Switch from Yaru to older mate themes by running sudo apt install mate-themes, and get Ambiant-mate back

I came here for some gnome2 nostalgia, and Yaru just doesn't look gnome2-ish enough for me.

So first I run

sudo apt install mate-themes 

in order to get some of the original Mate themes

and then I ran (in this order)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lah7/ambiant-mate
sudo apt install ambiant-mate-gtk-themes ambiant-mate-icon-themes
sudo apt install ambiant-mate-colours-all

which gave me all Ambiant-mate themes back, including some pretty colour ones.

I just absolutely love Radiant-mate + menta icons, and am currently using YaruOk with menta icons!

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Keep in mind that the method outlined will work, as long as those themes are "tweaked" by the developers for each new release of MATE.

MATE (as well as all desktops) appear to be moving away from fully customizable "themes" (hence the reduction in the numbers of included theme families, and adoption of the newer Yaru as the new default), but seems to be moving towards what is referred to as Client-Side Customization (CSC).

On the theme side, "adwaita" seems to be "infecting" all themes with their XML/CSS approach to themes. CSC is trying to implement a similar XML/CSS driver to application interfaces.

Whether those two share a common code/library base is unknown to me.

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Thanks for this! I am enjoying the Ambiant themes!