Can’t wait anymore have to try new Familiar panel layout in my business and private. Really likes it on new ubuntuMATE 18.04 LTS. Also gonna install it on a couple of friends computer. Yes, I know it’s a beta, but this is special circumstances as we lawyers call it 
Writing this from ubuntuMATE 18.04 LTS after upgrades. Works perfect. Gonna stay with the new default Fimiliar panel, really nice. Also very slick MATE desktop now. Thank You, @Wimpy and others!
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My post was in no way an attempt to confuse things, perhaps my remarks about differences between layouts made it seem I was saying something I was not, I looked at the post and its title is (Poll: Pantheon to become the default layout in 17.10) to me that simply asks whether or not the community wanted pantheon or not, not whether or not the community wanted a new default, unless we are talking about a different poll, I like to have things clearly defined, in my eyes that poll simply rejected the Pantheon layout as default, however I do not wish to carry on an argument, I just wish to state things as I see it, However It seems that as long as the traditional layout is kept most people are ok with it, and I do not think Wimpy will remove it or let go the features that make it possible, unless in 3001 it becomes deprecated at which point we will not be here to discuss it likely, If I am i will be in a wheelchair for sure 
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Well that was a long interesting read, and now my two cents worth. First off I’m not a DEV of any distro. I’ve been using Linux long enough that I look for something that I can work with that suits my needs and then customize it to my taste. Since I’ve been doing this since the early 90s I have seen Gnome and KDE both in their early stages look like really poor Windows 3 clones more or less.
One of the best things about Linux has always been the ability to add and remove what you like and don’t like. So if you approach from that angle it saves you alot of angst. I don’t like Gnome and KDE anymore because the focus in those camp seems to have turned development to using only what for the most part is centered around their development process or environment making them less modular and limiting your ability to replace what they have deemed official with what you prefer to use. In Gnomes case in order to make it even a somewhat bearable experience you have to install a host of extensions to make it palatable which may not function with the next upgrade of the windows manager. KDE on the other hand is trying to create the ultimate modern flashy environment with plasma. No big deal except at some point they are going to need to actually address the stability issues that have had since the 4 series.
So why am I using Ubuntu Mate? It is pretty simple. The software and driver access from Ubuntu, and at this point I still have the ability to add and remove from the system with little to no consequence. I can still set it up to suit my needs, tastes, and have a polished user experience when all is said and done.
I personally don’t Like anything but a single panel on my desktop with a few things on it. Never been a fan of docks and such. So one of the first things I did after installing 18.04 was to purge plank. I also deleted the bottom panel. I prefer the traditional approach to things, so I purged Brisk as well. Not a fan of Compiz so I use Marco GPU compositing. Then it is a simple process of removing the programs I don’t like or use and installing the ones I prefer to use.
What do I expect from the Devs? It’s pretty simple. Just turn out a stable product that I can use, and modify to my liking. They can concern themselves with fixing the bugs that will pop up and blending in the new package releases. They can package that in any wrapper they want since they are the ones doing the hands on. Just leave me the ability to change things to suit my tastes. I believe the Devs here are doing an excellent job of that.
All I can say to those complaining is this. The Devs are gracious enough to follow their passion and share the fruits of their time and work with us. As far as I am concerned they can package it to look anyway they want as long as the ability is still there for me to change things to suit my needs and tastes and the base environment is stable. I think they have done that remarkably well. I look at it like this you can modify what you are given to suit your likes and dislikes, or do it the Arch way and piece each piece of the puzzle together yourself. Ultimately the Devs have a large serving on their plates dealing with what is currently out there as well as what is coming. Appreciate the fact that they are doing the majority of the ground work for you. Then take a little time to make the install your own, and share issues you are having as well as fixes you might have discovered to help the Devs and community.
Not much else I can think off to add to this rambling, Since it is time to get ready for work I will leave you with this last thought…Cut the Devs a little slack. They are doing a fine job.
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Well that was a long interesting read, and now my two cents worth. First off I’m not a DEV of any distro. I’ve been using Linux long enough that I look for something that I can work with that suits my needs and then customize it to my taste. Since I’ve been doing this since the early 90s I have seen Gnome and KDE both in their early stages look like really poor Windows 3 clones more or less.
Fine. That is to say that is your subjective opinion and you are entitled to it. I happen to agree with much, though not all of it. But, then, that is my subjective opinion also
One of the best things about Linux has always been the ability to add and remove what you like and don’t like. So if you approach from that angle it saves you a lot of angst. I don’t like Gnome and KDE anymore because the focus in those camp seems to have turned development to using only what for the most part is centered around their development process or environment making them less modular and limiting your ability to replace what they have deemed official with what you prefer to use. In Gnomes case in order to make it even a somewhat bearable experience you have to install a host of extensions to make it palatable which may not function with the next upgrade of the windows manager. KDE on the other hand is trying to create the ultimate modern flashy environment with plasma. No big deal except at some point they are going to need to actually address the stability issues that have had since the 4 series.
