MATE To Make It Into Debian Repositories

sfcrazy writes "Fans of the MATE desktop environment, which is a fork of Gnome 2, will be happy to know that MATE is scheduled to be included in the official Debian repositories. Early 2012, it was requested that MATE be included in said repositories, and almost 2 years later, it appears we're almost there."

Comments

Debian??

[i kan reed]

Aren't we already being sniveling hipsters who don't like Debian's successor, Ubuntu, for being too mainstream already? Or have I lost track of the linux pulse at some point?

Re:Debian??

[Hatta]

Ubuntu is hardly a successor to Debian. It's more of a hanger on. Debian will be around long after Canonical goes bankrupt.

Re:Debian??

[Culture20]

We don't hate ubuntu for being mainstream, unless you mean mainstream like Lady Gaga is mainstream. I wouldn't invite ubuntu home to meet the folks these days (I did once when ubuntu and I were younger).

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

The backlash against Debian isn't that it's too mainstream. It's that they're making decisions that compromise privacy (Amazon search integrated into desktop search by default) and usability (Unity). Also, the plan to develop Mir instead of using Wayland as the replacement for X was a bit of "What are you doing Ubuntu? Ubuntu? Stahp." moment.

Re:Debian??

[Talderas]

How many times will they check MATE before it's done?

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as it's the Jim Carrey version on YouTube then yes.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit being such a pawn.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

How many times will I MATE with your mom before i'm done?

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

MATE is definitely not "mainstream". The mainstream follows hot trends, like the tablet-ification and dumbing-down of desktop GUIs. MATE is the opposite of this. MATE is an admission that the desktop metaphor was already perfected 10 or 15 years ago, and that what we really need is a stable, polished, feature-complete implementation of it. Cinnamon and XFCE are in the same camp, with cinnamon opting to use newer technology to achieve a similar result.

MATE going into the debian repository is a great thing. It gives credit to the notion that certain design concepts and certain software, although "dated", is so practical, sensible, and useful that it's worth keeping around for years to come.

Re:Debian??

[Robert Frazier]

More the bowdlerized version.

Best wishes,
Bob

Re:Debian??

[celle]

"The backlash against Debian isn't that it's too mainstream. It's that they're making decisions that compromise privacy (Amazon search integrated into desktop search by default) and usability (Unity). Also, the plan to develop Mir instead of using Wayland as the replacement for X was a bit of "What are you doing Ubuntu? Ubuntu? Stahp." moment."

The backlash against Ubuntu isn't that it's too mainstream. It's that they're making decisions that compromise privacy (Amazon search integrated into desktop search by default) and usability (Unity). Also, the plan to develop Mir instead of using Wayland as the replacement for X was a bit of "What are you doing Ubuntu? Ubuntu? Stop." moment.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Debian??

[kthreadd]

I think you mean Ubuntu, because Debian isn't doing that.

Re:Debian??

[Eunuchswear]

The backlash against Debian isn't that it's too mainstream. It's that they're making decisions that compromise privacy (Amazon search integrated into desktop search by default) and usability (Unity).

I think you may have may have had a little brain fart there.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Well played Sir, well played!

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

^ this

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

You may check multiple times, but you only check MATE once.

Re:Debian??

[TheGratefulNet]

"mongo only pawn, in game of life"

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

The backlash started when they changed the wallpaper to a smear of orange, purple, and pink. Fact is, people loved the doo-doo brown wallpaper. It made the users say to themselves, "Yes! This is truly an operating system built for niggers." Once they moved away from that, most the excitement for the distro died.

Re:Debian??

[intermodal]

That's going a little bit far to say it was perfected 10-15 years ago. I'd assert that it is more a recognition that the attempts to go beyond what we had 10-15 years ago have taken us in the wrong direction.

Re:Debian??

[The Mighty Buzzard]

I would have said the vajazzled version.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you haven't seen a black woman dressed for church.

Re:Debian??

[Talderas]

So I won?

Re:Debian??

[davydagger]

what the fuck are you talking about. Ubuntu is not a successor by any means, it sits firmly downstream.

If debian where to go away tommorow, Ubuntu would go away in 6 months, because they still pull packages from debian to make their new versions.

Also, debian runs on a wide variety of hardware Ubuntu won't run on, in fact one of the widest variety and its a better general purpose OS.

Also, Debian has the lead market share in the server world, so I'd love for you to tell all the companies who run debian-stable servers they need to ditch them for ubuntu-server.

http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular_linux_distribution_on_web_servers

I think you've lost track of reality. You don't even know what a hipster is.

Re:Debian??

[davydagger]

bullshit. Mainstream is a relivant term. What is mainstream to one, might be obscure to another.

In the Linux world, there were traditionally four "mainstream" desktops

Gnome, KDE, XFCE, and LXDE.

MATE and Cinnamon both have a sizable following and intrest. Its not like we are talking about icewm, or some obsecure window manager here.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

could you at least bold the change so I don't have to run a fucking diff on it?

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankyou. I wondered what that word meant. I googled it. I am now getting some quite odd search suggestions and advertisments.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken. XFCE (although I use it myself) has certainly never been mainstream, and LXDE (are you kidding?) has never even been on the radar. Here in the linux world, although there are many GUIs to choose from, gnome and KDE are the only two that have ever remotely qualified as "mainstream" (and maybe FVWM if you want to go way back). This is coming from someone who has used linux almost exclusively since '97, and has seen the entire evolution with his own eyes.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey I'm still on FVWM you insensitive clod!

