[solved] Multiple Desktops in Mate

[gostal]

Ctrl+Alt+Upwards arrow key will get you into Expo mode, where you can click the plus sign at the right hand edge to add more workspaces. There is an applet available to get to Expo mode with one click if you prefer that.

The above may work in Cinnamon but it does not work in Mate (Mint 19). There is no plus sign in the window showing the workspaces.
Nor is there any applet, at least not out-of-the-box. I could not find anything in the Control Panel right away. Turned out
there is a setting there CompizConfig Settings Manager->General Settings->Desktop Size. I found it after some "googling".
So I tried it. Didn't work. Then I found some terminal command for Cinnamon somewhere in the Community pages. It said:

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gsettings set org.cinnamon number-desktops 4

I tried to modify the command replacing cinnamon by mate but no. that didn't work. I don't remember the exact error message but it
was something like Scheme not found. So how to deal with gsettings properly? Started reading the man page for
gsettings and it turns out that the general syntax is the following: gsettings set scheme[:path] key value. Well, the scheme
was clearly not mate so what then. Tried another gsettings command:

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gsettings list-schemas

This lists all existing schemas and there I found org.mate.Marco.general so I tried putting that in instead of org.cinnamon but
there was no such key (key: number-desktops). What's the name of the #&@!§ key? Man-page again:

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gsettings list-recursively

This command without arguments list all the key-value-pairs there is regardless of scheme. There are quite a few of them so I
"grep:ed" Marco: gsettings list-recursively | grep Marco and then I found among many Marco keys the key
num-workspaces. Next step:

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gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 6

Did it work? No, this is what I got:
GLib-GIO-Message: 20:30:29.548: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. Your settings will not be
saved or shared with other applications.
Adding sudo to the command did the trick or at least I thought so to begin with. Check: sudo get org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces
and I got 6. BUT dropping sudo and I got only 4 and sure enough Ctrl+Alt+Up-arrow showed only 4 workspaces. The setting apparently
hadn't penetrated. At least that's what I believed. Two alternatives: log out/log in or reboot. Well, logging out and
logging in didn't help. The reader who perhaps thinks ahead a little more than I did may object that since the command line
setting I just did probably is equivalent to the CompizConfig Settings Manager operation described above it's only logical that
merely logging out and logging in didn't suffice. Yes, I should have expected it but I didn't think ahead. But hang on. There's more.

Well, rebooting then. That would finally give me my 6 workspaces, right? Wrong, still only 4 and rebooting had reset
org.mate.Marco.general num-workspace back to 4. In hindsight this is also quite logical. It turns out that there are more
keys by the name num-workspace but belonging to other schemas with higher priority. "Grep:ing" again but somewhat differently:
gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces gave me:

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org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4
org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4
org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 4

Since I don't have Cinnamon it must be the gnome-key that has the higher priority. So the steps that finally gave me 6 workspaces are:
sudo gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 6 + reboot

[WHVW]

gostal:

Hey man , good work. It is an issue I will have to face sooner or later since LM17's execution date is coming soon. Right now I have other issues with that (that) I don't have the time for now......

Take care.

[gostal]

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gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 6

Did it work? No, this is what I got:
GLib-GIO-Message: 20:30:29.548: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. Your settings will not be
saved or shared with other applications.
...
So the steps that finally gave me 6 workspaces are:
sudo gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 6 + reboot

It seems that the odd behaviour in Mint 19 Mate regarding workspace settings has been corrected in Mint 19.1 Mate.

If the workspace-switcher applet is installed and one right-klicks that and chooses Preferences it is possible to increase or reduce the number of workspaces. For instance if you increase from default 4 workspaces to 6 it gives the following output from gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces:

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org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4
org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4
org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 6

and you get 6 workspaces. This also survives reboot contrary to the behaviour in Mint 19 Mate.

This method is mentioned in the post by smurphos but prior to Mint 19.1 it didn't work as expected.

It seem then that what eventually worked in Mint 19: sudo gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 6 + reboot
is now obsolete and if you prefer the command line you should now do, e.g.,sudo gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 6

Cheers,
gostal

[Moem]

Mod note:
I've split this off into a separate topic, as the original topic is old and was about Cinnamon.

[gm10]

It seems that the odd behaviour in Mint 19 Mate regarding workspace settings has been corrected in Mint 19.1 Mate.

For what it's worth, LM 19 and LM 19.1 use the same version of MATE and its applets. I also never had trouble with the workspace-switcher applet in LM 19.

Your problem in the OP appears to have been one of incorrect sudo usage (starting GUI applications with sudo), which had changed ownership of your dconf/gsettings database. To fix:

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sudo chown -Rc $USER:$USER ~

[gostal]

Your problem in the OP appears to have been one of incorrect sudo usage (starting GUI applications with sudo), which had changed ownership of your dconf/gsettings database.

