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.
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this fragmentation? It's just more choice. Gnome2 is dead as far as gnome.org is concerned. Don't like it? Don't use it.
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fragmentation is not a bad thing. Think of it as natural selection in the open source software world. This is the mutation that may result in a new or different product.
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
One man's "more choice" is another man's "fragmentation".
Re:Doomed, try cinnamon. (Score:5, Insightful)
This approach is doomed to failure. The better approach is Mint's Cinnamon project. There they maintain a gnome2 like desktop environment, but it rests on gnome3. There are ppa's (https://launchpad.net/~merlwiz79/+archive/cinnamon-ppa) that let you install it into official Ubuntu distros, so no need to install a full-on mint distro. It would be even better if canonical moved these packages into universe or something.
You are missing the point! I don't want Gnome3 and I don't want a Gnome2-looking interface stuck on Gnome3. It wasn't the look of Gnome2 that I liked. It was the flexibility and feature completeness. I could drag app links to the bar on top. I could use the bar on bottom as my taskbar. I could put a "widget" on my top bar that showed me my process or usage, RAM usage, network activity, swap activity, CPU temperature, fan speed, CPU speed, case temp, etc, etc, etc, all without adding any special repos. I can't do any of that on Gnome3. Not because Gnome3 doesn't LOOK like Gnome2, but because it's Gnome3.
I don't want Gnome3, period! I run XFCE and KDE now, thank you very much.
Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I haven't actually tried it, but Gnome3 won't run on my system. So I'm rather glad that Mate is producing something that will be usable when Debian stable incorporates Gnome3.
(And the Gnome3 fallback to Gnome2 fallback mode is so eyetearingly ugly that I installed the stable branch, replacing the testing branch, to get away from it. Of course, what I'd really prefer is KDE3, but pearson seems to be rather slow in making that usable [under the name trinity], so I may end up with Mate. Or possibly LXDE or some such. I tried it for awhile, and it's usable, but I much prefer Gnome2.)
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing wrong here. If a Mac user doesn't like the way Mac OS X is going, they're choices are to use old and unsupported software or bitch and complain. If a Linux user doesn't like the way things are going they can fork.
Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)
Or in this case, change it back!
Re:They don't know gnome panel 3? (Score:2, Insightful)
And Gnome Panel is gimped compared to Gnome2. It may look similar but it doesn't function the same way.
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is EXACTLY why Windows reigns supreme over all the 2^42 versions of Linux. You know exactly what you are getting into.
Yes. You can choose:
XP Home
XP Pro
XP 64
Couple of other varieties of XP
Various server versions of Windows
Six or so varieties of Vista
A dozen or so varieties of Windows 7, 32-bit or 64-bit
And soon, Windows for Tablets on the Desktop
People complaining about Linux 'fragementation' and then using that as an argument for running Windows are highly amusing. I can't even remember all the different versions of Windows you can run with different features and radically different UIs.
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps this is true... in a DICTATORSHIP.
Look. The fact is, the whole point is free as in freedom (as well as free as in beer). The public has cried long and loud about the direction GNOME3 has taken. People respond with "don't like it? don't use it!" Well, when someone actually takes them up on it, someone else calls it "fragmentation." Can't win?
Fact is, GNOME is not listening to its users. It's a problem. We know what happened when XFree86 didn't listen... we've gone to X.org and flourished because of it. Now we have people bringing life back to the Gnome2 DE and I expect a lot of user interest will follow... my own as well. (As soon as I find out how easy it is to install and run it under the latest Fedora... right now, I am on CentOS 6.x because Fedora has failed me...) Maybe I can go back with MATE 1.2... CentOS is good but takes a lot of effort to tweak it the way I want it... moreso than Fedora of whatever version CentOS most resembles.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More Linux fragmentation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Steve Jobs probably liked blue jeans and black turtlenecks, and made that choice out of thousands of options. He did not go out to make it the only option for everyone. See that essential difference? In fact, it's pretty much similar to those who want to stick with MATE instead of choosing between following Gnome's antics or switching to another desktop.
So yeah, using MATE fragments Linux like black turtlenecks fragment fashion, and it takes away annoying and trivial choices like wearing the same takes away choices. What were you trying to say again?