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

The "metaphor" was perfected 10-15 years ago, not the implementation. The actual implementation, IMO, was never actually perfected (as in "perfect"), but gnome 2 and kde 3 came the closest, before they both went off the deep end (when they were taken over by younger, more "visionary" maintainers). MATE is a blessing in that they strive to preseve the accomplishments of gnome 2, rather than tossing them out with the garbage (as the gnome 3 developers did). Cinnamon is a blessing in that they are following a similar parth, but using the latest technology. There is a project similar to cinnamon that uses the latest QT, but I forget the name. The bottom line is that it's great that we have these choices.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark said Debian is part of Ubuntu ecosystem.

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1072#comment-394295

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankyou. I wondered what that word meant. I googled it. I am now getting some quite odd search suggestions and advertisments.

I know, ever since I googled "Debian" I've been getting more and more ads for Finnish singles dating sites.

Re:Debian??

[fatphil]

Guys, guys, stop arguing - can't we get along?

Let's call Ubuntu the v******ed version of linux?

Re:Debian??

[John Allsup]

The basic Unix approach is almost universal, both Linux and Windows using a bash command line, and just about everything but Windows being built on a Unix style base.  That approach has stood the test of time in the face of new bright ideas.  Likewise, I would say Windows 2000 prior to the XP bubblegum theme was pretty much the desktop+start button approach done right.  The 2D array of icons of iOS and Android will, I imagine again be seen as a long term successful design.  The problem is that big business is desperate to find the 'next big thing' to try to monopolise and own it to maximise their bottom line.

Abandoning old ideas as 'dated' is a mark of the 'planned obselescence' business model that much of modern industry has adopted: effectively moving from the 'buy stuff' model to the 'rent stuff and surrender control' model, that is good for business, bad for consumers, but easy to force if government regulation doesn't stop this market degeneracy.

Re:Debian??

[intermodal]

I think we have different definitions of "perfect". The metaphor will always have room to evolve for the positive, even if people keep failing to actually make it happen.

Re:Debian??

[John Allsup]

I wonder if anybody's done a python wm that you control through the scripting language?  Or a forth wm?

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I consider a good pager the most important part of the desktop, and there already was a good pager in the days of fvwm, so mostly yes, the desktop has been perfect for a looooong time. One day the mainstream will finally discover the pager and all will be well.

Re:Debian??

[petermgreen]

It's a little more complex than that.

It's true that there is an automatic flow of packages from debian to ubuntu and no automatic flow in the opposite direction but it is also true that a lot of the more radical stuff (multiarch, "modern" init system) happens in ubuntu first because it takes debian so long to argue about the details. It's also true that a fair number of core packages in debian are maintained by canonical employees.

I think ubuntu would certainly be seriously weakened without debian and would likely have to either kick out a large part of universe or accept that it would remain unmaintained but I doubt the dissapearance of debian (not that it's likely to happen) would make them "go away in 6 months".

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

The pager in fvwm was not only great but is still great. Fvwm is still under active development and is continuously updated to take advantage of modern technology.

Re:Debian??

[Mister Liberty]

Ubuntu is a PR machine.
"We'll be converting to foo, we'll be rolling our own bar".

And where does it, on its web pages, say Ubuntu runs Linux?
For all we care (we don't), they might as well run an MS kernel.
And I don't mean MS as in M. Shuttleworth.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

could you at least bold the change so I don't have to run a fucking diff on it?

Friend, if you need diff for two paragraphs, please work on your reading comprehension skills.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

ad tabletification: I'm running mate with debian testing for over a year now - on a tablet (yes a real one with i5 and wacom multitouch), compared with gnome I have to say it's so much better for tablets, the fancy gnome overlays might look shiny, but since touch gestures have only started to work recently, the idea of getting to all the programs without a bloated dock wasn't (and still isn't) feasable without an additional mouse, which makes the touch kinda pointless. and since most configs have disappeared in these new gui-desktop environments, chance of getting a gnome/unity based linux running on tablets without the need for additional input devices is slim to none. gnome/unity isn't for tablets, it's made for people dumb enough, that you don't want them to have contol of their devices - which then brings me to the question why the frack on a linux at all? if you do not give them the possibility to configure the device with gui tools, they only have the terminal - which is fine by me, but is it really sensible to have a dumb person poking around in /etc e.g.? leave them to windows 8

I'm looking really forward to this change - maybe updating will not break so much in the future anymore... and might make debian with mate a good alternative for businesses needing a replacement for windows 7

Re:Debian??

[Runaway1956]

Yes, it's true. Debian is part of Ubuntu's ecosystem. Just like oxygen is part of my ecosystem. If I don't get adequate oxygen, I'll die. If Ubuntu doesn't get adequate Debian, then Ubuntu will die. The revers is not true, of course. If oxygen doesn't get any of me, oxygen won't die - nor will Debian die for lack of Ubuntu.

Re:Debian??

