one answer. This bug is actual yet.
The LibreOffice in MATE use incorrect type of open/save dialog. LO have two types of dialogs: "system dialogs" and its own "internal" dialog type. Normal LO must use standard "system" dialog to save/open (like any other programs). But when LO can't use "system" type of dialog it use its own internal type. This LO's internal dialogs is very inconvenient and useless for me. I want back normal "system" dialogs, but I can't.
In LinuxMint 12, in Gnome, LO use normal "system" dialogs type, but in Mate it don't use "system" dialogs type. All other programs in Mate use normal "system" dialogs except only LO. I need in LO normal dialogs like in all other programs.
If you do not understand difference between two type of dialogs, look for example in Pluma ("open"/"save as" commands): this is normal "system" type of this dialogs. In LO must be same type of dialogs.
I often work in LO and this bug is very important to me.
This bug is related to Mate because in Gnome all work fine.

Please, somebody help me!

[hhead]

I aggree I find the dialog very annoying if anyone finds a solution let us know...

[xpander]

I aggree I find the dialog very annoying if anyone finds a solution let us know...

maybe contact libreoffice dev and ask what they use for dialog open command and fallback command
i tryed to launch it with debug options but didnt find any trace.

[konaexpress]

OK, at the risk of getting slammed for this, I just have to ask..........

Is Mate going to be a Mint only DE? I know that a few other distros have ported Cinnamon over but not Mate. The reason I ask is that besides running Mint on my desktop, I run PCLOS on my laptop but the the Gnome users have been almost forgotten by them. We have a forum, but it is not really supported by PCLOS other in name only so we users have to make stuff and spin new releases ourselves. We all know and understand that Gnome 2 is dead and that we will probably die a slow death if we cannot find a new DE soon. Any ideas about Mate and how hard or easy it would be to get it up and running?

If Clem or any other Mods feel that this is an inappropriate post then you have my apologies now and feel free to delete it.

-John

[Monsta]

Is Mate going to be a Mint only DE?

This page tells me that MATE surely isn't going to be "Mint only".

[konaexpress]

Thanks!

[bdantas]

I am switching from LM12 to LMDE (I am a traumatized ex-Ubuntu user and want to take this final step). I've installed LMDE, fully updated to Update Pack 3, added deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/debian/ wheezy main to repositories, and installed mate-archive-keyring.

Now I'm trying to install MATE (sudo apt-get install mate-core), but I am getting several unmet dependencies (see screenshot).

I took a look in Synaptic and I think the problem is that mate-core is version 1.1.0 but several dependencies are version 1.1.1 or 1.2

Is it possible for me to install MATE now, or do I have to wait until all packages have been updated to version 1.2? There's probably some way to tell apt to keep all packages from the repository at the highest shared version (in this case 1.1.0), but if so I don't know how to do it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[stefano-k]

Now I'm trying to install MATE (sudo apt-get install mate-core), but I am getting several unmet dependencies (see screenshot).
...
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I hope this issue is solved with mate-core 1.2.0-1 uploaded some minutes ago. Can you confirm? Thanks

[bdantas]

No luck, Stefano. I tried each repository separately (deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/debian wheezy main and deb http://tridex.net/repo/debian wheezy main) in /etc/apt/sources.list, each time with a corresponding entry in /etc/apt/preferences giving that repository the highest pin-priority.

Both times Synaptic shows version 1.2.0 of mate-core, and

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sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mate-core

still gives me unmet dependencies (atril, caja, eom, etc.) So as of now I still can't install MATE in my fully updated (pack 3) LMDE-testing (wheezy).

[stefano-k]

Hi bdantas. Can you help me? Try to install mate-core dependencies separately one by one and find the package that is uninstallable? Thanks

[bamm]

I feel the same way. I currently use Cinnamon because Mint with Mate still lacks some features like Open in Terminal or Open as Administrator. But once Mint with Mate gets everything Mint 11 Katya had, I will use Mate exclusively. For me, Katya is the most perfect Linux Mint. Unfortunately it is not an LTS and will soon be unsupported. My wish is to be able to use Mint 13 with Mate as an exact duplicate of Katya, and stay with it for the next 5 years.