OK, that seem logical. I'll look into it. It's now almost a year ago and my memory is fading but I seem to remember trying to do these settings without sudo but couldn't so the ownership must have been changed in some earlier mistake or was perhaps wrongly set from the beginning.

Cheers,
gostal

[gostal]

Your problem in the OP appears to have been one of incorrect sudo usage (starting GUI applications with sudo), which had changed ownership of your dconf/gsettings database.

OK, that seem logical. I'll look into it. It's now almost a year ago and my memory is fading but I seem to remember trying to do these settings without sudo but couldn't so the ownership must have been changed in some earlier mistake or was perhaps wrongly set from the beginning.

Cheers,
gostal

Changed ownerships of dot-files and directories in my home directory. Turns out that quite a number had root ownership:

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changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.dbus/session-bus/02edfdcf6caf4ee59de513cfb8d2ed58-0' from root:root to gostal:gostal
changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.dbus/session-bus' from root:root to gostal:gostal
changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.dbus' from root:root to gostal:gostal
changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.gvfs' from root:root to gostal:gostal
changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.cache/doc' from root:root to gostal:gostal
changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.cache/dconf/user' from root:root to gostal:gostal
changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.cache/dconf' from root:root to gostal:gostal
changed ownership of '/home/gostal/.aptitude/config' from root:root to gostal:gostal

and among these the mentioned dconf but! not the gsettings-files:

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./system/Mate/gsettings-schemas.txt
./system/Mate/gsettings-keys.txt

Now, I do have 6 workspaces so I'm happy but when I do: gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces I get:

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GLib-GIO-Message: 12:05:35.625: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend.  Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.
org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4
org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4
org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 4

and nowhere is the number of workspaces 6!

So where are the settings? Have they been moved to somewhere under /etc as a consequence of the upgrade from 19 to 19.1. (My earlier post was relating experience from a fresh install of 19.1 on another machine). This is still all but transparent to me. Could someone, please, explain?

Cheers,
gostal

[gm10]

and among these the mentioned dconf but! not the gsettings-files:

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./system/Mate/gsettings-schemas.txt
./system/Mate/gsettings-keys.txt

I don't know what those files are supposed to be but they are not being read by the system.

So where are the settings? Have they been moved to somewhere under /etc as a consequence of the upgrade from 19 to 19.1.

I already told you that there is no difference in the MATE desktop environment between LM 19 and LM 19.1.

The setting remains at:

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dconf read /org/mate/marco/general/num-workspaces

You need to log out and back in after fixing the ownership for the settings to save correctly.

[gostal]

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./system/Mate/gsettings-schemas.txt
./system/Mate/gsettings-keys.txt

I don't know what those files are supposed to be but they are not being read by the system.

Silly me. That was just some output I saved almost a year ago when I first struggled with this.

The setting remains at:

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dconf read /org/mate/marco/general/num-workspaces

You need to log out and back in after fixing the ownership for the settings to save correctly.

Logged out and back in. And I still have 6 workspaces. I gather from your reply that this business with gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces is irrelevant, No wonder everything felt so strange. And, yes, your command gives me 6. Fine! I guess this also means that setting the number of workspaces like this:

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gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 6

is also bad, if not downright wrong.

Cheers,
gostal

[gm10]

I guess this also means that setting the number of workspaces like this:

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gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 6

is also bad, if not downright wrong.

Shouldn't be a problem, no.

[gostal]

I googled a bit about gsettings and dconf, which I should have done in the first place, I guess. Anyway, gconf is a backend using a binary database for application settings. Some applications still use gconf for this but the intention is that it should be replaced by dconf. GSettings is a CLI for managing key-value-pairs in the dconf database. So one can use either gsettings or dconf to read and set application settings.

Now, to make a long story short, gsettings doesn't work for me the way it is supposed to but dconf does. In the earlier post I reported the output of gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces. In the beginning of the output there is an error message:
GLib-GIO-Message: 12:05:35.625: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. ...
This happened also the very first time I tried setting the number of workspaces using gsettings. At the time I didn't recognise it as an error message but thought it only signalled that I must use sudo. Hence, the screwing up of the dconf database ownership. I have now googled the error message and apparently there is something wrong with the system regarding the link between gsettings and dconf. However, it does not seem so easy to find and cure the cause. People have been uninstalling and reinstalling gsettings and dconf without effect and in one case concerned with the python module matplotlib it was resolved but I forget what was done.

In the other machine with the fresh Mint 19.1 installation gsettings and dconf work the way they are supposed to and my thinking that improvement had been done in Mate was wrong as was pointed out by gm10.

Now, if anybody has an idéa how to investigate the GLib-GIO-Message: 12:05:35.625: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. ...-error I'm all ears.

Cheers,
gostal

[gm10]

Now, if anybody has an idéa how to investigate the GLib-GIO-Message: 12:05:35.625: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. ...-error I'm all ears.

