lol every once in a while i bring up haiku does that count? 
Raspbian doesnāt support Japanese ā¦ So I choise Ubuntu Mate
Basically, Iām cheap and it works. I can also both get stuff done and play around with it.
It reminds me of the good old days when the Commodore 64 first came out. Thereās a great online community and even a local userās group. Plus lots of shareware and tutorials.
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Dear Ubuntu Mate Community,
Iām a Linux user for a rather long time, since 2010 and have used quiet a lot of Linux Distributions.
Since beginning 2016 I did use Xubuntu, but lately beginning of January 2018 I switched towards Ubuntu Mate 17.10.
You did an awesome job, Ubuntu Mate with the possibility to switch panel layouts (from the Mate Tweak) is just amazing !
Iām very happy with this distro AND for the Ubuntu Mate Dev team, keep on going with this great, wonderful job youāve done !
Greetings from a happy Ubuntu Mate 17.10 user
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Ive always been a windows user and pre windows ( Dos 3 back in the day). I had always used open source software when I could ( because Iām cheap).
Always had only one computer at a time, and only upgraded when it either broke or got too old to really function.
I started with Linux 2 yrs ago when I got an old machine form a family member that was running Vista. I had a window 7 machine at the time.
(N.B. We still have a machine runing windows 10 (- Ug!) because my son what s to lay games on it that are not available in Linux. )
So after looking around a watched a few youtube reviews I first tried Ubuntu 16.04, but it had a few issues and then tried Ubuntu MATE as it used less resources. This worked great for me! I stuck with the traditional menu as I want something simple that doesnāt get in my way with too much clutter.
Since then Ive got several other older machines that other were going to throw away. Ive put MATE on them, being playing around getting with them,.
Now that Ive discovered all this software for editing photographs (Dark table in particular). Iām, very happy with it.
easy there, tigerā¦!
Just to set the context, Iām an IT graduate with a job as a Systems Engineer. Whether I like it or not, Iām bound to cross paths with Linux and by god do I not regret every moment of it. Iād even say its the best thing and the most fun that ever happened in my (really really short) āprofessionalā working life.
Why I use Linux:
(The boring reasons)
- Learned basic stuff in university and wanted to apply it.
- Part of the job.
- Starting to dislike Windows (and Microsoft in general) and I canāt be ask to by āApple Productsā.
(The fun reasons)
- Learning a ānewā OS to widen my skill set.
I can pretend to have superiority over non-IT people since a lot of them are like āLinux :(ā.- I find Linux to be more straightforward and interesting. (despite it having a lot of technical stuff that are still beyond my comprehension)
- Linux is really interesting to me.
- I want to make Linux the OS of the house in the near future.
- Iām curious about the state of Linux gaming (Iāve always used a Windows OS or my PS4 to play games).
- Iām actually more productive when I use Linux (might sound subjective but for me itās true).
- I find my workflow in learning game development to be better and faster than in Windows (again, might be a subjective thing).
- NO ā ā ā ā ā ā ā BLOATWARE! OMG THANK YOU!
- CLI is better than Windows (I have a weird affinity for CLI - I blame my CCNA courses).
- Root/Admin actually works and doesnāt feel superficial.
Why did I choose Ubuntu MATE:
(The university-related answers - mostly about using Ubuntu:)
- I blame my university for teaching basic Linux with Ubuntu. I wanted a low barrier to entry so I chose Ubuntu.
- I wasnāt aware of desktop environments at the time so when Ubuntu 16.04 made that leap (which I considered huge) from Unity to Gnome 3, it was another adapting period for me which I kinda felt iffy about.
(The fun answers:)
- I was looking at distros at the time and I stumbled on the different DEs for Ubuntu. MATE immediately caught my attention.
- It was a tie between Linux Mint and MATE. After lots of searching and deliberation, I deemed Linux Mint a bit bloaty and too much for me. Despite being a popular distro, I had a feeling that I might not stay with it after some time. On the other hand UM was something I was familiar with both as an Ubuntu OS and the DE just looked clean, nice, and awesome to me.
- It has MATE Tweak.
- Cupertino lets me fool people that I have a heavily modified MacOSX theme.
- It runs so well!
EDIT; Tbh the only thing missing is for the manuals on how to create plugins for MATE apps to be easy to understand (I want to make plugins for Pluma but Iām having a hard time understanding the process on how to do it - itās not really that straightforward).
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Linux because:
- Speed
- Itās free
- Privacy
- Stability
- Security
- Workflow
- Package manager
- Good for programming
- Theming & Customization -> Looks pretty good!
- Does everything I need to do extremely good/fast/reliably
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Linux because there are lots of Desktop Environments to try out and choose from. Windows and Mac Donāt have that!
