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Fedora 18 To Feature the GNOME2 Fork MATE

Posted by Soulskill on from the locking-it-down dept.

dsinc writes "It's not just Mint: Fedora will also feature MATE in their upcoming release (Fedora 18). According to Fedora's Dan Mashal, 'many users have expressed interest in this feature since Fedora 15 in which Fedora was switched from GNOME 2 to GNOME 3.'" This follows shortly after news that MATE 1.4 has been released. New features includes file sharing over bluetooth, updated backends for mate-keyring and libmatekeyring, new themes for the notification daemon, and improvements to the Caja file manager. MATE is being included in Sabayon as well.

30 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Way to go. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Too many people have problems with GNOME 3. Good to have a choice.

    1. Re:Way to go. by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 4, Funny

      But choice == fragmentation! Panic now, before its too late!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    2. Re:Way to go. by erroneus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Fragmentation is only bad when we have something everyone already likes and the fragmentation breaks it. Say, for example, a whole project kind of splits up and each goes in a separate direction which are both different from the original direction. Usually everyone loses in that case.

      But when a single choice is made to change which most people simply hate, it's bad too. It's not fragmentation but it's still bad for the users and bad for the project.

      In the end, it's the interests of the users which make or break a project. People treat projects and children similarly and it's a damned shame. "My child!" "My Project!" "I can do with it what I want!" Wrong. You can't and you shouldn't. It's a community thing and the community has an interest in the results of your work.

  2. Splendid decision by blind+biker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was disheartened with the shipwreck that Gnome 3 decided to become, so MATE was a very positive development. And while I'm not a Fedora user (just not my cup of tea), it's a very popular distro, and seeing them adopt MATE added a huge momentum to the project (a bit like when IBM adopted Java - it boosted it enormously).

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    1. Re:Splendid decision by blind+biker · · Score: 3

      I was able to convert a few from Unity

      Must have been hard...

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    2. Re:Splendid decision by kelemvor4 · · Score: 2

      who uses instant messengers these days

      I do.

  3. But wait... by wordsnyc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seadog 19 will feature Matey, the DE that comes with a talking parrot (but doesn't support 3D).

    --
    Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
  4. Perhaps supporting R100/R200 was a good idea... by sethstorm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Given how many decent, albeit old, chips covered by the Gnome 3 blacklist - this shouldn't be a surprise.

    In addition, not much was ever said about the blacklist other than "R100/R200/$chip just can't handle it" without specifying how something that worked in Gnome 3.0 didn't work in later versions. The excuse generally has been along the lines of "STFU and enjoy the fallback, since your chip is too old" without a reasonable explanation of why it even happened. Never mind that Gnome 3 goes out of its way to make sure a blacklisted chipset stays in fallback to the best of its ability - without any opportunity to override.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  5. And a round of slow clapping began.... by Picass0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thank you for the outbreak of common sense from the Fedora team. I've been using KDE since Gnome 3 arrived.

  6. Kind of sems like a step backwards. by slackware+3.6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fedora was the first to jump on Gnome 3. They should work on getting the kinks out instead of trying to go back in time or trying to be a crappy Mint wannabe with no codecs. My boxes have been geting switched over to Mageia (from F 16 & 17) because fewer updates and more stable with Gnome 3.
    If you take away Gnome 3 and Unity you will lose alot of new linux users. New users want something cool and flashy not something that looks like a clone of Windows from years past.

    1. Re:Kind of sems like a step backwards. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Says you. You must be some part-time home-hobby geek or something.

      The rest of us who actually work every day with linux on our desktops just want to get our work done and want to be able to do things without 17 mouse movements all over the desktop trying to make a mouse emulate a touch-screen.

    2. Re:Kind of sems like a step backwards. by Ignacio · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They should work on getting the kinks out instead of trying to go back in time or trying to be a crappy Mint wannabe with no codecs.

      GNOME 3 doesn't have "kinks", it has major usability regressions. They can't be "gotten out", they must be destroyed.

      New users want something cool and flashy not something that looks like a clone of Windows from years past.

      Only if you want all your new users to be teenage kids.

    3. Re:Kind of sems like a step backwards. by jc79 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Eh? No one's removing Gnome 3 from Fedora. MATE is being added as an extra desktop environment. Gnome 3 will still be the default. This is an additional feature, not a replacement.

    4. Re:Kind of sems like a step backwards. by arth1 · · Score: 2

      Eh? No one's removing Gnome 3 from Fedora. MATE is being added as an extra desktop environment. Gnome 3 will still be the default.

      Not for long if they can't get it to work reliably and identically across different platforms and hardware.

      Remember who foots the bill - me and thousands of other Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers who each put thousands of dollars into Red Hat every year. We expect RHEL 7 and 8 to be based on stable versions of Fedora that actually work, consistently and identically for all our machines, whether they be workstations with super graphics cards and quad monitors or servers with low-end graphics serving remote X or VMs.

      If Fedora refuses to play ball and be a viable basis for the next RHEL, what's its value for Red Hat and its customers?