[Grishnakh]

The actual implementation, IMO, was never actually perfected (as in "perfect"), but gnome 2 and kde 3 came the closest, before they both went off the deep end (when they were taken over by younger, more "visionary" maintainers).

What the heck are you talking about? KDE4 is no different from KDE3 as far as the metaphor that it tries to implement, except that it adds some extra (optional) features such as "Activities" and indexing. KDE4 uses a totally different codebase, yes, but it still works pretty much the same as KDE3 as far as the UI goes. You can criticize KDE4 all you want for their botched execution and roll-out of the early releases (they were feature-incomplete for a while, and very buggy, but that was years ago), but there's nothing substantially different about the UI as compared to older KDE releases, unlike Gnome3.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that there is an automatic flow of packages from debian to ubuntu and no automatic flow in the opposite direction but it is also true that a lot of the more radical stuff (multiarch, "modern" init system) happens in ubuntu first

Bullshit. Check your facts before you run your mouth. Multiarch was in Debian first, as was alternative init systems. Of the 14% of Debian packages that are contributed to by Ubuntu are neither of those features.

Ubuntu fanbois and Apple fanbois - different dog, same leg action (we invented everything first, nah nah nah nah nah can't hear you).

Re:Debian??

[fnj]

both Linux and Windows using a bash command line

You've got me confused. Is there a new world order or something? When did Windows adopt bash? It's true, I can't even begin to imagine using Windows without Cygwin, but Cygwin is not Windows.

Agree 100% with everything else.

Re:Debian??

[fnj]

I'm not too worked up over KDE4's bloat given the cheapness of RAM and disk space, but KDE4 lacks one simple thing. There should be a single simple option for the user to set: "Give me KDE3 look and feel all the way, but with the KDE4/Qt4 improved codebase plus the obvious underpinning improvements". I.e., it would get rid of the compositing stuff, Plasma stuff, animation stuff - a plain desktop as folder, plus panels. Basically a quick, simply way to disable all the stuff which is utterly pointless to the task at hand, and in fact gets in the way, at least for some major subset of users.

It is really quite a daunting undertaking to identify and properly manipulate all the distributed settings necessary to accomplish this choice. The capability is there; it's just too hard to accomplish the way it is now. I love the detailed configurability, but there needs to be at least one meta-configuration setting. It's not like it would be hard to code or confuse anybody.

That should pretty much satisfy everybody beyond a few religious adherents to hardware/software minimalism.

Re:Debian??

[HiThere]

KDE4 has finally evolved into something not terrible. But it's not even approximately as good as was KDE3. It it were, I'd be using it. (I tried for a few months recently. It was OK, but inferior to Mate, where I rated KDE3 as superior to Gnome2.) Currently I'm using xfce, which is pretty good, but not quite as good (for my purposes) as was Gnome2, which, as I stated, was inferior to KDE3. It's been several months since I tried Cinnamon, but the screen shots I see don't appear to be as good as Mate.

It's also been over a year since I tried LXDE. It might have improved. When I tried it I rated it as better than either Gnome3 or KDE4, but then KDE4 improved (and, in any case, it was inferior to xfce).

OTOH, my wife always asks me "Where's electricsheep?". Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get it working on ANYTHING recently. (I did have it working on KDE4, which is a part of the reason I stuck to it for months.)

Re:Debian??

[styrotech]

Like qtile?

You'd have to like using tiling wms though.

Don't know about forth, but Xmonad uses haskell. Yet again, you'd need to like using tiling wms though :)

Re:Debian??

[Grishnakh]

I.e., it would get rid of the compositing stuff, Plasma stuff, animation stuff - a plain desktop as folder, plus panels

Removing compositing would make it slower on most systems, since you'd have to do everything on the CPU instead of offloading it to the GPU. You can already disable animation and other stuff pretty easily. But you're right, they could use a few buttons to select certain feature sets (one for minimalist desktop, one for everything-and-the-kitchen-sink, one for Windows XP/7-like UI, one for MacOS-like UI, etc.). I'd suggest submitting a feature request.

Re:Debian??

[jones_supa]

What's the case with Linux Mint? Wikipedia says that it's based on Ubuntu or Debian. I guess that means you can pile the Mint stuff on top of either.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because something stood the test of time doesn't mean it was the best approach, only that it was good enough.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Mint have umpteen versions just to bewilder the Linux curious newbe they are aiming to attract. All are based on Ubuntu and are are buggy as Ubuntu. One version of Mint is based on Debian Testing so its slightly less buggy than the others but still not as solid as Debian Testing itself.

Re:Debian??

[jcdr]

Now that Gnome 2 is no more, there is chance that MATE and/or XFCE get mainstream audience. The today decision is a step in that direction.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

DEBIAN FOR MENTAL FREAKS!

Re:Debian??

[Runaway1956]

Linux Mint is Ubuntu based, and I don't use it. Linux Mint Debian Edition is - naturally enough - Debian based, and I use it. It's sweet. And, no, you can't mix the two. Adding a Ubuntu repository to your LMDE installation may work for awhile, but it's going to wreak havoc on your software manager eventually.

Re:Debian??

[chmod a x mojo]

So what's so hard about having to do it in 4-5 clicks total?

Click activities, click the one that says something like "Desktop with icons" activity[*]
right click "K" menu, click "use old style menus"
click "K" menu > settings > system settings click the either desktop or appearance icon ( I forget which the compositing stuff is under ).
??????
Done, AKA profit.

