From Kubuntu to Ubuntu MATE

Support & Help Requests
#1

I have been using Kubuntu 18.04 LTS for 4 months. My experience has mostly been positive except some annoying bugs which are making me consider switching to a different ubuntu distro. I was suggested to give mate a try and I have a few questions about it.

  1. How stable is ubuntu mate compared to Kubuntu? I have a seven-year-old laptop ( Intel i5 processor ) with 4 Gb of ram. Is it going to be enough to run mate smoothly or should I go for an even lighter version like Xubuntu?
  2. Should I install 18.04 or wait for 19.04?
    Thanks in advance
#2

In my limited testing experience, the KDE desktop of Kubuntu is way more buggy and unstable than Mate. Beyond that, the underlying architecture is Ubuntu in both distro flavours and should be the same on both Kubuntu and Ubuntu Mate.

In terms of resource usage, Ubuntu Mate should be a quite a bit lighter on your machine than Kubuntu

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#3

i5 w/ 4GB of RAM is way above minimal specs for Ubuntu MATE.
My recommendation is that you install the Ubuntu MATE components alongside your Kubuntu Desktop to give it a trial run before switching.

sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop ubuntu-mate-core

Edit: I'd also recommend you stick with 18.04 for now if you care about stability.

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#4

  1. In my experience i have found that Ubuntu Mate to be more stable than kubuntu.
    ( I moved from Kubuntu to Ubuntu mate back around 15.04. ).

  2. I would recommend 18.04.2 LTS and do a fresh install. (Back up your data 1st).

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#5

Thanks guys . Right now I have installed 18.04.02 alongside kubuntu . I plan to remove kubuntu altogether after I get familiarise with mate.
Btw any suggestions on how to make mate look more modern ? Right now it seems a bit dated to me though it all comes down to personal preference. I don't want to do too much customization just a dark theme and different icon pack. Thank you.

#6

I installed arc theme and use arc-darker theme with Papirus icon's.

You could try numix or paper themes.

Also load up mate tweek and change the window manger to compiz.

Its really down your taste.

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#7

What does "dated" mean?

#8

I meant no offence its just that there's too much green stuff , I'm not sure if I'm explaining it clearly.

#9

I am not taking offence. But, what you have described is an aesthetic preference as opposed to something that is dated.

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#10

Hello itachgenjutsu

The lead developer and project lead of Ubuntu-Mate likes green. :slightly_smiling_face:
You can change many aspects of the desktop appearance:
System > Preferences > Look and Feel > Appearance... (I'm using the "traditional desktop").
You can try out combinations until you find something you like. :penguin:

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#11

Upstream MATE is the same green too, that's not going away (it's also the color of yerba mate, where the name comes from).

That said, there are possible ways of changing theme colors being considered, whether it's by using a script to auto-generate the current themes in newer colors, or to alter your current theme's CSS to custom colors. This, however, will take time - it's not trivial, since GTK removed the ability to change theme colors

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#12

Why isn't the color change in MATE these days?
I know that its was when the desktop was GTK2 but now its base on GTK3 its not. :frowning:

#13

I have installed arc dark theme with papirus icon set and I'm all set . I'm really happy with mate for now. In kubuntu my desktop used to hang/crash a lot. I'm doing the same tasks on Mate and it has been pretty smooth ride so far.
I have changed my desktop UI to look like pantheon ( I don't remember how I did it , was changing some settings and it happened :sweat_smile:) and with the arc theme it looks really great. Thank you everyone for you help. I really appreciate it .

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#14

I have been using KDE as my primary Linux desktop for quite a while now. KDE 3.4 days probably.
Like the OP I have ended up looking for something besides Plasma right now. Though, I will say Plasma is fairly well built. Gnome 3 is basically pointless so here I come to try MATE as well.

#15

Mate, being a continuation of the rock solid desktop of Gnome 2, just works. That's the top and bottom of it and always has been.

It just works.

#16

Having run both Gnome 2 and KDE 3 back over a decade ago I have found the move over to be pretty easy so far. Well after going through the theme configuration and picking out something that look like my main Gnome 2 desktop from 10+ years ago.