MATE_(software)
MATE (desktop environment)
Desktop environment forked from GNOME 2
MATE (/ˈmɑːteɪ/)[4] is a desktop environment composed of free and open-source software that runs on Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems such as BSD, and illumos operating systems.[5][6]
A typical MATE desktop environment | |
| Developer(s) | Clement Lefebvre, Perberos, Stefano Karapetsas, et al.[1] |
|---|---|
| Initial release | August 19, 2011; 12 years ago (2011-08-19) |
| Stable release | |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C[3] |
| Operating system | Unix-like, Unix |
| Type | Desktop environment |
| License | GPLv2+, LGPLv2+ |
| Website | mate-desktop |
MATE is named after the South American plant yerba mate and tea made from the herb, mate.[4] The name is stylized in all capital letters to follow the nomenclature of other Free Software desktop environments like KDE and LXDE. The recursive backronym "MATE Advanced Traditional Environment" was subsequently adopted by most of the MATE community, again in the spirit of Free Software like GNU ("GNU's Not Unix!").[7] The use of a new name, instead of GNOME, avoids naming conflicts with GNOME 3 components.[7]
An Argentine user of Arch Linux, named Perberos started the MATE project[8] to fork and continue GNOME 2 in response to the negative reception of GNOME 3, which had replaced its traditional taskbar (GNOME Panel) with GNOME Shell. MATE aims to maintain and continue the latest GNOME 2 code base, frameworks, and core applications.[9][10][11]
MATE was initially announced for Debian on November 8, 2013, at its official website.[12]
MATE became an official Arch Linux community package in January 2014.
MATE has forked a number of applications which originated as GNOME Core Applications, and developers have written several other applications from scratch. The forked applications have new names, most of them from Spanish.[13]
| Application name | Spanish translation | Forked from | Description | Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atril | lectern | Evince | document viewer | EPUB support
Caret navigation support[14] |
| Caja | box | GNOME Files (Nautilus) | File Manager | Extension support[15] |
| Engrampa | staple | Archive Manager (File Roller) | File archiver | |
| Eye of MATE | Eye of GNOME | Image viewer | ||
| MATE Calculator | GNOME Calculator | Calculator | ||
| MATE Control Center | GNOME Control Center | MATE desktop settings | ||
| MATE System Monitor | GNOME System Monitor | Graphical resource monitor | ||
| MATE Terminal | GNOME Terminal | Terminal emulator | ||
| marco | frame | Metacity | MATE window manager | |
| Mozo | waiter | Alacarte | Menu editor | |
| Pluma | pen | Gedit | Text editor |
MATE fully supports the GTK 3 application framework. The project is supported by Ubuntu MATE lead developer Martin Wimpress and by the Linux Mint development team:
We consider MATE yet another desktop, just like KDE, Gnome 3, Xfce etc... and based on the popularity of Gnome 2 in previous releases of Linux Mint, we are dedicated to support it and to help it improve. The most popular Linux desktop was, and arguably is, Gnome 2.[16]
New features have been added to Caja such as undo/redo[17] and diff viewing for file replacements.[18] MATE 1.6 removes some deprecated libraries, moving from mate-conf (a fork of GConf) to GSettings, and from mate-corba (a fork of GNOME's Bonobo) to D-Bus.
One of the aims of the MATE developers is to provide a traditional user experience while using the newest technologies. In MATE 1.20, which was released in February 2018, support for HiDPI was added and the GTK version got increased to 3.22. The MATE 1.22 release migrated many programs from Python 2 to Python 3 and from dbus-glib to GDBus. In an upcoming version, support for Wayland will be added.[19]
Note that there are an odd number of versions between each official release. They are treated as versions under development, and are not announced as official releases.
| Date | Version |
|---|---|
| 2011-06-18 | Announced at Arch Linux forum[20] |
| 2011-08-19 | Initial release[citation needed] |
| 2012-04-16 | 1.2 |
| 2012-07-30 | 1.4 |
| 2013-04-02 | 1.6 |
| 2014-03-04 | 1.8 |
| 2015-06-11 | 1.10 |
| 2015-11-05 | 1.12 |
| 2016-04-08 | 1.14 |
| 2016-09-21 | 1.16 |
| 2017-03-13 | 1.18 |
| 2018-02-07 | 1.20 |
| 2019-03-18 | 1.22 |
| 2020-02-10 | 1.24 |
| 2021-08-03 | 1.26 |
| 2024-02-12 | 1.28[21] |
The MATE website (as of 8 September 2022) lists 27 Linux distributions and 5 Unix-like operating systems that support the MATE desktop environment.[22]
![[icon]](./File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2022) |
- "MATE Developers". December 5, 2011. Archived from the original on May 13, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2017.
- "version 1.28.2". March 11, 2024. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
- "MATE Desktop Environment – Where does the name come from?", MATE, archived from the original on May 6, 2021, retrieved July 3, 2015
- "Installation - MATE wiki". Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022.
- "Mate and new test ISOs – openindiana". Archived from the original on July 17, 2022. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
- "MATE desktop". O'Reilly Media. Archived from the original on October 2, 2022. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
- "Mate Desktop Environment – GNOME2 fork (Page 1) / Community Contributions / Arch Linux Forums". August 21, 2014. Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
- "A Gnome 2 Fork: The MATE Desktop Environment", ingeek, November 17, 2011, archived from the original on February 14, 2014, retrieved December 12, 2016
- Larabel, Michael (August 17, 2011), "A Fork Of GNOME 2: The Mate Desktop", Phoronix, archived from the original on June 30, 2016, retrieved December 4, 2011
- Laishram, Ricky (August 4, 2011), Linus Torvalds Ditches GNOME For Xfce, Digitizor, archived from the original on April 11, 2015, retrieved May 28, 2021,
While you are at it, could you also fork gnome, and support a gnome-2 environment? – Linus Torvalds
. - Karapetsas, Stefano (November 8, 2013). "Debian MATE Packaging Team". MATE. Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
- "MATEwiki". mate-desktop.org. Archived from the original on September 19, 2021. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
- Wimpress, Martin (February 7, 2018). "MATE 1.20 released". MATE. Archived from the original on September 23, 2021. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
- "MATE 1.26 released". August 10, 2021. Archived from the original on September 21, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
- Lefebvre, Clem (December 1, 2011), "Important fix for MATE – Feedback needed", The Linux Mint Blog, archived from the original on December 3, 2011, retrieved December 10, 2011
- Karapetsas, Stefano (January 3, 2012), "Undo/Redo in Caja", Stefano Karapetsas's Blog, archived from the original on April 16, 2014, retrieved April 15, 2014
- Karapetsas, Stefano (June 17, 2012), "What's new in next Caja", Stefano Karapetsas's Blog, archived from the original on April 16, 2014, retrieved April 15, 2014
- "Wayland and Meson - MATE wiki". Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022.
- "Mate Desktop Environment – GNOME2 fork / Community Contributions / Arch Linux Forums". Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
- "Index of /releases/1.28/". pub.mate-desktop.org. Retrieved February 16, 2024.
- "MATE Desktop Environment". MATE. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