  7. We're all missing the point by supersloshy · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is being blown way out of proportion. We're all acting like this means that Fedora is dropping GNOME 3 for MATE or something crazy like that. From what I can tell they're simply just porting the packages to Fedora, nothing more. Maybe they'll offer a version with MATE as the default configuration, but this doesn't show any signs of replacing GNOME 3 in the future. Lets be realistic and read the articles, folks.

    Also, unrelated, but I feel like the GNOME 3 hate is really blown out of proportion. Sure, some users were driven away, but the exact same thing happened with GNOME 2 and people called it trash and crap and whatever else. By the time that GNOME 3 is mature and more stable, it will have a large userbase again. I can guarantee it. I, personally, really love it as it is, especially how easily extensible it is. I don't know another desktop that allows so many customization options through extensions like that. You can really change near everything with a little tweak and you can write one yourself in minutes.

    --
    "Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
    1. Re:We're all missing the point by blind+biker · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also, unrelated, but I feel like the GNOME 3 hate is really blown out of proportion. Sure, some users were driven away, but the exact same thing happened with GNOME 2 and people called it trash and crap and whatever else. By the time that GNOME 3 is mature and more stable, it will have a large userbase again. I can guarantee it. I, personally, really love it as it is, especially how easily extensible it is. I don't know another desktop that allows so many customization options through extensions like that. You can really change near everything with a little tweak and you can write one yourself in minutes.

      That's bullshit - I was there when Gnome 2 was born. There were some critics, but nowhere near the backlash that accompanies Gnome 3.

      Your post reminds me exactly of the Windows Vista apologists: they would say things like "When Windows XP came out, there were just as many people who hated it. like the ones who hate Vista. In the end, it will be a success like XP." Turns out, all those apologists were full of shit, and Vista really is the turd that everybody thought it was.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    2. Re:We're all missing the point by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 4, Funny
      By the time that GNOME 3 is mature and more stable, it will have a large userbase again.And Gnome 4 will replace it with new, improved bugs and an incomprehensible UI

      FTFY

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    3. Re:We're all missing the point by Yenya · · Score: 2

      Also, unrelated, but I feel like the GNOME 3 hate is really blown out of proportion. Sure, some users were driven away, but the exact same thing happened with GNOME 2 and people called it trash and crap and whatever else.

      And they were right.

      I have been using GNOME since GNOME 1 times, and I think for former GNOME users the GNOME 3 fiasco is not something unexpected, it is a logical outcome of the overall trend in GNOME development.

      I remember Sawmill/Sawfish being replaced by Metacity, which even in the latest GNOME 2 releases was not able to do things which were supported in Sawfish since day 1 and still are.

      I remember Galeon being pushed out of GNOME and replaced by Epiphany (seriously, did anybody used Epiphany?), and again, Galeon was more capable than Firefox (and of course than Epiphany, but no surprise here), until it bit-rotted enough to be removed from Fedora about year and half ago.

      I remember GDM being rewritten for GNOME 2.20, omitting XDMCP support altogether (a display manager without XDMCP, would you believe that?) and removing the config file, in which the user previously could set his own X server options, allowing, for example, correct multi-seat support. Those features were promised to be added later, but they never were, with the notable exception of the XDMCP support. And guess what? GDM in GNOME 3 is said to support multi-seat, but it generates its own hard-coded xorg.conf for secondary seats somewhere under /run, and again there is no way to configure the xorg.conf for secondary seats.

      So no, GNOME 3 has not been a surprise, at least for me. GNOME 3 has been a logical outcome of the general trend, which has been visible in the GNOME development for several years. That said, GNOME 2 was bearable for me for general use (with Galeon, xdm, and Sawfish). When GNOME 3 was released, I have finally switched to XFCE.

      --
      -Yenya
      --
      While Linux is larger than Emacs, at least Linux has the excuse that it has to be. --Linus
  8. Car analogy by gagol · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The vehicle driving interface have not changed much in the last 80 years or so. This has not stopped us to innovate vehicles. Imagine that every 10 years or so, car manufacturers decided that a steering wheel and pedals are out of fashion and should be replaced by something fundamentally different.

    The mess we have today in many fields is related to our priorities as a specie. We placed eyecandy before efficiency and this means we place a tremendous amount of energy in entertainment, games and trendy gadgets that sole goals are to steer attention away from real problems by having an entertainment industry so huge.

    \

    --
    Tomorrow is another day...
  9. Re:Yikes by fluffythedestroyer · · Score: 2

    They took a chance to change the design, they failed. The question now will they admit it, look at their situation and take a step backwards and finally listen to their community and their fans... that's an interesting question.

  10. Other distros by phorm · · Score: 2

    Perhaps this will serve as a wake-up-call to other distros (*cough* ubuntu *cough*).
    New shinies are nice. Choice is better.

  11. Debian? by rrohbeck · · Score: 2

    Where is Debian? I still don't see Mate in the standard repos, let alone as an installation option (or, preferably, the default.)
    I've been running XFCE4 for a while but, frankly, the longer I use it the more issues I find. Like VNC and NX interoperability, or the infamous xfce4-terminal hang that just caused me to lose some work last night.