So why am I using Ubuntu Mate? It is pretty simple. The software and driver access from Ubuntu, and at this point I still have the ability to add and remove from the system with little to no consequence. I can still set it up to suit my needs, tastes, and have a polished user experience when all is said and done.
I personally don’t Like anything but a single panel on my desktop with a few things on it. Never been a fan of docks and such. So one of the first things I did after installing 18.04 was to purge plank. I also deleted the bottom panel. I prefer the traditional approach to things, so I purged Brisk as well. Not a fan of Compiz so I use Marco GPU compositing. Then it is a simple process of removing the programs I don’t like or use and installing the ones I prefer to use.
What do I expect from the Devs? It’s pretty simple. Just turn out a stable product that I can use, and modify to my liking. They can concern themselves with fixing the bugs that will pop up and blending in the new package releases. They can package that in any wrapper they want since they are the ones doing the hands on. Just leave me the ability to change things to suit my tastes. I believe the Devs here are doing an excellent job of that.
Again, fine. I agree with much of that. But certainly not all of it. But, that is my prerogative, as your opinion is yours.
All I can say to those complaining is this. The Devs are gracious enough to follow their passion and share the fruits of their time and work with us. As far as I am concerned they can package it to look anyway they want as long as the ability is still there for me to change things to suit my needs and tastes and the base environment is stable. I think they have done that remarkably well. I look at it like this you you can modify what you are given to suit your likes and dislikes, or do it the Arch way and piece each piece of the puzzle together yourself. Ultimately the Devs have a large serving on their plates dealing with what is currently out there as well as what is coming. Appreciate the fact that they are doing the majority of the ground work for you. Then take a little time to make the install your own, and share issues you are having as well as fixes you might have discovered to help the Devs and community.
Mot much else I can think off to add to this rambling, Since it is time to get ready for work I will leave you with this last though…Cut the Devs a little slack. They are doing a fine job.
Not fine;
Nobody has said they could not package it how they want. What some have said, including myself, is that they should not consult users and then ignore the result of that consultation and then, in ignoring it, attempt to sneak through what they wanted in the first place and then, following that, attempt to re-frame all of the above as just some people complaining about nothing as you have just done. This always was and is, for me, about honesty. If Martin (and/or other devs) wanted to ditch the Traditional" layout as default, then he/they should not have held a poll. Or, if he/they felt so strongly about it, even after the poll, then he/they should have been honest enough, in the first instance, to simply come out and state they were going to change it anyway because they felt so strongly about it. Some may have liked it and some may not. But, that’s life and would have been honest and that has to be respected. Indeed, this is what has now (finally) happened and that is good. But, it has only happened, after the fact of a great deal of entirely unnecessary disputation.
I say all of the above while, repeatedly stating that the changes, as now outlined, are more than acceptable, to me at least. But, what is not acceptable, is lies (or ignorance of events) pretending that the changes, as currently outlined, is how it was all along. The changes as currently outlined (including, most notably, Traditional now being offered as a preassembled layout in mate tweak), I am quite convinced, would not have occurred in the absence of those “complaints”.
I will keep posting replies such as this so long as I keep seeing posts based on, variously, ignorance of events, obfuscation, dissembling and downright dishonest recounting of events being posted here.
The things that will stop me making these replies are:
Martin comes on here and acknowledges the mistakes made in implementing this. In doing so, it will hopefully cause those who wish to show how “on-side” with the devs they are that their posts are, in this instance, entirely misplaced.
Or
Those same people taking the time to actually look back at both the posts in the initial consultation/poll and the immediate thread on the changes that this thread is basically a continuation of and, in doing so, stop with this disingenuous re framing of the events that led to this point.
Or
I get banned form this forum
If neither of the first two happen, this is going to be a long thread (or I get banned). If either of them do, this will be my last post in it.
I understand your opinion about the poll. Just my opinion but that poll probably shouldn’t have been done. On the other hand had the changes just been implemented there more than likely would have been the same amount of flack.
I think that the better way of handling it would have been for the Devs to make the changes and simply post what the changes would be along with the fact that the previous theme options for look and feel were still there it would simply require some settings changes.
