I was contemplating on a quiet afternoon, sitting with my thoughts, and randomly was thinking of the future of our cherished distribution.
I love Ubuntu MATE (have tried other distributions over the past month or so, again, and back here I am) but concerned about the future for the following reasons:
With the latest UM 25.04 Plucky Puffin we are STILL on an iteration of MATE 1.26 in 2021. As I understand, MATE 1.28 from 2024 is still in a state too unstable that Debian (and thus Ubuntu) cannot allow it into its repositories, despite being over a year old.
A lot of what made Ubuntu MATE special is gone (specifically Welcome and Software Boutique).
Theming with GTK4 is horrendously incompatible in my experience.
Partnerships with hardware manufacturers with UM preinstalled, going back to UM inception as an official flavour in 2015, seem to have ended.
For reasons (2) and (3), when I reinstalled UM I went back to 22.04 with Ubuntu PRO enabled (with the complete understanding that it is officially unsupported by the community in terms of technical help, but I can live with that).
Does anyone else feel this way? Should I be concerned? Or have I let a quiet day get to me.
I know there is plenty of choice in the Linux world. But, honestly, Iāve tried everything except the super niche distros (to my memory), and I keep coming back to UM. This is my favourite, and I want this distro to have a solid future.
I also realise that Iām sure I talked about my concerns in one post or another, somewhere in the forum, but I wanted to post this as its own proper topic to gather other usersā thoughts.
Just because I don't entirely keep up with all of this; what exactly is the issue with theming? Is it related to client-side decorations or something along those lines? Is it a lack of good alternative applications (that don't use GTK4)?
For the GTK4, I think the issue is the range of available theme/icon packages properly integrated into the GTK4 ecosystem, because I havenāt seen too many of the ācherishedā packages adapted to the new API.
I too have held off moving to UbuntuMATE 24.04 or 25.04, preferring to wait for 26.04, hoping that it will have fewer of the glitches encountered by 24.04 installs. I saw too many glitches discussed for that release, compared to previous releases, for me to take a chance to step on that figurative land-mine.
Having said that, my āwinningsā with UbuntuMATE are āridingā, waiting for the cards to be dealt for 26.04!
Right; so you mean the desktop themes haven't been brought across to GTK4. I'm using Yaru-MATE (Dark) which looks great to me - but I don't have the best eye for these things. Is there something specific that you look for?
I remember when I first installed UM (probably 20.04, I think I live booted 18.04 a few times) I liked these apps, too. I did stop using them after a while, but it does seem a pity that the polished landing page for new users is no longer available.
I havenāt missed either because I was already a Linux gnome 2 user and still am a dedicated Synaptic user. But I do agree the welcome page was great for people coming to Linux that had picked Ubuntu Mate as their OS.
Here is a history of Ubuntu Mate if anyone is interested.
The Ubuntu MATE backstory
Although Ubuntu MATE technically began with Martin Wimpress and Alan Popeās sitting around the latterās kitchen table, it first started years earlier, with Martinās quest to restore āwedded blissā to his home and his wifeās desktop environmentā¦..
What an interesting day. A summer student at my work and I were discussing new technology and I ended up showing him what GNOME 2 looked like. He thought it looked old and was wondering why I like it! Funny coincidence.
Anyway, regarding GTK4 theming, when I tried 24.04 the Ambiant MATE theme was inconsistent due to lack of GTK4 support (understood as it is no longer actively maintained). However, the dark YaruMATE theme also did not respect dark mode in GTK4 apps for me. It was dark everything else and light GTK4 apps. My solution at the time was to switch to Qt wherever I could.
I understand that those who have used UM or Linux for a while don't really need the Software Boutique or Welcome, but I do think it's beneficial to new users. Heck, I don't really need it either as I do the vast majority of system actions/maintenance and package management from the terminal. However, the browser selection tool in Welcome is an awesome time-saver!
I guess, for me, it is the polish to the distribution that really makes it feel amazing to use.
I just found out about MATE a few days ago. I was looking into a Linux distro I could switch to since my laptop, which has Windows 10, doesnāt have the hardware requirements for 11. I looked into bodging a solution but honestly Iād prefer not to deal with that if it ends up being hard to get security updates for 11 in the future. Also I of course donāt like Microsoft, nor Windows, as a general concept even if the OS works well for my use cases.
I had a dual boot with Linux Mint in the past but I switched back to just Windows 10 for various reasons. This time around I wanted something different because I had tried Mint in the past but wasnāt particularly enthralled by it. I also needed something very beginner friendly because I donāt have a crazy amount of time to tinker especially because Iām a student and my semester is starting soon.
