Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fedora Adds MATE and Cinnamon Desktops to Main Repository, Releases Beta

Posted by Unknown on from the inconsistent-ux-kills-linux-desktop dept.

Already available in third party repositories, the GNOME 2 fork MATE and GNOME 3 fork Cinnamon will now be included in Fedora 18. From the H: "After almost two months' delay, the Fedora Project has released the first and final beta of Fedora 18. The distribution, which is code-named 'Spherical Cow,' includes the MATE desktop – a continuation of the classic GNOME 2 interface – in its repositories for the first time. Fedora 18's default edition uses GNOME 3.6.2 as its interface and a separate KDE Spin provides the KDE Software Collection 4.9.3; Xfce 4.10 and version 1.6.7 of Linux Mint's Cinnamon are also available from the distribution's repositories."

41 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Will MATE make it into RHEL? by kthreadd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since RedHat uses Fedora as a base when they build their enterprise distribution, is there any chance that MATE will now get there? We're using RHEL 5 and 6 on some desktops, running really good crafted versions of GNOME 2. And I'm not looking forward to the day RHEL 7 comes out with what I assume will be GNOME 3. I like some of the things they are doing, and one day it will probably be as good as GNOME 2; but that day is not now. Getting MATE included into RHEL would certainly be a good thing.

    1. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by fnj · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would guess that it is practically a given. RHEL7 is supposedly going to be forked from F18.

    2. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by trollebolle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I would guess that it is practically a given. RHEL7 is supposedly going to be forked from F18.

      I would guess not. Though RHEL7 will be based on F18 or thereabouts, RHEL only includes a subset of the packages that exist in Fedora. Remember that Red Hat will be supporting the packages for 10 years. They'll choose the package subset with care. But on the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to see MATE in EPEL7.

    3. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by fnj · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, that could well be the case too, since they don't include Xfce as it is. Of course the savvy user knows that he just needs to enable the EPEL repo to get Xfce.

    4. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I doubt default gnome3 will be the standard for RHEL. I doubt the workstation market would pay for it since it means a different workflow so a gnome2 resembling MATE makes sense in this context.
      I've got one guy on gnome3 and he loves it but others just think it's too weird and want something that looks like gnome2 (so they are currently on gnome2), or a minority on KDE, XFCE, fluxbox, E16 or E17.
      My one and only problem with gnome3 is deliberately breaking gnome2 compatibility in an incredibly stupid way - they brought DLL hell to linux for possibly the very first time. I couldn't even get gnome2 and gnome3 components to run on the same system with a chroot jail (although that should work, I must have missed something) and just gave up and got people to use the incompatible software remotely from another system using X.

    5. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by kramulous · · Score: 1

      I really recommend you give Gnome3 a chance. There is a lot of hate towards it that I don't understand. It is just new ... that's all. It still does everything I expect from a window manager.

      I even like it. Took a little while but I also have an older machine with Gnome2 and I find it almost unusable and archaic when I have to use it. I really, really recommend you give gnome3 a good chance.

      ps. I was also mister no transitions, no wobbly windows ... don't waste my cycles with gnome2.

      --
      .
    6. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by TractorBarry · · Score: 1

      Replying simply to undo inadvertent mod (didn't mean to click the drop down whilst scrolling the page ;)

      But whilst I'm at it Gnome 3 is absolutely not worth a try. The gnome project should be buried as of this point. Their attitude towards their users was so disgracefully arrogant that every developer associated with gnome should be permanently sent to pariah land.

      There is no way in hell anything from that bunch of self righteous pricks is geting anywhere near a system of mine again.

      --
      Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
    7. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by apexwm · · Score: 1

      The next major release of RHEL will almost undoubtedly have some classic desktop included. No enterprises will be able to migrate to Gnome 3 easily so there will have to be an option. Since they've put MATE and Cinnamon in F18, I am guessing one or both of those will be available. This is great news for F18, I am looking forward to using it very soon!!!

    8. Re:Will MATE make it into RHEL? by fnj · · Score: 1

      I keep hearing from random posters on various sites that RHEL # was forked from Fedora( core) #. Has there EVER been an official statement like that? I know fedora is a testbed, but I've never seen any evidence of a fork. I find it more likely that they take a stable kernel, and build around it stable releases of the important packages that are known to work well together.

      All right; it's a fair statement that "forked from" is an oversimplification. "Based on" might be more accurate.
      RHEL 2.1 was based on Red Hat Linux 7.2
      RHEL 3 was based on Red Hat Linux 9
      RHEL 4 was based on Fedora Core 3
      RHEL 5 was based on Fedora Core 6
      RHEL 6 was based on Fedora "12 & 13"
      I'm not sure you can find the above in so many words in Red Hat's own writings. I think you can if you search hard enough, but I can't give specific sources at this point.

