This feels like home again, after the last few years spent distro-hopping between Mint, Debian, Fedora, Manjaro… Ubuntu MATE is just perfectly comfortable. I’m using it to write my thesis, and as a development platform - it’s an excellent workstation operating system. I hope I’ll be able to contribute in the future.
I know the MATE desktop is often recommended to users with older hardware, and its low impact on resource usage is definitely one of its main strengths, but (especially in Ubuntu MATE’s case) I feel this point of view is somewhat limited: it’s perfect for most, if not all, use cases. I installed the LTS version on both of my computers, and on my mother’s and brother’s laptops, when they asked me for an alternative to Windows. They’ve been using it for almost four months now, enjoying the speed, the reliability, the software they use for work and entertainment.
Completely agree with all of the above. I would also add, I am using a brand new quad core rig with the latest GPU and Ubuntu Mate is also a fantastic OS for a modern machine like mine.
Absolutly right. Right now I’m using Ubuntu Mate on my Lenovo Y510p which is an i7 laptop with dual graghic card (Intel 4600 and Nvidia Gt750m) and a good 16 gigs of ram. It runs pretty smouth. I have already used some other Linux distros, but this one rocks. I can multi-run different programs at the same time with no problem at all. The laptop always seems quiet and productive unlike some days when I was using Linux Mint 17.1 cinnamon my loptop overheated after installing few prgrams (the termometer always showed above 50° celcuis).I’m happy to say I finally found the distro that works. I dual boot Ubuntu mate with Windows 8.1. The only reason I kept windows on my laptop is Canon Printer LBP6030b. For this matter I blame canon for not supporting Linux with appropriate drivers.
I completely agree about Canon LBP printers. Mine is the LBP2900i and it was a nightmare to get finally running with Linux. I can get it running on 32 bit, but have never been sucessful with 64 bit.
One solution I employ when using 64 bit Linux is to have a VM of Win7 in Virtualbox with my printer installed in there. I then set up my Linux home folder as fully shared with the Win7 VM. When I have finished editing a document in Linux, I just fire up my VM, navigate to my Linux home folder and print the document. It only takes a few seconds and is much more convenient than having to drop out of Linux and boot up into Windows and then, after printing, drop back out of Windows to boot back into Linux.
As a matter of fact, Linux does detect the printer but it simply doesn’t work. I’ll try to use your tips hopefully your method will prevent me from switching from time to time to windows just to make copies. Thanks Mr. Steve for your reply. I’ll try the VM of Win 7 and give you my feed back!
I was in the same boat as Tristram, distro hopping the last few years but I always came back to Ubuntu because it just works. I use it at work and at home but unity slows me down. Xubuntu is no longer usable now so I tested Mate a while back and found a few bugs. You guys have fixed them and 14.04.2 is just like being back at 10.04 and doesn’t run my new laptop at 100% cpu on a few cores like unity does with virtualbox. I now have functionality and speed again and an OS that stays out of the way and lets me get things done. Simply fantastic job with this build. Keep up the great work.
I have been a Linux user for over 20 years and I was an early adopter of Ubuntu. However, ever since the introduction of Unity my desktop experience has been nothing but frustration. Imagine my joy when I discovered Ubuntu Mate! Using my computer is once again fun. I was so impressed I made a donation.