At the end of the day no matter what happens there will always be someone not happy and griping about something. Like I stated earlier if someone is that disgruntled they can grab an iso of Arch and build there system from the core up and have just exactly what they want. That is until an update rolls out that disables a major system at a critical time and leaves them hanging. Which is why I came back. Arch rolled out a series of updates that effectively disable CUPS at a time I was needing to print some documents for a license. That prompted me to come back to a more stable environment, At this point that consist of Debian Testing, Ubuntu Mate, and Kali. At least things are functioning in this arena.
As far as supporting the Devs opinion and the direction they are taking, and what they are doing, I support them. They are eliminating a huge chunk of the headache that comes from doing ground up installs. Opinions are just that, and ultimately it is their decision as to what is best for the distribution.
As far as keeping a discourse going wanting someone to get online, say they are wrong, and apologize, well that seems a bit on the childish side of things. Except where things are, make the necessary adjustments to your system so you are happy with it. At this point in the ball game this has turned into nothing more than a gripe fest that isn’t helping anything.
This will be my last comment on the subject as I believe this thread should be closed for further comments.
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I agree it should not have been done. And I did not say they should apologize. Merely acknowledge. There is a difference. I choose my words very carefully and you really should read the posts of others more carefully.
However, given that it was done, the honourable thing would have then been to come clean and say that a mistake had been made and the change was going to be implemented anyway and then the reason given, unvarnished.
It didn’t happen that way either.
At least not until much later.
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@stevecook172001 I’ve read enough of your post in the past to know you have the skills necessary to build your own operating system from the ground up. Have you considered doing so? Mate desktop is unadulterated on debian. I think you would like it.
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MATE on Debian is great, with Stable getting access to 1.18 it is the most stable MATE release I’ve tried besides Oldstable. That said, some UM defaults have begun encroaching into Debian. Nothing spectacular (just yet) but still troubling.
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It works quite well on the Raspberry Pi.
Looking back at my last post to @stevecook172001 it seems to appear as if I was suggesting that if he didn’t like the current UM scheme, maybe he should go elsewhere. That was certainly not what I was suggesting. Steve, I apologize if you felt that was my intent.
I was however trying convey that there are so many options with Linux, even to the point of building your own desktop environment from the ground up, which is something I believe Steve could do.
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Don’t worry Steven, I didn’t think you were implying that. And you are right, I can and have built my own setup out of off the shelf parts.
Wow, as someone returning to the Linux community after a long hiatus (I remember the original Slackware and Red Hat releases) I can see that the big/little-endian type attitudes are still very prevalent. One can only imagine what could be accomplished if only other more important topics received the kind of participation that this one has.
As for default layouts, my two cents… It matters very little what the default is. I always customize mine anyway. I suspect that most here do too to one extent or another. It takes only moments to switch between the packaged layouts and only slightly longer to roll your own and save it as a new custom layout to which you can always return. That’s the beauty of the MATE environment. How can anyone expect more than that?
I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank @Wimpy for a fine distro. I am really impressed with how well it works on older/limited hardware and that I can use the same distro on intel and ARM for a common look and feel across all my non-Windows devices. Currently running the 18.04 Beta 1 and it’s stability has been quite impressive.
Thanks again, @Wimpy !
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Wow, I’d really appreciate if you could expand on what you mean by “…big/little-endian type attitudes…” being “…still very prevalent…”
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I could be wrong but the text parses to ‘stop caring about stuff I don’t care about and start caring about stuff I care about’ when I read it. But like I said, I could be wrong…
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I for one having read the dialogue in detail see no occurrence of hostility and instead see those I would only consider UM patrioits being battered down for voicing an opinion that differs.
People are as people were. What also hasn’t changed is the tendency to project ourselves into everything that we sense, so the experience can become somewhat blurred.
I’m afraid there will be no end to @stevecook172001 having to set people straight on what really happened.
And no amount of effort to silence discussion should be viewed as a positive thing.
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It would really help if the people who ‘don’t really care about the new layout’ would stop feeling the need to revise history. Maybe then stevecook172001 wouldn’t feel the need to repeat himself so much?
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Well, yes. Quite so.
To clarify my post (that wasn’t really addresed to anyone in particular other than Wimpy in order to thank him for a great distro), I learned a long time ago that the world rarely works the way I think it should. I don’t often get my way, the explanation for why I didn’t get my way is often incomplete and unsatisfying, and “setting the record straight” is mostly an exercise in futility.
Since I passed the age of 12 and realized these things, I have found that when presented with a gift horse it is best to either accept it or reject it, but looking it in the mouth rarely results in a desirable outcome. Neither does stubborn pursuit of an otherwise moot point. I hope that clarifies my post for those who have seem to have chosen to own it as addressed to them.
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On that positive note, I’m electing to close this discussion.
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