Longtime Fedora User Intrigued Enough To Contemplate A Switch

I’ve long used Fedora as my distro of choice. I’ve had short hops across the Linux landscape but always land back. I’m intrigued by the Snap packaging.

Does Ubuntu Mate offer a cut down image for installation? Many of the programs installed on the 16.04 and Daily ISO’s that I’ve tried I neither use nor want installed. I would rather add something if I need it than leave it for a possible attack surface.

The one feature that drives me back to Fedora, besides the security of a large company like Red Hat, is a more a Gnome feature.

https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/keyboard-key-super.html.en

The activities layout, with the single tap of the Superkey, is the most used feature and I cannot live without it. It works on Fedora 100% every time. Can I replicate this functionality using the Fedora layout with the Mate Tweak?

I don’t know of smaller Ubuntu MATE-specific image, but you can uninstall nearly everything. The first thing I typically do after installing (before downloading updates!) is something like

sudo apt remove hexchat libreoffice* thunderbird shotwell

Just watch for anything unintentional before you accept the uninstall. I think some core apps can’t be removed, but it’s a small list. (With 16.04 and before, the meta-package ubuntu-mate-desktop will get removed if you remove built-in apps, which is not a real problem, but it’s been resolved in 16.10 and newer.)


As you say, the Activities Overview is really more of a GNOME 3 feature than a Fedora-specific feature. If you really want that, you probably want Ubuntu GNOME! I don’t know of anything for MATE that matches it completely, since it’s an combination of a launcher, an app dock/menu and window overview. There are menus, like the in-development Brisk Menu and launchers, like Synapse and Albert (which I use), which you may be able to bind to the super key.

there is an ubuntu mini iso that you can download.

when installing, you can chose which desktop you want - including good old MATE of course

this will only download and install the basic MATE stuff - caja, pluma etc and not bloat extras like thunderbird, rhythmbox etc

*edit

if you want the activities overview, why not install gnome rather than MATE?

the mini-iso offers a gnome option too, i believe - if not, there is an official ubuntu gnome distro.

you’ll still be able to play with snap packages with ubuntu + gnome

A couple of optional ways would be to just install:

mate-desktop-environment

or for ever less

mate-desktop-environment-core

This is dated, the recommended packages have changed, but gives you the idea.

Ubuntu Gnome is a wasteland. The last update to their blog was September of 2016. I can’t name who runs the project let alone any contributors of note.

Martin does such a good job of updating and outreach I feel like I’m in good hands with the future of the project, if I were to move in this direction.

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If you're seeking for a way to show a menu with applications and places, then you can install what i guess they call "mint menu


But it looks more like classical paradigm of what a menu is.
If you're looking for expose open windows then compiz can help, but you will not find out the same way as Gnome 3 does.
I guess kde can maybe do a similar job as Gnome 3 after some customizations and still more as you can also keep classics desktop's paradigms. Ubuntu Mate is maybe more in that way - Classical with a lot of customizations available and a test of ... something special

Ubuntu-Mate definetly works, if you want something like a 1 key settings we have that just add “advanced menu” to the main menubar if is a key shortcuts we also have it in control center if not wrong.

Hope you like ubuntu-mate, wimpy is leading the project in the right direction in my opinion too.