    --
    thegodmovie.com - watch it
  12. Re:lets hope ubuntu fallows by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

    Funny

    Gnome 3 caused me to move to Windows 7 and it was a paradise in comparison. At least I can do the very advanced task of unmaximizing a freaking Window.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  13. Re:I Use Gentoo Linux... by Anomalyst · · Score: 2

    ....so looking forward to using MATE when it's finished compiling some time in 2014. :-)

    That is just 1.5 Grateful Dead songs away!

    --
    There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
  14. NOT for touch screens by pscottdv · · Score: 4, Informative

    For people who like their desktop to have familiar features rather than being dumbed down for touch screens?

    There is no way Gnome 3 is designed for touch screens. Or at least, not for touchscreen-only computers. I use Fedora 17 on a pen-based computer (fujitsu stylistic) and I can tell you that if it were not for the fingerprint reader on it, Fedora would be *UNUSABLE*. Whenever Gnome 3 needs a password to connect to WiFi or to unlock the screen or unlock following suspend, THERE IS NO WAY TO ENTER THE PASSWORD! The password windows captures all mouse input so it is NOT possible to bring up an onscreen keyboard.

    So lets stop pretending Gnome 3 shell is for tablet-type computers. It CANNOT BE USED ON A COMPUTER WITHOUT A KEYBOARD.

    Oh, and when one IS able to use the on-screen keyboard, it has is no tilda (~) character. Not that you would ever need to type a tilda on a unix-like operating system.

    I've filed bugs on all these complaints, but there has been no action.

    Are you listening Gnome team?

    --

    this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice

    1. Re:NOT for touch screens by pscottdv · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I suppose they THINK they are developing for touch screen devices. But they are fooling themselves. I ran into the problems I described within the first 2 minutes of using Gnome 3 on a touch-screen-only device.

      That tells me that not one gnome shell developer runs Gnome 3 on a touch-screen-only device. Not one. Seriously. Because if there was such a developer, he or she would have run across the same problem within the first two minutes of use. Connect to encrypted WiFi? Can't be done without a keyboard. Resume from suspend? Again, can't be done without a keyboard. Type a tilda? Can't do it without a keyboard or a third-party on-screen keyboard program.

      These aren't subtle little use-cases hiding in the corners. These are major problems that ANYONE attempting to use Gnome 3 on a touch-screen device will run into within the first couple of MINUTES of use. These are problems that the Gnome developers know about (because I have reported them) and that they have refused to address. They don't even comment on the bugs. They just let them sit. For years.

      --

      this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice

  15. Re:lets hope ubuntu fallows by jc79 · · Score: 2

    You mean you never worked out how to unmaximise a window in Gnome 3? It's the opposite of maximising - drag the title bar to the top of the screen and the window will snap to maximised, drag the window away from the top and it will snap back to its previous size. It's really simple and actually discoverable, unlike some other things in Gnome 3.

    https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet
    "Window maximizing and tiling: You can maximize a window by dragging it to the top edge of the screen. Alternatively, you can double-click the window title. To unmaximize, pull it down again. By dragging windows to the left and right edges of the screen you can tile them side by side. "

  16. Re:lets hope ubuntu fallows by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wow

    If I have to look up a cheat sheet to do such a basic task it is a failure. You can't expect an average Joe to figure this out and learn a new way one the other one works just fine. Same reason they usually prefer XP over win 7 still just because it is familiar more than the fact it is 10 years old.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  17. Re:New features includes file sharing over bluetoo by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

    Huh? I've been sharing files over bluetooth for a couple of years, in both KDE and Windows.

    You have been able to use Bluetooth file-sharing in GNOME2 for years now, but that functionality was never actually a part of GNOME2, it was provided by an outside package. This announcement just basically says the Mate - team has now made that functionality a part of the actual Mate desktop environment.

    bluetooth is faster than Samba over wifi!

    Bluetooth v1.1 has a maximum available bandwidth of 0.7 Mbit/s, v2.1 has a maximum available bandwidth of 2.1 Mbit/s and Bluetooth 3.0+HS and Bluetooth 4.0 have a theoretical bandwidth of 24Mbit/s, though that bandwidth is actually provided by Wifi, not the Bluetooth - chipset itself. If you really are getting higher speeds with Bluetooth than with Wifi then your wireless settings are screwed up or you're having some serious interference.

    Of course, the Windows machine needs a third-party app to run the bluetooth dongle (kubuntu does not).

    You must have some strange off-standard dongle. I have several ones and none of them have ever required installation of anything under Windows or Linux.

  18. Re:lets hope ubuntu fallows by regularstranger · · Score: 2

    I'm wondering if you have ever used a cheat sheet, or had somebody show you basic tricks when using Windows, of if all basic functionality of using Windows was immediately apparent to you upon initial inspection of the desktop. If you have ever used a cheatsheet (or somebody has shown you something useful, which is pretty much the same thing) to learn how to do something basic in Windows, then it is also a failure - per your definition. I'm not a fan of Gnome 3, but I suspect that you're being a little unfair.