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MATE Desktop Environment

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Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#51

Post by 4bpp »

gkop wrote: post #49
oxplot wrote: post #19

I can't use anything but MATE + Compiz and mostly because of Compiz'es fantastic functionality and customizability. I'm talking about color filters, grid plugin, and endless others that have no equivalent elsewhere.

Has Compiz improved in the last couple years? 0.8.4 was great, 0.9.8 was garbage. I wrote it off as garbage hijacked by Canonical exclusively to support Unity. (Gnome 3 is pretty much now a fine replacement for Compiz 0.8.4 imo)

I use the 0.8 series myself, and it does its job without making me pine for any particular improvements. As far as I can tell, there are occasional attempts at reviving development popping up every now and then, but none of them go far since the set of people who remain if you take out Ubuntu, GNOME 3 and KDE users (each of which has its own compositor) and then also remove all those who are using niche window managers for their minimalism and lower resource usage is very small.

Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#52

Post by swayvil »

loeg wrote: post #33

I wish they had kept the GNOME application names (Nautilus, File-roller, ...) that I am familiar with instead of renaming them. Sure, they are forks, but spiritually similar. Perhaps "MATE Nautilus," etc., would have been fine.

Agreed. Caja and Pluma is awkward.

Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#54

Post by [deleted] »

userbinator wrote: post #37
ferrari8608 wrote: post #27

"The name “MATE”, pronounced Ma-Tay, comes from yerba maté, a species of holly native to subtropical South America. Its leaves contain caffeine and are used to make infusions and a beverage called mate." Neat! And here I've been pronouncing it like the English word "mate".

The beverage, when consumed hot, is also classified as a probable carcinogen: http://www.inchem.org/documents/iarc/vol51/03-mate.html

[deleted]

Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#55

Post by TheLogothete »

edcastro wrote: post #31
kough wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't believe someone hasn't written this already: fonts. I've used Debian and Arch and had massive trouble a) figuring out what fonts are installed, b) how to install new fonts, c) getting them to not look like absolute shit. Example case: trying to use Adobe's "Source Code Pro" font with Debian's default terminal, at around 12-14px, on a 2560x1440 screen. I could get it to look good at 10px, and at 18px, but nowher…

Font is actually pretty much straight forward nowadays with most distros. You just need to enable lcd rgb subpixel rendering and thats it. I use the Croscore set of fonts, the ones based on the Arial/Times/Courier that Google uses on the Chromebook and for me, it looks even better than on Windows or OSX. This is my config: https://github.com/edgard/dotfiles/blob/master/config/fontco...

Are you serious?

"X" is pretty great nowadays, you just need to enable some obscure option.

And that's the problem of linux. It's like that for everything.

Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#56

Post by gurkendoktor »

chris_wot wrote: post #8

I'm curious now what stops people from using Linux on the desktop. There were significant issues a few years ago, but they now appear to be addressed. What are the problems with Linux on the desktop?

I've tried Ubuntu 15.04 for dev work last year and had two issues:

- I miss all the third-party Mac dev software. Git Tower, Kaleidoscope, Viscosity, Fantastical, OmniFocus... This is what has locked me into OS X for a decade now (starting with TextMate).

- The trackpad drivers for my MacBook Air are terrible. I couldn't get palm rejection to work. I think I wasn't happy with the Magic Trackpad either. I don't want to go back to mice...

The software issue sounds really hard to fix unless porting to Linux via OpenStep(?) becomes a thing.

Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#57

Post by izacus »

TheLogothete wrote: post #55
edcastro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Font is actually pretty much straight forward nowadays with most distros. You just need to enable lcd rgb subpixel rendering and thats it. I use the Croscore set of fonts, the ones based on the Arial/Times/Courier that Google uses on the Chromebook and for me, it looks even better than on Windows or OSX. This is my config: https://github.com/edgard/dotfiles/blob/master/config/fontco...

Are you serious? "X" is pretty great nowadays, you just need to enable some obscure option. And that's the problem of linux. It's like that for everything.

That option is enabled on most distros by default. Fonts on Ubuntu, elementaryOS, Fedora and other distros look just fine.

I'd you are building your own desktop from building blocks in Arch or similar then configuring obscure options is what you chose to do.

Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#59

Post by oxplot »

gkop wrote: post #49
oxplot wrote: post #19

I can't use anything but MATE + Compiz and mostly because of Compiz'es fantastic functionality and customizability. I'm talking about color filters, grid plugin, and endless others that have no equivalent elsewhere.

Has Compiz improved in the last couple years? 0.8.4 was great, 0.9.8 was garbage. I wrote it off as garbage hijacked by Canonical exclusively to support Unity. (Gnome 3 is pretty much now a fine replacement for Compiz 0.8.4 imo)

I use 0.9.12.2 and it's been rock solid for past 3 months and prior versions equally stable as well.

Re: MATE Desktop Environment

#60

Post by nailer »

swayvil wrote: post #52
loeg wrote: post #33

I wish they had kept the GNOME application names (Nautilus, File-roller, ...) that I am familiar with instead of renaming them. Sure, they are forks, but spiritually similar. Perhaps "MATE Nautilus," etc., would have been fine.

Agreed. Caja and Pluma is awkward.

Or just File Manager or whatever the other thing does. One of the things that isn't so great is dealing with every small piece of software having its own branding.
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