[*] at least for 4.10.x there is a desktop w/ icons activity, not sure when that one was introduced.

Re:Debian??

[Blaskowicz]

I think XFCE is somewhat mainstream, i.e. you had Xubuntu 7.04, debian ISO with XFCE etc., maybe it was hardly a common desktop or default desktop but the best known after KDE and Gnome. (not counting FVWM, twm, *box etc. as desktop)
LXDE though is quite a recent desktop in comparison.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

"Debian will be around long after Canonical goes bankrupt."

you mean pumped and dumped by MS.

Re:Debian??

[davydagger]

multi-arch is done by debian, and debian supports a far far far wider range of platforms than ubuntu. There is also consistancy throughout the various platforms, unlike ubuntu, where things other than x86 don't even show up in the package tracker.

I am also pretty sure that Ubuntu takes most of its build's from debian-unstable, then tries and tweak them.

As far as init systems got, Ubuntu is the only one using upstart, and most likely will stay that way. Everyone else is going to red-hat developed systemd, to include debian.

If debian went away, ubuntu would most likely be based on redhat or slackware.

Debian is one of the giant trunks of the GNU/Linux community, with RedHat being the other. Ubuntu depends on debian.

Recent advertising decisions by Ubuntu asside, there is nothing wrong with taking something like debian, and putting some polish on it, and making it a easy to use consumer desktop. Debian wasn't doing this, and someone really needed to. Nothing wrong with the general concept of Ubuntu, but its dishonest to say Debian is either less important, or less relivant.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Learn what hyperbole is
2. Learn what comprehension means.

Trying to find a change of two characters out of about 350 characters is just a pain in the ass. If you really think I used diff, you're the idiot here.

Re:Debian??

[aestrivex]

I would argue that LXDE has become mainstream over the course of the past year or so. "Traditionally mainstream" is GNOME and KDE, with xfce as the ross perot of linux (except nobody cares about getting a flat plurality). But moving beyond the traditional, "mainstream" may reasonably refer to more options, especially with growing dissatisfaction with GNOME and KDE over the course of the past 3-5 years, such that -- for *that time window*, it may be reasonable to point out the increasing and significant market share of xfce, LXDE, MATE, and cinnamon.

Re:Debian??

[messymerry]

Actually, I think the peak for Ubuntu and Gnome 2 was 10.04 LTS. It was a sad day when that expired. OBTW: I'm now happily churning the LTS version of Mint Mate. Happy days, I can still get some work done...

Re:Debian??

[davydagger]

There are a few versions of Mint, and it Mint by itself isn't a *Real* distro.

Its just a set of remixes, and they make the Cinnamon Desktop.

So think about Linux Mint, Mate and cinnamon as simply the "Ubuntu MATE and cinnamon remix", as there are already remixes for all the other major desktops.

A user interface is just personal prefrence. Lots of people don't like Ubuntu's Unity. So there is Kubuntu, Gubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Mint.

Mint also makes a debian remix as well as the famous ubuntu remixes.

Re:Debian??

[davydagger]

Mark Shuttleworth is an egotistical asshole. I think he went totally bonkers with acusing everyone not using MIR as the "open source tea party". After that, I am going to tend to ignore everything he says as total hysteria.

His Red Hat bashing is also inane. Red Hat makes things the rest of the open source community uses, like Gnome, network manager, systemd, and is a big time contributor to the linux kernel. Cannocial is not. Cannocial makes things not widely used outside cannocial, not because they are closed, its because no one cares. Bazzar(everyone else uses git, subversion, mercury), MIR(everyone else Xorg or wayland), upstart(everyone else uses systemd made by redhat or sysv-init), and finally their own in house desktop Unity, no one else uses unity.

But if you need to put somethings in perspective, 76% of all computers on planet earth run the linux kernel. In every market except desktop Linux has a sizable represenation, from super computers, to the only non zOS mainframes, to embedded, to realtime, to phones, to servers.

Debian is the most popular server distribution of linux, which is the most popular server operating system. In fact debian has 10% of the total server market share, itself. Thats a bigger share than Apple has on the desktop. Thats large companies and governments trusting debian with their data. Thats in an enviroment that is less fail tollerant than the desktop, and ultimately more important.

When you need something that is going to work, and not fuck up, you look at debian. Debian is quite litterally the face of Linux.

Ubuntu might have %70+ of the linux desktop installs, but thats not even signifigant, because they don't have more than 0.5% of the market. No one trusts Ubuntu with their fucking data.

Re:Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

1. the windows command line sans powershell is fucking lame. you really can't do anything from it. its slow, clunky, and primative. It lacks even basic proccess management(ps, pgrep, kill, killall, pkill, bg, fg, etc..)

2. dated, as in fuck this mouse bullshit. the mouse is one of the most clumbsy and awkward human input devices of all time, and I for one, will chear when it gets retired

G'Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Mate

Re:G'Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Howzit brah.

Re:G'Day

[Thanshin]

Mint!

