My name is Rick I have been using Linux on and off for about 10+ years. I started with Linux in about 1996. Back then Linux was on a floppy disk. When the boot-able CD-ROM came it was a joy to use.
I use Ubuntu Mate all the time. Right now I am using UM 15.10 and I have a laptop that has UM 16.04 A1 -> B2. This machine has another hdd attached with another OS. I thinking of putting UM 16.04 on it but have not yet decided. B2 does work with this machine. It has a GT240 video card. When I changed setting to Marco GPU it has what kind of looks like salt and pepper or sprinkles that appear every now and then. I did not try the Nvidia driver as I was running a live cd.
sorry but I'm not sure if you are looking for help or just explaining your first impressions of UM?.
When in live mode, not everything will run as smoothly as it should in installed mode!. Once installed, follow this guide about installing graphics drivers and you shouldn't go wrong, only install the suggested packages shown in the list, if your model doesn't show any available, stick with the on-board drivers:
Thanks again, I am just rambling a bit. I think I have found my main and possibly final distribution. The others will be for fun and experiment. I am wondering if all distributionset are more compatible with my GT 240 ootb but think that UM was the one that did it first. I could be wrong. Smiles.