When Mate reaches maturity, is it possible to install Mate and REMOVE all traces of Gnome3? I just want Mate and no other DE. The presence of Gnome3+Cinnamon just wastes my disk space.

[Monsta]

I currently use Cinnamon because Mint with Mate still lacks some features like Open in Terminal or Open as Administrator.

Oh. That's the question I wanted to ask: is there a thread with list of Gnome 2 features still missing in MATE? If not, I think it won't hurt to create one.

When Mate reaches maturity, is it possible to install Mate and REMOVE all traces of Gnome3? I just want Mate and no other DE. The presence of Gnome3+Cinnamon just wastes my disk space.

I really hope that Clem & the team will make separate Cinnamon and MATE editions this time. Here's the thread where various ideas for Mint 13 are discussed: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=88195

[bdantas]

@stefano: ok, I will try to install the dependencies individually and will report back in a few minutes.

@bamm: Haha, same here--with MATE available, Cinnamon would only be taking up my hard disk space. Fortunately hard disks these days are very roomy, so having separate MATE and Cinnamon versions of LM is not so crucial. BTW, Open in Terminal is already available for MATE and works just as expected:

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sudo apt-get install caja-open-terminal

I don't know about Open as Administrator--I don't use it and haven't looked for it, so can't comment.
The only thing that I, personally, was missing from Gnome2 was the ability to connect to my computer remotely, but I added that by installing vino and creating an icon in my System > Administration menu that invokes the command /usr/bin/vino-preferences

[bdantas]

Hello again, Stefano. So I tried installing some of mate-core's unmet dependencies separately to see what would happen...

Atril: When I tried installing atril, I couldn't because libatril couldn't be installed. So I tried installing libatril, and it is broken because it depends on libtiff4 >= 3.9.5-2 and only 3.9.5-1 is in my repos.

EOM: When I tried intalling eom, I couldn't because it depends on libexempi3 >= 2.2.0 and only 2.1.1-1 is available in my repos.

Caja: Needs libglib2.0-0 >= 2.30.0 but only 2.28.6-1 is available in my repos. Caja also nees needs mate-vfs but mate-vfs cannot be installed because it depends on libmatevfs 1.2.0-1, which can't be installed because Depends: libacl1 (>= 2.2.51-5) but 2.2.51-3 is to be installed, Depends: libattr1 (>= 1:2.4.46-5) but 1:2.4.46-3 is to be installed, Depends: libgssapi-krb5-2 (>= 1.10+dfsg~) but 1.9.1+dfsg-1+b1 is to be installed.

mate-core had other unmet dependencies as you can see from my original post, but I chose atril, eom, and caja as examples. Am I missing one or more repositories? Maybe the current version of MATE has dependencies that are in Sid repos but not in Wheezy repos? Please help me so that I can put Ubuntu and Gnome behind me for good.

[bdantas]

Problem solved by enabling Sid repository (deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sid main). As I write, MATE is being installed onto my LMDE without any issues.
Indeed, the current version of MATE requires Sid repositories, as some dependencies are not available in Wheezy.

edit/WARNING: The installation completely hosed my system! Do NOT do what I did (i.e., DO NOT use the Sid repository to just get the MATE dependencies).
When I rebooted, instead of MATE I got a black screen and nothing worked...fortunately I had a complete backup of my partition hehehe. As a tinkerer I ALWAYS have a fresh backup.

[stefano-k]

Hi bdantas,
accordingly to packages.debian.org, wheezy has libtiff4 3.9.6-1, libexempi3 2.2.0-1, libglib2.0-0 2.30.2-6, libacl1 2.2.51-5 and so on... are you sure you were using a correct wheezy repository?

[bdantas]

Stefano, below is what I have in /etc/apt/sources.list. Note that LMDE installation instructions that I got from several Mint forums told me to use the debian.linuxmint.com repos (without them, the update process to update pack 3 fails).

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deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free

deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/debian/ wheezy main
deb-src http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/debian/ wheezy main

# deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main
# deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sid main
# deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sid main

Is this not what I should have?

[stefano-k]

I think debian.linuxmint.com is synced every update pack. So the options are: use an ftp.XX.debian.org mirror (wheezy, not sid) or wait the next update pack.