Ubuntu MATE 24.04. Way to much like ubuntu or mint. Why does it not come with the traditional ok theme and panel anymore? Whose idea is it to copy ubuntu and everybody else's dark themes? Why not make snap an option instead of forcing it. For a once really great idea it has gone down in value to me because of dumb ideas and thinking that change for the sake of change is good. The only way to get s sytem that is clean from snap and the other garbage is go back to debian and start from scratch now.
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I'll respond here as a Ubuntu user, and by Ubuntu I do include the flavors which are still Ubuntu systems to me.
Of course Ubuntu MATE will be like a Ubuntu system, after all it's a Ubuntu product, where the Ubuntu-MATE team have created their own seed that causes some parts of it to differ, but it's still a Ubuntu system underneath.
Snap actually solves some problems, and is in my opinion useful. I'm very aware some Ubuntu flavors do include a minimal install option where snapd infrastructure is not installed; but its not disabled in any way even on those (they wouldn't be a Ubuntu system if that was done). Besides removing it I don't see as difficult, and just potentially creates problems down the road (so remember what you did for when you need to reverse your changes), but if users want to do it, I've seen many howtos appear on Planet Ubuntu written by Ubuntu developers or members on how you can disable it (I'm on the Ubuntu News team, and as we use the Fridge as a source for articles; I've seen loads of them)
For me anyway; as I'm aware I can rather easily remove anything I don't like, just as easily as I can install something that wasn't included (eg. flatpaks if I want them) I see installed by default or not-installed as pretty equal.
I'd rather the developers create what they believe an ideal system is, as in the end I'll almost always adjust it to what I'll use anyway.
Linux Mint have two products, their main product is based on Ubuntu, thus of course it'll be similar too, if you're also thinking of Linux Mint Debian Edition then as Debian is part of the same family of course it'll be very similar.
FYI: I'm using Ubuntu oracular on this box, but my secondary PC runs Debian trixie and I sure see those systems as pretty similar as they are. Debian & Ubuntu will always be close together since a lot of Ubuntu changes are merged upstream into Debian so both systems benefit from the work; this is intentional and helps keep the delta (difference) between Debian/Ubuntu as small as possible (an secondary aim of Ubuntu).
My 2c.
5 Likes
The Traditional themes were replaced by Yaru themes on 22.04. I too love the TraditionalOK theme. On 22.04 it was still in the repository so I was able to install it and use it. The themes go right to the theme folder so there is no set up to start using them. I have not installed 24.04 but hope they are still there.
< sudo apt-get install mate-themes >
This package contains the official desktop themes of the MATE desktop
environment.
The themes provided for the MATE desktop partially resemble themes that
are well known from GNOMEv2 desktops. However, the MATE team also prepared
some new themes esp. for MATE (Menta, GreenLaguna, TraditionalGreen,
TraditionalOk, and BlackMate).
Please let me know if they are still there, I am very interested.
6 Likes
Great thought, I do see them available for all releases.
guiverc@d7050-next:~/uwn/issues/837$ rmadison mate-themes
mate-themes | 1.6.3-0ubuntu1 | trusty/universe | source, all
mate-themes | 1.12.2+gtk3.18-1 | xenial/universe | source, all
mate-themes | 3.22.16-4ubuntu1 | bionic/universe | source, all
mate-themes | 3.22.21-1 | focal/universe | source, all
mate-themes | 3.22.23-1 | jammy/universe | source, all
mate-themes | 3.22.24-1 | mantic/universe | source, all
mate-themes | 3.22.24-1 | noble/universe | source, all
mate-themes | 3.22.24-1 | oracular/universe | source, all
If this is what is missed; the package is available for all releases.
( I'm one who probably doesn't notice changed themes.. though when I see a theme/font/pixmap/sound/etc I like, I tend to add them to my collection (on a network share), which gets added to all my new installs anyway)
3 Likes
I agree I don't see why they wouldn't be more similar than different. Yes they have some system tools that are different, like Ubuntu Mate and Mint Mate report problems (crashes and freezes) in different ways. Mint also let's you update your kernel to different versions with their GUI Update manager which is a nice feature. What I dislike about Mint is it trying to do to much for me, but that was easy to shut down.
So if both are Mate desktops, what exactly do you expect/want to be different?
Standard Ubuntu is Gnome and Ubuntu Mate lacks some of the more intrusive features of the flagship OS, which I see as a plus.
Different to me would be PC Linux, Fedora, Slax, Gentoo, etc.
3 Likes
I tried to fork Yaru to make it look like Traditional. This approach is still on github. Well mate has done some terrible design approaches.
I would suggest to install the mate environment without the metapackages on top of a lubuntu minimal install. Calamares is necessary to be able to install the system without snap and its only default in lubuntu.
It is based on Ubuntu after all. Instead of whining here go to debian 12. Its proven that worrying too much about something that doesn't affect you attacks your mental health.
4 Likes
*buntu always had more or less good applications preinstalled. And it was very easy to use. I think ill switch to lubuntu 24.10 and then install mate and xfce on top of it. Fedora is good if you have fast internet connection. Arch Linux has a great documentation but debian archive format is far more advandced.
24.04 has some bugs i dont think all of them will stay in 24.10.
gio mount is broken per design, the mate panel can be reconfigured and killed three times at startup. Setting up a custom gtk theme is not wanted anymore.
Yes, that's right. The two Linux systems are almost identical
1 Like
I got a system error even before I got my network connected. I opted to report the error but nothing happened. Apparent error reporting does not work with FireFox. Same for the next 8 system errors. The sound is defective. At full volume it is a quiet whisper. Apparently Chrome is no longer supported even though IEEE requires it.
Installation never got as far as opting to download updates. NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME.
Earlier in this discussion, there was mention of the dislike for all things "snap" related. I am in agreement with statement.
It is my understanding that the "snap" approach is intended to "encapsulate" applications and insulate applications, deployed under snap, from incompatibilities that might arise from the user-controlled OS updates.
Having said that, it implies a view to "productionize" the installation of such applications, to make installations more manageable from a large-scale perspective. But people operating such large scale operations are working with surplus capacity (CPU or RAM or DISK) that desktop users, who may have invested the last dollar to maximize capabilities for the system they could afford, don't have such luxuries because, in the end, snaps adds additional code libraries to an installation, duplicating to some extent shared libraries which a non-snap install would make use of.
That is why I strongly believe that fresh installs of any distro should ask the installer's preference as to style of package installation, namely
- prefer snap-based where available, or
- prefer non-snap based is that is preferred,
and, if the latter, put in place the proper configuration files that would block any attempts at installing snap-based packages, regardless of them being requested for installation, unless a specific administrative action has previously removed that earlier preference configuration.
I also believe that the installation disk should report
- all user applications to be installed as part of the default distro, and
- which of those are snap-based and which are not.
In this way, awareness of how things are being installed will allow users to make a properly informed choice of whether to proceed (or not) with the pending distro installation.
2 Likes
I can only agree with that approach, it's always a hassle to disable completely Snap after a new install. I wish we could save that step that is become more and more fastidious at each LTS release (not sure for the others since I don't use them).