MATE Desktop 1.2 Released 194
An anonymous reader writes "For those of you who still feel GNOME 2 is the best desktop environment, but don't want stick to old distros, MATE is a fork of GNOME 2, with all the names changed to avoid clashes with GNOME 3. Version 1.2 brings fixes, but also new features such as undo/redo in the file manager."
This release features better freedesktop standards integration, adds a few missing utilities, and merges new features into the file manager. The project has a new wiki; the roadmap has a few details on future goals, including porting things to Gtk 3 and using bits and pieces of modern GNOME 3 infrastructure where appropriate.
Excellent (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Undo/Redo (Score:4, Informative)
to be fair gnome had this for awhile. then removed it due to them thinking it 'confuses' people, back when gnome 2.0 was under their direction. they are just putting it back in.
Re:Doomed, try cinnamon. (Score:4, Informative)
MATE is independent of Mint and has its own team (Clem is a member, but Mint ddidn't start and doesn't run the project). The MATE team is small, but their goals are much more modest than Gnome's - they (thankfully!) have no ambitions to design a new 'desktop paradigm'.
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:2, Informative)
One man's "more choice" is an anti-choice idiot's "fragmentation".
FTFY.
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Informative)
Are you forgetting about Cinnamon? It's basically the same thing but starting from gnome3 and working back to gnome2's appearance.
It's not the appearance that's an issue, but the functionality.
Like working support for multiple buttoned mice, multiple displays and display orders, overlapping windows with focus-follows-mouse and user controlled Z order, multiple sessions of the same programs whether or not the apps themselves provide an "open new instance" functionality, remote X logins, adjustable DPI (for wysiwyg DTP this is a must)...
Most people seem to complain about panel apps, but to me, that's a minor thing compared to how basic functionality has been sacrificed. The fallback mode is nothing like Gnome 2, and changing the looks to get it more like Gnome 2 will accomplish diddley squat.
The first Gnome 3 dev who has guts enough to say "dudes, we fscked up this one, bad" will get my respect.
Use XFCE (Score:4, Informative)
All of that can be done with XFCE, but without the bugs and sluggishness the gnome developers never cared to fix.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Informative)
Without MATE, Linux Mint 12 wouldn't even be an option for me (I'd stick with 11).
I might say the same for Ubuntu 12.04 (though to be fair, I could also live with Xfce). I just installed MATE 1.2 on the latest 12.04 beta and it works like a charm, as here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/110052/how-to-install-the-mate-desktop-go-back-to-gnome-2-on-ubuntu/ [howtogeek.com]
For my money, Gnome 2/MATE is still the best available desktop for Linux. I've tried the other approaches to taming Gnome 3 (Cinnamon, the classic 'fallback mode' panel, even Unity) and all currently seem lacking in comparison, with more limited features, or lower performance on resource-limited systems, or (in the case of Unity) annoying design choices. The benefits to developers of building a desktop on the Gnome 3 foundation (ease of maintenance, etc.) are all very well, but as an end-user, I'm going to go for the more responsive, fully-featured alternative. The situation may be different in a year or two, but right now MATE remains my top choice.