Ubuntu Mate because it has most things a mouse and graphical application user needs. Except Natural/Reverse Scrolling.
There are no applications I want to use to force me back to Windows.
But some things on Linux are unnecessarily complicated for users, compared to Windows.
First sorry my english 
Lets tryā¦
A long time ago i tried use Linux in my office but a lot of programs and sistems dont talk together to be usefullā¦ Today, im reading a lot of blogs that afirm this problems solved and linux is more friendly.
Today, in home, im studyng curses online to my job (lawyer) and i have a notebook i3-4Gb RAM with 1Gb video onboard with W7 Starter that works fine, but this notebookās wife and she not permit use for a long time 
Well, in my closet was my old desktop P4-1,5GB RAM with 256Mb video with W7 Starter and believe works but not works fine to my studiesā¦ To my freedom i readed about 32bits versions LINUX and i tried LUBUNTU. Surprise work so good, better than W7 in notebookās wife.
After im so interest about LINUX than i reading all night notices aboutā¦ and i discover UBUNTU MATEā¦ first i upgraded my P4 to 4GB RAM and lets try againā¦ another surpriseā¦ beautifullā¦ friendlyā¦ and work so fineā¦ ITS AMAZING!!!
One problem results after thisā¦ i stoped study online to my job and start learn linuxā¦ 
Well, im happy with LINUX.
And most importantā¦ FREE!!!
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I have used several Debian/Ubuntu based distributions and some how always come back to Ubuntu Mate. It may be that I have used it for longer periods of time but, It just works better for me in a lot of ways other or should I say, any other Linux distribution does. There is something about Ubuntu Mate that seems to be satisfying.
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Why Linux?
Dissatisfaction with Windows 10 - Iāve posted this lengthy read before, but what it reports back as telemetry is alarming, and the creeping commercialism right up front in the user interface (suggested applications in the Start Menu, games installed and up front even in the Enterprise Edition, and many other intrusions) is offputting. Also, the broken update process (excessively complex and risky individual upgraders, and third-party applications are on their own) is evidently not going to be fixed any time soon, if ever.
Edit: Very much to the point short analysis of those issues.
The big positive for Linux is the separation of code and data. There is nothing like the Registry which blurs that distinction. So one can take ~, put it on an external drive and restore it to a vanilla build without omissions.
Also, some of the desktop environments are resolutely unfashionable, which generally means that they are more usable (see below).
Why Ubuntu MATE?
Because the GNOME 2 UI was developed by people who knew what they were doing and in accordance with best ergonomic and psychological practice. (I should know because, in another context, I managed one of them and they were outstanding at what they did).
Ubuntu MATE in particular because it offers an excellent āpackageā without rough edges. I can install it, run up a few installs from the Software Boutique, do some configuration using the Control Centre and MATE Tweak and have a configured system in 30 minutes.
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I started using Ubuntu about a decade ago, but when the Unity desktop took over, I moved to Mint. Tried different desktops, but preferred Mate. Recently I came across Ubuntu Mate for the Raspberry Pi, and fell in love with its clean, attractive interface. Now I have UM on my desktop machine and my laptop; and unlike installing Windows everything works without the need to search for drivers.
I am am amateur photographer and have found no Linux software to rival Capture One, so, regrettably, I run Windows 7 in VirtualBox. However, I would dearly love to abandon Windows altogether and find good software for cataloguing my image files - Shotwell has never worked well for me, and in the past has been quite unstable. For processing raw files I have used RawTherapee, but have never managed to master it, and AfterShot Pro will not read my Ricoh files.
I wonder whether I can persuade my technophobic wife to adopt UM in place of Mint for her laptop.
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Iāve started testing āLinuxā and different DE about 2 years ago. I wanted to get rid of Windows, at least at home. As a Frontend Web Developer I cannot get rid of Windows at work (testing Web apps in a VM - for MS IE & Edge - is not really a good solution).
Ubuntu & Linux Mint (an Ubuntu derivate) were the only ones causing āno painā with the hardware. No issues (except with āHibernateā on notebooks). They are āuser-friendlyā for a Linux NOOB coming from 20+ years of Windows.
Linux Mint is āniceā, works as expected butā¦ it is not up-to-date with the Ubuntu releases (no 16.10, 17.04, 17.10).
Ubuntuās Unity (16.04) was a total NO GO for me. Sorry, I do not want to āsearchā for a program, I want to have it directly availableā¦ and the default āleft toolbarā with āstartā icons for the most used programs does not really fit my needs (I know there are tweaks on moving it to top or bottom, but it still isnāt what I was looking for).
Kubuntuā¦ too much for me.
