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MATE Desktop 1.2 Released
An anonymous reader writes "For those of you who still feel GNOME 2 is the best desktop environment, but don't want stick to old distros, MATE is a fork of GNOME 2, with all the names changed to avoid clashes with GNOME 3. Version 1.2 brings fixes, but also new features such as undo/redo in the file manager."
This release features better freedesktop standards integration, adds a few missing utilities, and merges new features into the file manager. The project has a new wiki; the roadmap has a few details on future goals, including porting things to Gtk 3 and using bits and pieces of modern GNOME 3 infrastructure where appropriate.
How is this fragmentation? It's just more choice. Gnome2 is dead as far as gnome.org is concerned. Don't like it? Don't use it.
Without MATE, Linux Mint 12 wouldn't even be an option for me (I'd stick with 11).
sig: sauer
This approach is doomed to failure. The better approach is Mint's Cinnamon project. There they maintain a gnome2 like desktop environment, but it rests on gnome3. There are ppa's (https://launchpad.net/~merlwiz79/+archive/cinnamon-ppa) that let you install it into official Ubuntu distros, so no need to install a full-on mint distro. It would be even better if canonical moved these packages into universe or something.
Fragmentation is not a bad thing. Think of it as natural selection in the open source software world. This is the mutation that may result in a new or different product.
One man's "more choice" is another man's "fragmentation".
This is what I love about open source: Don't like it ? Change it!
is this fragmentation or diversity? we talk about how having diversity is a good thing in meatspace why is it supposedly bad in computing?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Not choices! I hate when I have the ability to replace something I hate with something I love. I'd be much happier with Linux if I was forced to use ${your favorite desktop environment}.
I went to the Citroen garage to pick up my roof rack the other day, and do you know what? They had *five* different models of van. Five! Talk about fragmenting the market! Obviously everyone should all just use a Relay dually, because fragmentation is bad.
It gets worse though, because on the way out of there shocked by the fragmentation of five different models, I drove past the Peugeot garage - and *they* had five different models too! Then I drove past the Ford Commercials garage and my Transit-identifying neurons melted.
Fragmentation! Aaaaaargh!
to be fair gnome had this for awhile. then removed it due to them thinking it 'confuses' people, back when gnome 2.0 was under their direction. they are just putting it back in.
Well, I haven't actually tried it, but Gnome3 won't run on my system. So I'm rather glad that Mate is producing something that will be usable when Debian stable incorporates Gnome3.
(And the Gnome3 fallback to Gnome2 fallback mode is so eyetearingly ugly that I installed the stable branch, replacing the testing branch, to get away from it. Of course, what I'd really prefer is KDE3, but pearson seems to be rather slow in making that usable [under the name trinity], so I may end up with Mate. Or possibly LXDE or some such. I tried it for awhile, and it's usable, but I much prefer Gnome2.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Are you forgetting about Cinnamon? It's basically the same thing but starting from gnome3 and working back to gnome2's appearance. As opposed to mate's starting with gnome2's code base, and working towards gnome3's while keeping the apperance the same.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/01/25/1459225/cinnamon-gnome-shell-fork-releases-version-12
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Nothing wrong here. If a Mac user doesn't like the way Mac OS X is going, they're choices are to use old and unsupported software or bitch and complain. If a Linux user doesn't like the way things are going they can fork.
Not quote.
Windows reigns supreme over Linux because it was deeply entrenched by the time Linus even started. Windows "reigns supreme" because it is effectively this years version of MS-DOS.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Why not improve the gnome classic desktop from gnome 3 instead? This zombie-gnome2 effort seems like a waste of time to me.
Can you put a weather widget on the top bar on Gnome3 Classic? How about a CPU temp sensor? How about a graph that shows CPU, RAM, swap, and network usage? Maybe a sensor that shows the CPU speed for each core with the ability to change them to ondemand or performace? Can you put the taskbar on bottom bar? Can you put just a gnome foot (start button) on the bottom left like Windows and the full menu on top (Gnome-foot, Places, System)?
The last time I tried Gnome3, none of these things were possible. These were not an option on Gnome3 Classic either. I want my old Gnome2 back, not the "look" of Gnome2 stuck on top of Gnome3. I don't want "New Coke" in an "Old Coke" can.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
As long as all of the actual applications are using the same underlying libraries, there really is no "fragmentation". These idiots whining about fragmentation are just clueless and superficial. What shell you happen to use is not the sorts of problems that "fragmentation" are supposed to represent.