Re:G'Day

[Runaway1956]

Not Minty at all - more Sabayon.

https://www.sabayon.org/article/well-hello-mate

http://www.cookthink.com/reference/2466/What_is_sabayon

A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

A problem with Linux in general is there is simply too much choice and no apparent standardization. Ubuntu has gone off to create its own standard, and the one the world outside of open source software will see as the defacto Linux desktop. This is good and bad. Linux has crap adoption outside of open source circles precisely because there is no (seemingly) standardized desktop for business. Yes, we all know of the stories of some Brazilian, German, and Spanish government entities who have successfully switched over to Linux. This is rare and will continue to be rare unless there is a perceived stable, standardizzed desktop offering. Like or not, Canonical and Ubuntu offer this standard, and there is nothing wrong with it.

I'm not a open source greybeard position stickler who thinks everything has to be done based on decrees from the people who are as far away from the real world pragmatism as possible. Ubuntu does what it was intended to do: make Linux approachable and easy to adopt by about anyone.

Re:A problem

[jedidiah]

> A problem with Linux in general is there is simply too much choice and no apparent standardization.

Yet the thing you are screeching about right now is the very essence of "consistency" in terms of the principle that "computer interfaces should be consistent". This project is a response to others running off the rails and trying to follow the latest trend no matter how absurd it is.

MATE is what truly conforms to formal academic notions of proper UI design. So do the standard Unix shells.

MATE will be less of a shock to people used to the last 15 years of Windows interfaces. It will be less confusing than the flavor of the month from Ubuntu, Microsoft, or Apple.

Re:A problem

[Robert Frazier]

One of the neat things about having relatively powerful computers is that we can have standards in infrastructure while being able to tailor the interface to reflect our preferences. So, for example, I can use imap for e-mail, but have a wide variety of interfaces available. I use a full feature interface on a desktop (could be icedove; could be mutt), but a lighter interface on an Android device (K-9 mail). So, standardization across users is very well in its place, but its place isn't across the user interface. Thanks, Debian folks, for providing lots and lots of alternatives. (I use awesome window manager + rxvt + gnuit/gitfm + ....)

Best wishes,
Bob
     

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

MATE will be less of a shock to people used to the last 15 years of Windows interfaces

Nice, when will we stop haunting new generations with meaningless icons (like a floppy disk to save). If you are working for people in the past, I wouldn't call that progress.

Re:A problem

[Hatta]

A problem with Linux in general is there is simply too much choice and no apparent standardization.

No matter which desktop you choose, your apps will work. That's standard enough. The choice of desktops is one of Linux's greatest strengths. I can make my desktop work they way I want it to, without interfering with your ability to make your desktop work the way you want it.

Ubuntu has gone off to create its own standard, and the one the world outside of open source software will see as the defacto Linux desktop.

Rather Ubuntu will continue to be increasingly marginalized and irrelevant.

Linux has crap adoption outside of open source circles precisely because there is no (seemingly) standardized desktop for business.

Each business can set its own standards for what desktop provides the tools their employees need.

Like or not, Canonical and Ubuntu offer this standard, and there is nothing wrong with it.

Unless you're running a business that doesn't want every employee's desktop search to be reported to third parties.

I'm not a open source greybeard position stickler who thinks everything has to be done based on decrees from the people who are as far away from the real world pragmatism as possible.

Open source is the most pragmatic solution in the long run. A proprietary standard today becomes vendor lock-in in the future. Open source allows you to choose what works best for your business, not Microsoft or Apple.

Re:A problem

[fatphil]

Looking at the screenshots here: http://mate-desktop.org/gallery/1.6/
it seems that academic notions of proper UI design are aimed at satisfying those who only ever have 1 or 2 applications open at one time.

And academics wonder why people accuse them of living in ivory towers detached from reality...

(There are more concrete issues visible on http://mate-desktop.org/gallery/1.6/caja.png too, but who am I to argue for or against a particular window manager - I use DWM for pity's sake.)

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

MATE is the perfect example of why I use free software, if I think a project is going off the rails, I, and others that think like me, can fork it. Free software allows YOU to be in control of your computer and not some corporation or some bunch of lunatics.
And you talk about standardization, gnome 2 was a standard for a long time, thanks to mate, it is still there and supported, which is kind of good for a standard.

Re:A problem

[VortexCortex]

I design UIs occasionally. What iconography would you suggest replace the floppy disk for save? The down arrow and some bits? No, That's download. Why all the bucking for naught? Must technology be averse to its own history to the extent that we can't just have a beloved memorable data store remain the symbol for storage, simply because tweens haven't ever used one and Sony stopped making them? I still use floppies daily but I make OSs as a hobby, so admittedly I'm an extreme outlier. Most folks don't know what a hard drive looks like. They equate optical disks to burning and playing media. I've still got a tape drive for my big backups, but icons sporting a cassette or reel-to-reel are confusing and more out dated than the floppy -- The grand ol' floppy who's drive access sounds heralded the explosion of accessible computing for humanity.

When holographic Crystal Storage becomes the new de-facto storage standard a gleaming spinning cube will be a suitable iconic replacement representation. Until then, you get to see a floppy -- Because nothing else makes any damn sense, and words take up more space than icons.