Xubuntu was my choice for about two weeks until I discovered Ubuntu MATE.
Ubuntu MATE is working as expected from the first time Iāve logged in, versatile, configurable, friendly, everything was there where I expected it to be, all programs for a day-to-day use are pre-installed, Software Boutique was and is SO MUCH APPRECIATED, updates can be done easily, etc.
IT WORKS FOR ME AS I EXPECT IT and this is it ! And the community here is one of the best Iāve seen on the Internet
My wish for future releasesā¦ an unproblematic OS upgradeā¦ have re-installed the OS with every new version 16.10, 17.04, 17.10 because of the (minor / major ?) issues Iāve encountered after an āinlineā OS upgrade.
Thank you all for this great work 
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Cupertino layout, baby! It works just like I expect it to, only it keeps getting better! I complain here that some things arenāt loading from the Boutique, but I can hardly say thatās MATEās fault. My own fault if nobody keeps maintaining old hardware. Apple certainly didnāt last as long as Linux has.
I tried Xubuntu on my i386 macbook for about 4 months, trying hard to make it like Snow Leopard. Youāve already got it covered, MATE
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Okay, so I have been whining and complaining a bit here, because I expect Linux to be head and shoulders above Windows in speed and stability, and I have been a little disappointed that it has slipped quite a bit since my last extended experience with desktop Linux. But something happened a few days ago that reminded me why I became a fan of Tux . Here is the story.
I spilled water and killed my main system, a ThinkPad W510 running 17.1. I switched to a secondary ThinkPad and started stripping the parts from the W510 for Ebay. I stuck the SSD in a USB enclosure thinking I would use the live CD to backup my home folder before installing into a ThinkPad T440āāFor parts, not workingāā which I had picked up from Ebay cheaply. It had 2 dead drives inside, an M2.SSD and a regular HD.
Anyway, I plugged the USB enclosed SSD into the T440 and powered it up, hoping to run some sort of system repair via the Grub advanced options, etc. but really expecting to meet a kernel panic or some such thing. Eureka! It went to the USB, andā¦ drum rollā¦ booted up right into my 17.1 desktop! How freakin marvelous is that, huh? I had thought the hardware jump from i7 1st gen. to i7 4th gen. would be quite a leap, but nope, Mr. Tuxedo just breezed through like a skate on Arctic ice. VERY impressive, sir, congratulations!
Hey, 17.1 is doing the job for me. I have done a fair bit of tinkering, and I still have to use the CLI daily for routine things, like mounting Samba shares. Caja still sucks. Firefox sucks. I have to āworkaroundā a few things. But, on the whole 17.1 is now just good enough that I can live with it as a daily driver. I am going to image this drive and save it before I run the 18.04 upgradeāif anything breaks, Iām going right back. I donāt want to waste hours and hours tinkering and customizing and working around a fresh install.
So, please test the 18.04 upgrade script thoroughly. I want it to take over from my 17.1 without breaking anything, while keeping all my desktop customizations, like the 2 panels on my 2 monitors. Thank you!
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I use linux because i was fed up with windows forced updates.
use MATE because i hate gnome shell which is now standard in ubuntu, i like pantheon but dont like lack of customization in eOS so basically in MATE i use pantheon with custom icons and themesā¦its perfect.
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A family member uses a windows laptop periodically for a programming class. I swear every single time it gets turned on to use, the bloody thing hijacks the system mid project and seemingly shuts down/freezes without any warning.
Unrelated, how to get Lego to port their EV3 software to Ubuntu/Linux? Iāve tried it in WINE/Playonlinux without any success.
Iām a software guy, I like learning new software, recently my thing has been using VirtualBox to try out as many other distros as possible. I found that MATE is the desktop I like most and there are two āgold standardā implementations, Arch and Ubuntu MATE. They both are mostly what I would call āvanillaā MATE, other distros add too much other stuff. MATE Desktop has minimal bloatware and seems just right.
I switched from Windows to Linux because once, with nothing better to do, I decided to read Microsoftās private policies and terms of use. I couldnāt believe the atrocities I was reading so I rushed searching for alternatives.
Google ātookā me to Linux distros and for the last years I made Linux not only a work and leisure tool but also a hobby, Iāve used more than 10 distros as daily drivers and tested on vm more than 100 distros (probably more than 200 is more correct).
And all that Linux using, distro testing and learning brought me to Ubuntu MATE, which is my favorite operating system. What suits me best is an Ubuntu based distro, MATE desktop and Compiz, along with operating system stability so sooner or later is was destined for me to end up using Ubuntu MATE.
Iām using Ubuntu MATE 18.04 and really loving it.
Congrats to the entire team for a job very well done!
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