My feedback after using ubuntu mate 15 04 for 3 months

Bednar · 6 August 2015 20:40

The OS is incredibly fast, modern and stable. I have had a blast using it for various tasks. The below are the problems I have run into and suggestions for improvements:

1)Installing an alternate file manager is a feat I am yet to achieve; don’t get me wrong, Caja is great but I would prefer to istall PCManFM and no matter what I do I can’t get ubuntu to recognize it as the default file manager. When I start it manually, it works though. I have scoured the internet for a solution and couldn’t fins one.

2)Getting the cursor of my choice to be consistent across applications proved impossible; for example, I went with the Arc_Dark theme with Breeze_Blue cursor and the cursor is almost never the blue ncursor I want but the stock one. Even if it does turn into the one I want, it will again be the stock cursor in chrome, qbittorent and other apps. It does work with Firefox though!

Tried this - http://askubuntu.com/questions/69105/my-default-mouse-cursor-doesnt-change-no-matter-which-theme-i-use and didn’t work. also changed the priority/default settings in alternatives and nada.

3)No kernel version management tool like in manjaro or mint. That would be great!

Thanks, keep up the great work

B

lah7 · 6 August 2015 22:46

Always good to hear! I enjoy Ubuntu MATE because it brings back why I Ubuntu in the first place – the GNOME 2 look of the desktop.

Just a few pointers that may be handy for you:

I think this is a known bug, quite a few applications (such as alternate web browsers) are not having the preferences respected. There’s hope, it might be fixed once and for all in 15.10.
I recently changed the stock white cursor to the black one for a change of scenery, I had issues with a mix and match of apps as you described, but luckily, this solution works:

Providing your cursor theme is installed to /usr/share/icons/

Open the terminal (CTRL+ALT+T), and type in the exact name of the cursor as a variable:

CURSOR=DMZ-Black

Run these commands. As you’ve assigned CURSOR to a variable, it just makes it a little easier.

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/"$CURSOR"/cursor.theme 20

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-theme "$CURSOR" && sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/"$CURSOR"/cursor.theme

This did the trick for me, but it will apply that cursor system-wide and it may need a restart/log out to take effect.

Wimpy · 7 August 2015 06:51

@Bednar What version of Ubuntu MATE are you running? The issue with selecting alternative preferred applications should be fixed in 15.10 and I’ve back ported the fix to the 15.04 PPA.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/vivid-mate 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

As for the cursor issue, I’ve seen this but only under Compiz. Can you confirm you’re running Compiz? The feedback from @lah7 is very useful, it indicates that MATE needs to proxy the cursor settings to the org.gnome gsettings tree. Please confirm if you’re using Compiz and I can provide a patch to upstream MATE or possibly Compiz.

As for a kernel version manager, I won’t be adding one. I’ve never understood why Mint are so scared of new kernels Perhaps because they work outside of the Ubuntu community and customise package settings in an unorthodox fashion using Mint Adjustments? In any case, I see no need for such a tool in Ubuntu MATE

lah7 · 7 August 2015 09:44

@wimpy I can confirm the solution is due to Compiz. Thank you for proposing a fix!

Bednar · 8 August 2015 21:57

Thanks guys!

1)Following your suggestions I have managed to fix the cursor inconsistency issue once and for all. And yes, it was compiz! I changed the manager to metacity and it works perfectly fine now after applying the above suggestions. However, the theme is acting up in places; I switched to vertex dark with Mate-Faenza-Dark and have two issues. One is that the text in Caja is in black instead of white:

and dconf seems to have black expand buttons:

2)After upgrading Mate using the PPA Wimpy mentioned in his post, I also got PCManFM to somewhat work, but unfortunately variety wouldn't work with it so I got back to Caja for now. NB I also had to change required components under session in dconf from caja to PCManFM, but it worked.

UM is a fantastic system; I just wish it was more noob friendly!

3)AS for 3, I understand. There doesn't seem ( I am a newbie, so feel free to prove me wrong) to be a way of figuring out what kernels you have available on your machine. I always use the latest stable, now 4.1.4 and would like to purge the rest - GUI would be nice

Thanks guys

B

anon42388993 · 8 August 2015 22:28

Synaptic package manager can be used for this.
http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142:u-ocqbntw_o&q=synaptic+package+manager&sa=Search&cof=FORID:9

sudo apt-get install synaptic

But the autoremove command (maybe still a work in process) is now capable of removing kernels.

sudo apt-get autoremove

A good idea to first check what is being removed before entering yes to this command.

lah7 · 10 August 2015 13:06

This one liner can purge all old kernels except for the one currently running.

sudo apt-get remove --purge $(dpkg -l 'linux-image-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]*\).*/\1/;/[0-9]/!d')

Source

Does the trick all the time. Can free up hundreds of MBs too if many still remain.

Always take caution removing old kernels, and double check the packages being removed are actually kernel packages (I’ve not had a problem with the command above).

rohithmadhavan · 11 August 2015 08:04

@Bednar @Wimpy To change the default File Manager, you could try using xdg-mime to change the application that is associated with the MIME type inode/directory by default.

xdg-mime default <NameOfFileManager>.desktop inode/directory

The relevant .desktop files are located in /usr/share/applications, eg- Thunar.desktop