Linux mint MATE crash how to recover?

[mStuff]

First off, I'm not a tech-y linux guy, but I really do like linux mint, and I've done a lot of people the favour of installing it on their home PC's.

I installed Linux Mint 14 "Nadia" MATE 32 bit on an old laptop from '06, and everything went well, but today as I helped make the UI a bit more Vista-like (which the friends were used to) and installed Screenlets and setup the desktop clock. After that I setup a couple of Humble Bundle games for their grandkids and while opening the game Braid, the game suddenly crashed and the whole desktop were shifted a bit up and left, black borders on the area behind the desktop. I thought it might be the nVidia driver that crashed so I tried restarting the PC. It started up with the default background, the home and user-folder icons on the desktop were gone, and the taskbar were gone (the browsing-windows worked fine). Apparently the MATE desktop-app is corrupted and I did the only thing I knew how to do - Ctrl+Alt+F1 -> sudo apt-get install gnome-shell, let the pc restart so it ran ubuntu and can be used again.

How do I reinstall MATE to make it look more Windows-y?

I'm not at their PC atm, I will return when I know how to solve the issue.

cheers

[jungle_boy]

I think that gnome-shell is too heavy for a old laptop.

I would advise to use LM 13 xfce.

[TheDynamicHamza21]

Firstly the non LTS versions of Mint (based on Ubuntu) are full of bugs so it's not surprising your having problems with Nadia. I would try Mint 13 Maya.

Also have tried mate-panel --reset in terminal to reset? You say Mate's corrupt have you tried reinstalling Mate.

How do I reinstall MATE to make it look more Windows-y?

If we reverse your question and ask:
How can I make Windows look more like Linux most people would say what don't just install Linux?

I understand you trying make the transition easier for people used to only working within a windows environment but Linux is not Windows. The difference are not huge,it wouldn't take long for person used to running windows to figure out MATE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-PTQVeCF9k3t=01m37s (this is cinnamon and by comparison Mate is even more user friendly)

[mStuff]

I think that gnome-shell is too heavy for a old laptop.

Installing Gnome was a temporary solution until I get the command for re-installing MATE. PS, the PC is old, but it was pretty strong of a laptop when it was new.

[mStuff]

Firstly the non LTS versions of Mint (based on Ubuntu) are full of bugs so it's not surprising your having problems with Nadia. I would try Mint 13 Maya.

Thanks, I didn't think of Nadia as an unstable release, will try to install Maya instead.

Also have tried mate-panel --reset in terminal to reset? You say Mate's corrupt have you tried reinstalling Mate.

I will try that as soon as I can, but I need the command for reinstalling MATE.

I understand you trying make the transition easier for people used to only working within a windows environment but Linux is not Windows. The difference are not huge,it wouldn't take long for person used to running windows to figure out MATE.

The thing is, I'm installing the Mint OS on people's PC that has gone bad and/or slow. The people I am atm fixing PC for, had Vista, that would say a lot of driver and application problems and therefore did not use the PC much at all.
I started suggesting they could upgrade to win8 OR try out linux Mint. I know they're very different platforms, but when the only thing you're doing is browsing the internet, using Libreoffice, printing and sometimes playing some games, I find Linux to be much much simpler than windows (the software manager), and free. They chose to try out linux and keep the Vista-key just in case.

How many languages does Cinnamon support? We're danish, and they are expecting the language to be danish.

[mStuff]

Anyone? This is kind of urgent...

I just need a quick guide to reinstall MATE through the terminal.

[TheDynamicHamza21]

Anyone? This is kind of urgent...

I just need a quick guide to reinstall MATE through the terminal.

You can install mate through the package manager. You can also use this guide to install on Mint 14 (Ubuntu Quantal):

http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download

Add ONE of the following repos to /etc/apt/sources.list via the following command:

Code: Select all

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/ubuntu quantal main"

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/ubuntu quantal main"

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://mirror1.mate-desktop.org/ubuntu quantal main"

or using a text editor of your choice add the ONE following mirrors to /etc/apt/sources.list:

Code: Select all

deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/ubuntu quantal main

deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/ubuntu quantal main

deb http://mirror1.mate-desktop.org/ubuntu quantal main

Then run the following command to update your repositories and install MATE:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-archive-keyring
sudo apt-get update
# this install base packages
sudo apt-get install mate-core
# this install more packages
sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment 

[mStuff]

Then run the following command to update your repositories and install MATE:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-archive-keyring
sudo apt-get update
# this install base packages
sudo apt-get install mate-core
# this install more packages
sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment 

I guess I need to remove the corrupted copy of mate first? Is it something like sudo apt-get remove mate-core?

[TheDynamicHamza21]

I guess I need to remove the corrupted copy of mate first? Is it something like sudo apt-get remove mate-core?

I'm not sure but using this guide I believe you would do this instead:
http://www.webupd8.org/2012/04/mate-des ... it-in.html

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get remove atril atril-common caja caja-common engrampa engrampa-common ffmpegthumbnailer-caja libcaja-extension libmarco libmate libmate-common libmatecanvas libmatecomponent libmatecomponentui libmateconf libmatecorba libmatedesktop libmatekbd libmatekeyring libmatemenu libmatenotify libmatepanelapplet libmatepolkit libmateui libmatevfs libmateweather libmateweather-common marco marco-common mate-applets mate-applets-common mate-backgrounds mate-conf mate-conf-common mate-control-center mate-corba mate-core mate-desktop mate-desktop-common mate-dialogs mate-icon-theme mate-keyring mate-media mate-menus mate-mime-data mate-panel mate-panel-common mate-polkit mate-power-manager mate-power-manager-common mate-screensaver mate-session-manager mate-settings-daemon mate-settings-daemon-common mate-settings-daemon-gstreamer mate-system-monitor mate-terminal mate-terminal-common mate-text-editor mate-themes mate-vfs mate-vfs-common mate-window-manager python-mate