      Some of us would say that RHEL 6 was a huge struggle to bring out. The fact is that it wasn't as much drawn from a single Fedora release as 4 and 5 were, and it was grossly delayed.

      Fedora was started in 2003 with a mission specifically to be the cooker for RHEL.

  2. No love for MS... by duplicitious · · Score: 4, Funny

    What, no Metro interface?

    1. Re:No love for MS... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's called Unity.

  3. Choice is GOOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No doubt this will prompt the weenies to suggest (for the two thousandth time) that everyone who freely chose to work on these individual projects should drop everything, "join forces", and devote their precious time and effort to one unified project. What these people somehow missed -- even though it is blindingly obvious -- is that each of those developers freely chose to work on their project -- based on their own personal goals, not yours. And the reason why all of these projects are individually successful is precisely because those developers want to be working there. They freely choose to be there because they each personally want to be there. Trying to force them to abandon their self-chosen projects cannot possibly result in the same devotion and quality that personal choice has produced.

  4. first step, include software by chris.alex.thomas · · Score: 1

    second step......

    1. Re:first step, include software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Profit?

    2. Re:first step, include software by chris.alex.thomas · · Score: 1

      no, thats step 3, everybody knows that!!!! (hehe)

  5. Why bother, XFCE is all you need by digitect · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After struggling to use Gnome 3 since Fedora officially released it, I recently tried XFCE again and was blown away with how fast and suitable it is. The defaults are good and there are tons of options to customize it back to the similar paradigm Gnome 2 was. I couldn't believe how much faster my machine felt after switching. Even moving Firefox tabs was better!

    I gave G3 PLENTY of time and never could feel comfortable with it even after slowly adding extension after extension to get something workable. The visual component of a desktop is important, and the G3 simply hides too much that is necessary to use it. It's like having a car with no dashboard. The so-called "easy"methods to reveal open windows and find applications are hard to discover, require too much input and memory, and are too slow.

    After this weekend's pleasurable re-discovery of the improved XFCE, I'm never going back. Gnome doesn't matter any more to me.

    --
    There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
    1. Re:Why bother, XFCE is all you need by fnj · · Score: 1

      Xfce 4.10 is very, very good. It has an excellent selection of applets. Automount of removable media and easy unmount support is good. You can now customize both the desktop icons and objects in the file manager to activate on single click (happens to be a must for me).

    2. Re:Why bother, XFCE is all you need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Try comparing XFCE with Gnome2 or Mate on a low spec machine. XFCE is actually slower and uses more resources! It might have started out as a lightweight design, but it didn't stay that way.

    3. Re:Why bother, XFCE is all you need by Minwee · · Score: 3, Funny

      TWM, on the other hand, runs as fast as ever and has no need for useless cruft.

      All you kids with your Gee-nomes and Kiddums and Ex-feeces can just get off my lawn.

    4. Re:Why bother, XFCE is all you need by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      I also feel that XFCE is possibly the best desktop for Linux right now. Also relatively bug-free.

    5. Re:Why bother, XFCE is all you need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you think XFCE is fast, give LXDE a try, blows it out of the water.

    6. Re:Why bother, XFCE is all you need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've been plugging this for a while. Fedora+XFCE the most usable and stable linux desktop I've ever used. (The XFCE "spin" comes with XFCE installed/default)
      XFCE is clean and simple and consistent. It's lightweight but functional. It's visually pleasant and not gaudy. It's familiar yet well suited for it's job. (Lets face it, after nearly decade of being the most popular OS in the world, XP's UI is pretty much the standard by which all others are based)

      I've also grown to appreciate Fedora in general. It's stable and well supported and quite functional. It's also easy to use. I feel it's grown and surpassed the debian based distros for most uses. It's also widely supported in the commercial sector. (Yeah it is. Everyone knows you don't shell out for redhat for /everything/)

      Debian is.. Debian. It's good for geeks in a way, but I think too many of it's design philosophies get in the way of making a good end user product. OS's are a commodity. VMs make system instances a commodity. Nobody has time to dick around with an OS to make it work. Even the geeks. Debian stable has packages that are frankly too old. Debian unstable is wonky and undocumented.

      Ubuntu has just gone to lala land. It has all of the problems of Debian, and a UI that nobody likes.

      Mint is Unbuntu, but even more poorly supported.

      The other distros just don't have enough users to form a good support community.

    7. Re:Why bother, XFCE is all you need by dbIII · · Score: 1

      E17 has some nice features, especially with multiple monitors. The default is fairly plain and quick and you just turn on whatever features you want.