Re:A problem

[unixisc]

A problem with Linux in general is there is simply too much choice and no apparent standardization. Ubuntu has gone off to create its own standard, and the one the world outside of open source software will see as the defacto Linux desktop. This is good and bad. Linux has crap adoption outside of open source circles precisely because there is no (seemingly) standardized desktop for business. Yes, we all know of the stories of some Brazilian, German, and Spanish government entities who have successfully switched over to Linux. This is rare and will continue to be rare unless there is a perceived stable, standardizzed desktop offering. Like or not, Canonical and Ubuntu offer this standard, and there is nothing wrong with it.

I'm not a open source greybeard position stickler who thinks everything has to be done based on decrees from the people who are as far away from the real world pragmatism as possible. Ubuntu does what it was intended to do: make Linux approachable and easy to adopt by about anyone.

The root cause of this is that a public expectation has been established - rightly or wrongly - that Linux == $0.00. As a result, everybody who tried selling Linux CDs the way Microsoft sells Windows CDs/DVDs had to give up pretty quickly - Mandrake, Corel, Caldera, what have you. As a result, the only niche for Linux ended up being servers - something filled by the likes of Red Hat, SUSE, Oracle and previously VA Linux. None of them offer distros that are standardized. Canonical came along and made Linux installations - including networking - painless: previous Linux distros universally failed when it came to supporting any sort of networking - ethernet or wi-fi. End result was Canonical becoming the desktop Linux standard.

I agree that there are too many choices. In BSD, there are a handful, and practically, just the big 3 - F/O/N BSD, and a few knock-offs of theirs. But in Linux, you have some thousands of distros. Not an issue in itself, but here are all the variables:

• - Kernel version: where does one start?
• - Distro base: Debian/Fedora/Gentoo/Slackware/Arch
• - Desktop enviornment: KDE/GNOME/XFCE/LXDE/Unity/MATE/Trinity/Cinnamon/....
• - Library toolkit: Qt/GTK+ (thankfully just 2)
• - Package Manager: apt/yum/pac....

So now multiply all the possible variables above, and that gives one the number of alternatives. So it's impossible to design software for 'Linux' given all the different combinations that may have to be tested.

BSD is a tad better in that there are 2 active kernels at any time, just KDE & GNOME (actually, MATE is replacing GNOME in a lot of places), just one package manager determined by the main dev teams. There are a lot fewer BSD distros & combinations that are possible than is the case w/ Linux.

Re:A problem

[Nivag064]

I used to use GNOME 2 & found that the GNOME devs kept dropping useful features, then GNOME 3 came along and was essentially a triumph of FASHION over FUNCTIONALITY. I initially fled to xfce, now I use MATE.

I have 30" monitor, I have 35 virtual desktops of which about half are in use. An unused virtual desktop is blank with a bland background, and my 2 highly customised panels are always hidden unless I need to access them.

GNOME 3 is very cluttered. and gets in the way of easy use. GNOME devs seems to think that what they want is more important than letting me do things the way I find best - they have Apple's disease! I am glad that I was not supporting clients with GNOME 2 - as the change from a sort of working Desktop Environment, to the total disaster of GNOME 3 was the most depressing & annoying change I've ever had to suffer in Linux.

MATE started as a clone of GNOME 2 with the useful parts added back in, but now they are adding new features in there own right.

Re:A problem

[Runaway1956]

How hard is it to change the frigging icon? MOST people who haunt slashdot are capable of switching out an icon. If we were on Yahoo, or Twitter, or Facebook, I might expect to see a complaint about an "outdated" icon. But, this is SLASHDOT!!

It would be interesting to take a poll, to see how many slashdot readers can do simple tasks, such as substituting an icon. I had that capability waaaaay back, on Windows 3.11. I'm fairly sure that I could have done it on DOS 3.1, but I'm not quite certain - I can't actually remember doing it on any program that preceded Windows for Workgroups. (before anyone asks, I wasn't a Linux guy back then)

Re:A problem

[Runaway1956]

Actually, Mate is designed quite well for people who use multiple applications at the same time. If you'll look at those images again, you'll see the lower right hand corner of the screen has four virtual desktops iconified on the panel. I routinely use three of the default four. Further, I have two monitors, so switching between those three desktops means that I am working with six screens. Mate is as good as, or maybe better than, Gnome or KDE for multitaskers.

The fact is, those screenshots were taken for a very specific purpose - to familiarize the neophytes with Mate's appearance. I introduced my wife to Mate quite some time ago, and she's happy with it. She's the multi-tasker from hell - like many women are. (and I'm getting senile - I can't remember HOW LONG AGO I switched her to Mate!)

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the railway crossing sign recently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_traffic_sign_771.svg

Or the traffc camera sign:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Traffic_Camera.png

Sometimes technology turns into an icon.

Re:A problem

[Grishnakh]

What iconography would you suggest replace the floppy disk for save?

How about an image of a silver platter with an arrow pointing downwards at it? Now obviously, this is already starting to be obsolete with the rise of SSDs, but it's better than an image of a storage medium that no one's used in over a decade. Heck, even when people still used floppies in the 90s, they generally saved stuff to their hard drive, not to floppies, so the icon didn't even make that much sense back then.

Re:A problem

[grep -v '.*' *]

... and words take up more space than icons.

So why not make every single icon just different colored blocks the like MS Paint "select a color" window and use the mouseover pop-up text to describe the function in detail? After all, you're just differing function selectors by placing a cute reminder logo on them.