Besides, if anything is going to cause "fragmentation" it's the new stuff that no one really wants rather than the old stuff that most people are content to keep on using (including Windows users).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
And Gnome Panel is gimped compared to Gnome2. It may look similar but it doesn't function the same way.
This is EXACTLY why Windows reigns supreme over all the 2^42 versions of Linux. You know exactly what you are getting into.
Yes. You can choose:
XP Home
XP Pro
XP 64
Couple of other varieties of XP
Various server versions of Windows
Six or so varieties of Vista
A dozen or so varieties of Windows 7, 32-bit or 64-bit
And soon, Windows for Tablets on the Desktop
People complaining about Linux 'fragementation' and then using that as an argument for running Windows are highly amusing. I can't even remember all the different versions of Windows you can run with different features and radically different UIs.
Are you forgetting about Cinnamon? It's basically the same thing but starting from gnome3 and working back to gnome2's appearance.
It's not the appearance that's an issue, but the functionality.
Like working support for multiple buttoned mice, multiple displays and display orders, overlapping windows with focus-follows-mouse and user controlled Z order, multiple sessions of the same programs whether or not the apps themselves provide an "open new instance" functionality, remote X logins, adjustable DPI (for wysiwyg DTP this is a must)...
Most people seem to complain about panel apps, but to me, that's a minor thing compared to how basic functionality has been sacrificed. The fallback mode is nothing like Gnome 2, and changing the looks to get it more like Gnome 2 will accomplish diddley squat.
The first Gnome 3 dev who has guts enough to say "dudes, we fscked up this one, bad" will get my respect.
Why not improve the gnome classic desktop from gnome 3 instead? This zombie-gnome2 effort seems like a waste of time to me.
Can you put a weather widget on the top bar on Gnome3 Classic? How about a CPU temp sensor? How about a graph that shows CPU, RAM, swap, and network usage? Maybe a sensor that shows the CPU speed for each core with the ability to change them to ondemand or performace? Can you put the taskbar on bottom bar? Can you put just a gnome foot (start button) on the bottom left like Windows and the full menu on top (Gnome-foot, Places, System)?
The last time I tried Gnome3, none of these things were possible. These were not an option on Gnome3 Classic either. I want my old Gnome2 back, not the "look" of Gnome2 stuck on top of Gnome3. I don't want "New Coke" in an "Old Coke" can.
You can do all those things in gnome fallback (though you need to hold alt when right clicking on the panel). The same applets are available: http://omgubuntu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/gnome-fallback.jpg Besides you seem to be missing my point. I never said that gnome classic is great. But if you want to maintain a traditional desktop it would be better to start with gnome classic rather than taking on the huge job of modernizing gnome 2 since most of the effort has already been done.
All of that can be done with XFCE, but without the bugs and sluggishness the gnome developers never cared to fix.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Perhaps this is true... in a DICTATORSHIP.
Look. The fact is, the whole point is free as in freedom (as well as free as in beer). The public has cried long and loud about the direction GNOME3 has taken. People respond with "don't like it? don't use it!" Well, when someone actually takes them up on it, someone else calls it "fragmentation." Can't win?
Fact is, GNOME is not listening to its users. It's a problem. We know what happened when XFree86 didn't listen... we've gone to X.org and flourished because of it. Now we have people bringing life back to the Gnome2 DE and I expect a lot of user interest will follow... my own as well. (As soon as I find out how easy it is to install and run it under the latest Fedora... right now, I am on CentOS 6.x because Fedora has failed me...) Maybe I can go back with MATE 1.2... CentOS is good but takes a lot of effort to tweak it the way I want it... moreso than Fedora of whatever version CentOS most resembles.
Nothing wrong here. If a Mac user doesn't like the way Mac OS X is going, they're choices are to use old and unsupported software or bitch and complain. If a Linux user doesn't like the way things are going they can fork.
I think you are confusing users with developers and that is part of the problem with linux in general. An end "user" cannot fork a damn thing because they don't know how to program.
If a developer on OS X does not like something, they can write their own extensions/plugins or applications that publish a "service" that can be used in other programs via the services menu in any cocoa application. You can replace the "finder" with a third party replacement like Pathfinder or write one yourself and license it however you wish. Xcode is available as a free download.