  6. openSUSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Fedora is late, as usual, due to its lack of manpower. Compare with the amount of desktop environments supported in openSUSE:

    * Afterstep http://software.opensuse.org/package/afterstep
    * cinnamon http://software.opensuse.org/package/cinnamon
    * GNOME 2 and 3: http://en.opensuse.org/GNOME_repositories
    * KDE 3 and 4: http://en.opensuse.org/KDE_repositories http://en.opensuse.org/KDE3
    * LXDE http://en.opensuse.org/LXDE_repositories
    * MATE http://en.opensuse.org/MATE
    * Qt Desktop http://software.opensuse.org/package/razorqt
    * sugar http://software.opensuse.org/package/sugar
    * xfce http://software.opensuse.org/package/patterns-openSUSE-xfce

    Lots of window managers, too: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/windowmanagers/openSUSE_12.2

    1. Re:openSUSE by AdamWill · · Score: 2

      Fedora has cinnamon, LXDE, Xfce and Sugar (Fedora is the basis of the official Sugar Labs builds, actually), and a bunch of others. MATE just happens to be getting some press at the moment.

    2. Re:openSUSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Fedora has Cinnamon and Sugar? Big Deal!

      Microsoft has High Fructose Corn Syrup.

    3. Re:openSUSE by Minwee · · Score: 2

      That all you got?

      Yes, I know. MATE and Cinnamon aren't in the official repositories yet, but that's only a matter of getting a bigger hammer.

      To be fair, there is a big difference between having a desktop environment and window manager which run on a system and having all of its features fully integrated and supported. I can quite happily run FVWM on my desktop, but things start getting awkward when I run an application which expects to find a dock or notification area from Gnome.

  7. Now if only they would fix the systemd bloat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As it is unreliable, buggy, and just plain wrong.

    1. Re:Now if only they would fix the systemd bloat by Minwee · · Score: 2

      As it is unreliable, buggy, and just plain wrong.

      Indeed. If something is going to be wrong, I prefer that it have sprinkles on top. Plain wrong is just boring.

  8. Mate-desktop-fedora 17 i386 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    EH! Kind of old news to fedora users

  9. Still would use another distro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Requiring dbus on a server that does not run a graphical interface is useless. Plus since fedora *is* gnomeos basically, support for other desktops will be nonexistent.

  10. Cinnamon experiences... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Personally, I do not really get all the hype around Cinnamon. In my experience, it is unstable, bug ridden and hard to use.

    MATE, on the other, works like charm for me. My last linux upgrade was painful voyage trying Ubuntu Unity, Gnome 3, Xfce, Cinnamon... finding no love with either. But then, Mint MATE, I fell in love immediately - everything works out of box as expected.

  11. Have you tried G3 in fallback mode? by Max+Rool · · Score: 1

    I have to admit being rather disappointed with XFCE, mostly around the standard desktop tools. I especially missed Nautilus. I ended up back to G3 running in fallback mode and have been really happy with that.

  12. Hi Linus! by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 2

    So troll me.

  13. KDE and Razor QT by Seeteufel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    KDE and Razor Qt are the future. Gnome was nice but not anymore. Dolphin is so much better than what Nautilus has to offer. I would say, simply port KDE to LLVM and we'll get a bulletproof desktop system.

  14. Re:I love cinnamon but only in food by iggymanz · · Score: 2

    blah blah blah I made a mistake and I'm blaming cinnamon blah blah blah

  15. Do they use Gnome 3 libs? by gr8_phk · · Score: 1

    I'm all for a more conventional desktop environment, but do any of these alternative use the gnome 3 libraries? Or are we going to basically have 2 versions of gnome installed, one for the UI and one for the apps?

    Sure some apps (GIMP in particular) still need the older libraries but the world needs to move to 3.

    1. Re:Do they use Gnome 3 libs? by gspear · · Score: 1

      (Posting to remove accidental mod. Sorry.)

    2. Re:Do they use Gnome 3 libs? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Actually the new gimp needs the new libs which is why I moved one user to gnome3. The thing that sucks is plenty of other stuff needs old applications which will not run under gnome3 - the gnome guys have brought DLL hell to linux by using an insane and incompatible naming system so the usual *nix behaviour of just having the old libraries as well as new to run the old stuff is not enough. It is deliberate breakage.

  16. Re:I love cinnamon but only in food by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    blah blah blah I made a mistake and I'm blaming cinnamon blah blah blah

    I installed cinnamon on Ubuntu and it was dookie there, too, which is odd since the dist it was made for is just a tweaked Ubuntu. Not only did it take almost half a minute to start (I have an SSD, Unity takes just a couple seconds) but it was flaky and crashy thereafter. Cinnamon ain't ready for primetime, sorry.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  17. Fedora keyboard support by djh2400 · · Score: 1

    I really want to use Fedora, but I type in the Colemak keyboard layout, and I can't figure out how to change the system default to Colemak (to work both at the login screen and after logging in).