If the permissions/ownership are correct now and it's still not working, then you either removed or somehow messed up the GLib gsettings backend. What's the output of this:

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ldd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libdconfsettings.so

[gostal]

Thanks for responding!

If I have messed up something it was not by intent. Here's the output of
ldd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libdconfsettings.so:

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        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffc2e783000)
        libgio-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fc53da87000)
        libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fc53d833000)
        libglib-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fc53d51c000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fc53d2fd000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fc53cf0c000)
        libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fc53cd08000)
        libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fc53caeb000)
        libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so.1 (0x00007fc53c8c3000)
        libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fc53c6a8000)
        libmount.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmount.so.1 (0x00007fc53c454000)
        libffi.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.6 (0x00007fc53c24c000)
        libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007fc53bfda000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fc53e033000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fc53bdd6000)
        libblkid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libblkid.so.1 (0x00007fc53bb89000)
        librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fc53b981000)
        libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fc53b77a000)

Cheers,
gostal

[gm10]

Ok, so you got the file, you got the dependencies, assuming they're all the correct versions (i.e. your system is up to date and you didn't mix & match third-party sources) this should be working.

Does this generate the same error message?

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python3 -c 'from gi.repository import Gio;print(Gio.Settings.new("org.mate.Marco.general").get_int("num-workspaces"))'

You could also try creating a new user and see if you get the error message there.

Otherwise you already mentioned reinstalling the involved packages and I doubt that would make a difference, but why not:

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apt reinstall dconf-gsettings-backend dconf-service libdconf1

[gostal]

Does this generate the same error message?

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python3 -c 'from gi.repository import Gio;print(Gio.Settings.new("org.mate.Marco.general").get_int("num-workspaces"))'

No, I don't even have the module on my system: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'gi'. If the various packages named gir1.2... is short for gi.repository then I don't get it as there are a multitude of these installed, far from everyone but still quite a few. Are some essential ones of these missing? How do I tell?

And yes, system is updated and no, no third party mix.

I have Anaconda python on the hard disk but isolated from the system and normally disabled. I enable it via Environment Modules. I didn't install Anaconda, I just copied the files from another computer so I doubt Anaconda has had a chance to mess things up.

Cheers,
gostal

[gm10]

I have Anaconda python on the hard disk but isolated from the system and normally disabled. I enable it via Environment Modules. I didn't install Anaconda, I just copied the files from another computer so I doubt Anaconda has had a chance to mess things up.

Sounds like you replaced your default python3 environment with Anaconda. Does it work with a full path?

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/usr/bin/python3 -c 'from gi.repository import Gio;print(Gio.Settings.new("org.mate.Marco.general").get_int("num-workspaces"))'

Because if it doesn't then you shouldn't even be able to run most of the Mint tools and a bunch of other python applications for they'll all need GObject introspection (gi).

[gostal]

It works just fine without full path. I never took the trouble to check if Anaconda was enabled, I just assumed it wasn't but it was, indeed, enabled so I just disabled it. The result is 6 (same as with dconf).

Now, also gsettings works. Anaconda must have been the culprit all along. I have to check ~/.bashrc. I used to have Anaconda enabled on start up in my machines but since it screwed up the boot process in one of them I removed the ~/.bashrc entry. I might have missed doing it on this one.

Thanks for clearing this up.

Cheers,
gostal

[gm10]

All is well that ends well.

[WHVW]

gostel:
I don't know if anyone is still reading this post, but, I just did and could not resist running

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gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces

just out of curiosity.

A little background: I am running LM 19 on multiple machines both 32 and 64 bit. I use seven desktops. and got them by right-clicking the Menu bar, selecting "add applets to panel", and enabling "Workspace Swithcer". After that I could right-click on one of the desktops, then clicking "add a new desktop" to get to what I wanted. I also used "Ctrl+Alt+up arrow" to get to a "checkerboard" screen with a "+" sign on the right which also adds desktops.

On one of the 32 bit machines, (which I am using now) when I run "gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces" I get:

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$ gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces
org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 4
org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 7

So, I would deduce that there is both a "default" setting, (the 4) and "user" settings (the 7). Just thought I would throw in my 3 cents, (for what it's worth) (probably just that: three cents).

Later all..

[gostal]

The interpretation of your result depends on how many workspaces you do have, I imagine. My guess is that you have 7 and that the cinnamon number overrides the gnome number. On my desktop I have Mate 1.16 and when running gsettings list-recursively | grep num-workspaces I get:

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org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 8
org.mate.Marco.general num-workspaces 8

i e the numbers agree and since I have set the amount by right-clicking the workspace switcher and selected Preferences I guess the number has propagated from marco to gnome or perhaps vice versa (It might have been in gnome 3 that I did the setting) whereas in your case it has not. It may be that the marco setting got picked up from gnome when I installed Mate.

Cheers,
gostal