The problem with linux is that there is no strong underlying framework for UI and window management other than X which is rather primitive by modern standard so you end up with multiple competing window managers with their own frameworks, APIs and controls.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Now we have MATE from GNOME v2 as a form of dissatisfaction of v3.
We already had Trinity forked from KDE v3.5.
Then there's Razor-Qt as "something almost completely new".
And the pletora of "alternative" desktops we all love: XFCE, LXDE, etc.etc.
Is it actually a problem of fragmentation, or is it that some projects after a few years (and some amounts of donated money) just go into technology decline?
I personally tend towards the second option.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
The first Gnome 3 dev who has guts enough to say "dudes, we fscked up this one, bad" will get my respect.
He would be a hero. A voice of reason. A voice of intelligence. A voice of sanity.
The sad thing is, he would be shunned and likely ejected. The Gnome usability experts have all, already told the Gnome 3 developers they are fucking up very badly. The gnome 3 developers told them they didn't have the intelligence to understand their visionary thinking. In other words, according to the gnome 3 developers, if you disagree with the gnome 3 developers, you are an idiot. This is not hyperbole. This is straight from the mailing list. Its disgusting.
At this point in time, either you've drank the koolaid and have long since turned off your brain, growing like a mushroom, or left gnome 3 development. Otherwise, according to the gnome 3 developers, you're an idiot and not likely unqualified to contribute to the project.
It isn't going to happy because it already happen, in mass, and the gnome 3 developers labeled them idiots.
Full disclosure: I manage the project I am about to propose your use of. CentOS and its upstream RHEL6 is great on the desktop and I too feel that going from Fedora to RHEL there are just way too many things I miss. I also hated everything Gnome was doing with gnome-shell and gtk3. So I made a fork of RHEL6 that had everything I needed (an OpenVZ compatible kernel), dahdi packages via rpm, proprietary Nvidia packages and something that offered the functionality of EPEL/RPMForge/ELRepo/rpmfusion without them breaking each other through dependencies. We use it as the foundation of our cloud voip platform on our servers but also use it on our workstations so we can easily build and deploy virtual containers. It's called CCT Enterprise Linux (http://www.classiccitytelco.com/?page_id=488) and has most packages from EPEL, gstreamer*ugly functionality, and nvidia drivers for CUDA developers or those that just want functional OpenGL support. It sounds like we ran into the same problems, so hopefully the solution I spent some time on putting together might help you out. If you install it and wonder where all the extra packages are, remember to enable cct-extras and cct-nonfree. That's where all of the non-RHEL packages live. Hope that helps you out, but if you prefer Fedora and Mate, I completely understand.
Really, it's OK to go decades without significant changes.
This is why I drive a car with a four-stroke engine, four wheels, a steering wheel for steering and pedals for gas and brake.
Presumably the Gnome developers use jet powered cars that slide on teflon pads, tap the windshield for steering and let the car decide the speed. Because different must be better.
Steve Jobs probably liked blue jeans and black turtlenecks, and made that choice out of thousands of options. He did not go out to make it the only option for everyone. See that essential difference? In fact, it's pretty much similar to those who want to stick with MATE instead of choosing between following Gnome's antics or switching to another desktop.
So yeah, using MATE fragments Linux like black turtlenecks fragment fashion, and it takes away annoying and trivial choices like wearing the same takes away choices. What were you trying to say again?
Modernizing GNOME2, yeah, that'll be a massive job man, what with it being so ancient and all, I mean the devs stopped working on it way back in 2010.
Gnome 2 was created some 10 years ago and while it has been improved and updated it still carries a lot of cruft.
Seriously, sure it should be updated to GTK3 at some point, but the GTK2 libs will still work until get around to it. So they can either take the GNOME2 codebase and update it in a piecemeal fashion as their resources allow, or they can completely reimplement all the GNOME2 features on top of GNOME classic which should only take them a few years. Now which is the best option for someone who wants something GNOME2-like now.
As I said, most of that work has already been done. Gnome classic is a port of the gnome 2 desktop, not a reimplementation.
If you think more choice is always better than less, then you've obviously never looked at it from the perspective of a developer. Fragmentation is exactly the reason I hope I never have to develop desktop software for Linux. Why would you wish such hell on developers for your platform?
Really? There are a few frameworks that work across pretty much all desktops...
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