Whatās surprising to me is how little MATE is mentioned in lists of beginner distros! I donāt know why this is. Mint is mentioned absolutely everywhere, as is ZorinOS and elementary OS. I donāt understand why this is. This is especially confounding for me because MATE installed 10 times easier for me than Mint, and Mint is supposed to be easy to install. This is especially important for me because my laptop is a Microsoft Surface which feels like it does everything it can to prevent me from using Linux easily.
Just thought Iād share my experience finding MATE! I hope people continue to find it like me, whether or not theyāre familiar with Linux.
Anytime I read a blog about how easy Mint is I tell them both are built on Ubuntu and if you use the Mate desktop they are hard to tell apart on the surface but that Ubuntu Mate is better for new users because it has the best forum in Linux and to check out all the newbie questions on Mint that never get answered. I also point out a forum with three desktops and two Osās with Mint Debian can be very confusing for a newbie. I donāt know if that has brought anyone to Ubuntu Mate but I keep posting that in the comment section.
I think this is a very relevant response and Iām happy that there are people that find, try, and are happy with Ubuntu MATE as a new-to-Linux user.
I tried Linux Mint (MATE edition) last year for about a month. It went fineā¦until a kernel update (some incremental update to 5.15) broke the install and it wasnāt so fine. Ubuntu MATE has always been very easy to install for me (Iāve done it a few times), the first being an install at 10:00 PM / 22:00 and I needed a set-up OS for the morning. I was very tired at that time and didnāt have the energy or patience to deal with anything that wasnāt a breeze to get going.
I agree with @jymm that Linux Mint is confusing to new users in regard to choosing the flavour/DE. New users will not know the difference between the āCinnamonā version, āMATEā version, or āXfceā version. I certainly didnāt when I first got into Linux. Having just the Ubuntu MATE install and then choosing the preferred layout via āMATE Tweakā or the āWelcomeā application is much better in my opinion.
For me, I still wish the Ubuntu ecosystem could do a better job of explaining āLTSā and āInterimā or latest release in terms that a new-to-Linux user could understand. It was definitely something I didnāt grasp at first, seeing for example, 24.04.2 LTS vs 25.04. But, thatās also just my opinion.
I also agree this community is the best in the Linux ecosystem. Iāve tried other distributions with other communities and none are as respectful, responsive, and helpful as this one, which is important when learning a new ecosystem / operating system.
I seem to remember using GNOME Flashback (Metacity) before landing on UbuntuMATE.
I donāt know if my memory is failing me (I will be 70 this year), but it seems to me that UM transitioned thru GNOME Flashback to become UM, but I see no mention of that in the history.
Did they leave that out? or did they go direct to the integration of a separately developed MATE?
Or is it just that I myself skipped from Ubuntu Gnome2 to Ubuntu Gnome3 to Ubuntu GnomeFlashback to Ubuntu MATE?
I had to, because when Ubuntu switched from Unity-2d to Unity-3d, it demanded hardware-acceleration by GPU just like GNOME3.
Something that my computers and most of my friends' did't had. So it was the horribly slow software renderer (LLVM-pipe) or something else.
Luckily there was GNOME-fallback/flashback.
Then, when Linux Mint introduced MATE I switched to Mint.
When Ubuntu MATE was introduced (as an unofficial spin) i switched to Ubuntu MATE.
As far as I know, MATE was directly forked from GNOME2, not GNOME3-fallback. There were quite some minor differences between GNOME2/MATE on one hand and GNOME3-fallback on the other.
With a lot of Windows 10 users, with hardware that MS says wonāt run Windows 11, now open to trying Linux, I think the Welcome screen is more needed than ever. Although it is the first thing I disable on the initial boot along with using Mate-Tweak to switch from Redmond to Traditional, but I agree Redmond is pretty good for someone initially coming from Windows 10. I liked ātraditionalā when it was the default, in I think 10.04, when I went to Mate after Unity came out. If there is something even more Windows 10 like, Iād suggest making it the default would be a good move to grow Mate at the minor expense possibly of POing current users who already should know about Mate-Tweak. A check box like āInstall third party driversā in the installer might be ideal.
On the other hand, the Software Boutique, while convenient at first, my experience with it going back to 16.04 was poor and I basically only used it to install Synaptic, Chrome, and Chromium.
But my limited so far experience with 24.04.3 is that the App Center is far superior to what the Software Boutique ever was.
As a 74 YO curmudgeon, I have a minor role in an international group based out of New Zealand. On a group Email introducing a new collaborator complimenting what she had done so far, I replied with some info on what I had previously done that might help. Her entire reply to me consisted of:
I wanted to reply to my comment regarding theming in UM.
For some reason, upgrading to 25.04 (not the LTS but an interim release) fixed my theming problem. Even with Ambiant-MATE enabled, GTK4 apps seem to respect the dark theme (it looks to fall back to Yaru for GTK4, which is fine by me).
Thank goodness and fingers crossed. I hope this is fixed for good (and didnāt just jinx myself).