Of course I'm joking. But really, I'm also kinesthetic -- I don't "DO" visuals -- so please make sure (but how?) those icons look like something.

I've used programs in decades past, and even though I *KNEW* exactly what the icon did I still couldn't figure out what it was trying to tell me. (This, and I was one of the 6 senior technical admins for servers supporting 20K people for years.) If you're not careful, you might create icons that become the new CAPTCHAs.


PS -- so does that mean we all owe Nike royalties for years for using their swoosh logo in multiple selection boxes?

PSS -- so how do you handle color-blind people? And people in different societies where colors imply different things? I had it easy; I worked on the back-end and I just *didn't*. The worst social complaint I even had was a woman complaining to my boss about me using the word "abort" in a sentence because it was offensive to her.

I nicely told my boss to send the lady over and I'd show her the difference between words that she took offense too versus words where I actually meant to be offensive. She just laughed and handled the lady instead.

Re:A problem

[Grishnakh]

This is rare and will continue to be rare unless there is a perceived stable, standardizzed desktop offering.

You mean like Microsoft's new "standardized" desktop offering, which is a complete sea change from their previous version?

With Linux, you don't have that problem. No one can force you to adopt a crappy new desktop offering when you're a Linux user; you always have the ability to keep using what you're using now, or change distros to one that suits you better. Users happy with Gnome2 are not forced to move to Gnome3; they're free to switch to distros using MATE (or Cinnamon) if they prefer those. That's something you can't do with Apple or Microsoft.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"No matter which desktop you choose, your apps will work. That's standard enough."

You'll usually need to install a crapload of DE specific libs though.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I routinely open/save to Flash, SSD, Server "drives", USB, Hard drive, "the Cloud".
No one icon fits all of them.

I kind of like the Google Docs method, the file is already saved, dispenses with the icon entirely.

Now printing is a problem, I print to a bubblejet, laser, pdf, google drive pdf, my phone.
Again no icon fits.

So far printing to my phone seems more of a novelty, but I can do it!

Re:A problem

[Grishnakh]

Oh please.

First off, there's really only one Linux kernel version that distros are using. Except for some weird embedded stuff, no one sticks with older or odd branches of the Linux kernel, and they generally use the latest thing available. The only differences between distros would be because they don't all release releases at the exact same time.

Secondly, there may be "thousands" of distros, but only a handful that actually have a lot of users and get a lot of mindshare and support: Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Mint (with a few different variants), Debian, OpenSUSE, and that's about it. There's also Arch, Gentoo, and Slackware, which have much lower adoption, and a bunch of obscure or special-use distros (such as DD-WRT, which is only for routers, or Knoppix which is only a liveCD/DVD distro and mainly used as a rescue system). The vast majority of Linux desktop users probably only use 3-5 distros. And some of these are actually derived from other distros (Mint is the poster child of this), with very few actual changes of their own. ...which brings us to package managers: with only a handful of serious distros, that means there's only a handful of package managers that get much use, and in reality it's only two, dep/apt and rpm/yum.

So in reality, things don't look much different between the Linux and BSD worlds, and in fact, Linux looks more standardized than BSD since it only has one active kernel.

Re:A problem

[misfit815]

How about the word 'Save'? Why does everything have to be an icon?

On the news about MATE, that's good to see. Fwiw, I dumped Ubuntu for Lubuntu (LXDE) as soon as I saw Unity. While I think the water's a bit muddy (MATE, LXDE, XFCE...) it's still nice to see the options there.

Re:A problem

[gringer]

What iconography would you suggest replace the floppy disk for save? The down arrow and some bits? No, That's download.

Please explain how "download" is different from "save" from a naive computer user's point of view. In both cases, you have an object somewhere that can be considered transient / temporary, and you hope that by carrying out the operation you're transferring it to a more permanent storage medium.

Re:A problem

[sensei moreh]

I used a floppy disk just last month. Now get off my lawn!

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The package manager tracks those dependensices, and installs them for you automgically when you select the application package, unless you have for some reason blacklisted the packages.

Compared to DLL Hell, I much prefer the linux way.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

And over 20 years ago Germany switched from:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zeichen_151_alt.svg

to:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zeichen_151.svg

Sometimes icons change to reflect technology.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

How about an image of a silver platter with an arrow pointing downwards at it?

That sounds like it would just look like it either means "burn to disc" or "download to something", neither of which would make sense as saving.

it's better than an image of a storage medium that no one's used in over a decade

The number of people that have even the vaguest idea of what the inside of a hard disk looks like is probably significantly smaller than the number that knows that floppy=save.

You know what else is obsolete? Roman numerals, and yet their use on clock faces hasn't been particularly problematic for anybody in the centuries since the system got replaced with something more sane.

Steering wheels on cars could probably be replaced with something better, too, but attempts to do so have never caught on. Sometimes, it's better to stick with a well-understood metaphor, rather than try to change it just because it's not modern enough for your tastes.

Re:A problem

[Burz]

I design UIs occasionally. What iconography would you suggest replace the floppy disk for save? The down arrow and some bits?

Use a cylinder for crisesake, which is what IT used to symbolize secondary storage before the floppy disk. Its abstract enough to encompass different physical storage technologies while still having a historical grounding. You could have a smaller cylinder with a USB symbol or connector to mean removable storage. You could also show the cylinder 'filled' according to the allocated space on the volume.

