What I don't like about Ubuntu MATE:
- Ummm, I can't seem to think of anything right now. I'll have to get back to you on this
What I like about Ubuntu MATE:
- It actually works
- It's never crashed on me, or I can't remember whether it did, or it's easy to discover what makes a program crash so you can keep it from crashing again and then have a hard time remembering whether it did
- It looks great (well, you know, if you're creative with the color scheme)
- It's downright stable and snappy
- I love the default and unusually smooth way it handles memory and swap memory
- I love the ability to change desktop pictures without having to click an apply button
- All software, including KDE software, runs well (though you'll need to use a light theme to see adequately some KDE programs and, for some other KDE programs, refresh customized appearance after program launch to read popup tooltips; but, KDE otherwise runs well)
- It focuses on what's important and abandons what's unimportant
- It's easy to customize (so you can EASILY be creative with the color scheme)
- It's got a good number of options
- Its idiosyncrasies--which every single desktop, system, and program will have--are easily dealt with
- It gives me everything that I could possibly want (EXCEPT that it can't seem to open webp image files on the desktop--BUT I can paste a screenshot of a webp image into LibreOffice Impress and export to jpg, so . . . )
Conclusion
Ubuntu MATE is my third Linux experience (of the distributions that I fully installed for several years) and now my FIRST-PLACE WINNER. The fact remains that someone new to Linux might be frustrated with taming the wild MATE beast: It's better to first get some Linux experience elsewhere, so that you can get a feel for how and where to look to fulfill demands. But MATE favorably has the ability to meet all demands, in one reasonable way or another. Once you've figured out how to open the MATE door--you'll always be inside MATE.
To give you an idea of how things can be with MATE, I'll describe this: I like Muon Package Manager (for the installation of software). So, I first used MATE Software Boutique to install Synaptic Package Manager, then used Synaptic Package Manager to install Muon Package Manager, then used Muon Package Manager to install all of my favorite software from the Ubuntu repository. This is an example of how MATE might confuse some who are new to Linux and who don't yet know about the different package managers and the other ways of installing software.
Stable, snappy, and good-looking. The GTK version of a cross of sorts between Kubuntu and Lubuntu? WAY better than Xfce.
Note: Typed this up using Kate on Ubuntu MATE (while listening to some Vocal Trance on YouTube, courtesy of Firefox).
See the screenshot of my MATE desktop.
