{"id":859,"date":"2016-08-31T14:47:40","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T18:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/?p=859"},"modified":"2016-08-31T18:40:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T22:40:27","slug":"experimenting-with-the-mate-dektop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/?p=859","title":{"rendered":"Experimenting with the MATE desktop"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Logo
Logo of the Mate Desktop Environment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some bug bite me and, as a result, I did the unthinkable. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

In fact, you might know\u00c2\u00a0that I have been\u00c2\u00a0a GNU\/Linux user since 2000 (fully migrated since 2002). Now, Linux is just a kernel, GNU is just a set of utilities, and usually the operating system leaves you at the text console. If you want anything graphical, you have a choice of graphical desktop environments\u00c2\u00a0which differ in their underlying development philosophies and choices and also in their degree of sophistication\/customizability.<\/p>\n

Well, for almost the same number of years that I was a GNU\/Linux user I have been user of the graphical environment known as KDE<\/a> (now Plasma). Hey, I even was an official KDE Spanish translator for 10 straight years!<\/a> However, since Slackware also includes Xfce<\/a>, it has been my second-choice desktop environment.<\/p>\n

Now, if you are acquainted with a minimum of\u00c2\u00a0the history of Linux desktop environments, you might be aware of the fact\u00c2\u00a0that there was at a certain point\u00c2\u00a0a reaction against the KDE environment which gave rise to another desktop known as GNOME. It used to be a good desktop, but I deeply disagreed with most of its choices and the disagreement grew over time; so I’m not interested in using it. For many years\u00c2\u00a0there used to be a rivalry and even an all out flamewar among KDE and GNOME adherents (it’s all over now; everyone is OK with other people’s choices and to each its own).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, within\u00c2\u00a0the GNOME camp there was growing dissatisfaction with choices made by their developers. Thus, in 2011 some folks began a nice\u00c2\u00a0fork of the GNOME desktop, preserving what many users perceived as good parts of the desktop environment that were discarded in newer GNOME versions.\u00c2\u00a0This fork was called MATE Desktop<\/a> in honor of the Paraguayan Yerba Mate (Ilex paraguariensis<\/em>)<\/a>, a Paraguayan plant which we consume in prodigious amounts as a refreshing beverage and also as a tea.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Slackware has available a great implementation of Mate thanks to\u00c2\u00a0Willy Sudiarto Raharjo<\/a> and Chess Griffin. Due\u00c2\u00a0to their efforts, we have a nice\u00c2\u00a0set of packages in MATE SlackBuild<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, I got curious; even more, how could I pass an oportunity to try a desktop named after my beloved Yerba Mate?\u00c2\u00a0Therefore downloaded the Mate packages to give them a spin.\u00c2\u00a0I was offered\u00c2\u00a0a choice between the stable 1.14 version and the development 1.15 version. In turn, it was possible to choose 1.15 builds against the GTK+2 or GTK+3 libraries. Since GTK+3 seemed to be the way of the future, I chose that.<\/p>\n

After some inquiries on whether Mate software and its dependencies would conflict with my Plasma setup, and being answered that it wouldn’t, I installed the desktop.\u00c2\u00a0Upon loading, I was pleasantly surprised.<\/p>\n

So, here’s the unthinkable: a KDE\/Plasma user for 10+ years installing and using a GNOME-derived desktop!<\/p>\n

There are many good things to write about Mate, but there are also some shortcomings.\u00c2\u00a0I plan to write my impressions in an upcoming post. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some bug bite me and, as a result, I did the unthinkable. \ud83d\ude09 In fact, you might know\u00c2\u00a0that I have been\u00c2\u00a0a GNU\/Linux user since 2000 (fully migrated since 2002). Now, Linux is just a kernel, GNU is just a set of utilities, and usually the operating system leaves you at the text console. If you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[258,112,74,75,256,255,257,259,78],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-general","tag-gnome","tag-gnulinux","tag-kde","tag-linux","tag-mate","tag-mate-desktop","tag-plasma","tag-slackbuilds","tag-slackware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}