My new Thinkpad still uses the cylinder for the HD activity light on its bezel.

This really, really is not hard. And switching back would be less confusing than the current trend of tucking application menus under a striped square, for just one example of current GUI fickle-ness.

When holographic Crystal Storage becomes the new de-facto storage standard a gleaming spinning cube will be a suitable iconic replacement representation.

Then why not use a flash module now? Is a cube better because its a simple shape? What makes you think the spinning-cube-scifi-sex-object won't be hidden inside of a shell if/when it becomes mass produced the way flash is?

For that matter, why not use hover to show animations of certain icons... to actually depict an action as such?

Because nothing else makes any damn sense...

You're basing your whole comforting but idiotic argument on a piece of skeuomorphism that hung around too long. IMO, the floppy doesn't remain in GUIs because people need it; its just a confusing smudge that no one has bothered to clean. It you want a historical symbol that nicely depicts 'volume', use a cylinder!

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone knows what a hard drive platter looks like, they probably also know that a floppy disk means "save" in the current UI vocabulary.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

How about an icon that says SAVE? No image to worry about.

Re:A problem

[Grishnakh]

That sounds like it would just look like it either means "burn to disc" or "download to something", neither of which would make sense as saving.

If you think about it, "download" and "save" are really the same thing. The only difference is that "download" usually refers to copying something from the internet somewhere and saving to local NV storage, whereas "save" (as seen, for instance, in an office program) usually means to copy from memory to local NV storage.

The number of people that have even the vaguest idea of what the inside of a hard disk looks like is probably significantly smaller than the number that knows that floppy=save.

I have no way to prove this, but I seriously doubt this. I think that if you polled everyone under the age of 25 who uses computers, you'd find they're more familiar with what a hard drive looks like than what a floppy disk looks like, because they probably barely remember floppies. Change that to under-20 and it'll be even more striking.

You know what else is obsolete? Roman numerals, and yet their use on clock faces hasn't been particularly problematic for anybody in the centuries since the system got replaced with something more sane.

People only understand clocks with them because they know what the positions mean, not because they understand the numerals. Try asking them to convert something like MCMLXXXVI; they probably won't be able to do it. Besides, I rarely see clocks with Roman numerals these days.

Steering wheels on cars could probably be replaced with something better, too, but attempts to do so have never caught on.

No, they can't, because nothing better has been invented. Some morons have suggested joysticks, but they clearly know nothing about basic mechanics, as joysticks have far less resolution than a steering wheel. Besides, steering wheels are not the original way of steering a car; the earliest models had tillers, which were indeed pretty stupid (though mechanically simple) and were later replaced with steering wheels. There were even a lot of people pissed about that, and who hated the change to steering wheels. Finally, if you want to see the cutting edge of driving technology, you have to look no further than F1 racing; all the latest stuff gets tried out there first, such as DSG transmissions. They're still using steering wheels (though rather small ones). If there were something better, they would have tried it there first.

Sometimes, it's better to stick with a well-understood metaphor, rather than try to change it just because it's not modern enough for your tastes.

No, metaphors are only useful if the users using them understand them and can relate to them. Some things don't need to change much over the years, other things become obsolete and really shouldn't be used as newer users don't understand them and don't relate to them. There were a lot of attempts years ago to make computer desktops look a lot like old-fashioned desktops, with things like virtual rolodexes; these didn't go over too well because the younger users couldn't relate to any of this stuff and didn't actually want their computer looking like some businessperson's desktop from decades in the past. The floppy disk is similarly long past its prime; the only reason the icon persists is because no one's come up with a sensible replacement for it yet.

Re:A problem

[fatphil]

I'm prepared to give Mate a quick try if you're prepared to delve to the depths of computer terminal depravity that calls itself DWM. Ratpoison an acceptable alternative, Awesome not.

Joking aside. My g/f isn't happy with *anything*, maybe Mate would press her buttons (as long as it gets to Debian backports). I think she's stuck on Sawfish at the moment.

Some people like more and more and more features. Some people like the familiarity of something that has its roots way back. Some people like things to just be as darn simple as possible.

Re:A problem

[chmod a x mojo]

Linux has crap adoption outside of open source circles precisely because there is no (seemingly) standardized desktop for business.

Each business can set its own standards for what desktop provides the tools their employees need.

That would be a training nightmare. One reason Windows, and to some degree OS/X is popular in business is that it's literally "train once at the first place you work for"; after that the only "training" needed for new hires with experience is showing them which icons they need to click on are.

Contrast that to the way things would have to be one if business adopted Linux, with each having a customized desktop, you would have to do much more in depth training for each new hire. Where does company X think the list of applications(start menu) should go? Are shortcut icons allowed on the desktop? If not, where do I find the launchers for email / browser / text editor / ETC?

KDE gets tons a flak for being a "Windows clone UI", yet that is what many, if not most, of new users will be used to. The design is sound, it has a proven track record of a decade plus. There is always room for improvement, as long as the improvement doesn't detract from the base.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

[when people still used floppies in the 90s, they generally saved stuff to their hard drive, not to floppies]

this!
actually the floppy icon problem was more of a problem when floppys was normal,
it was a really bad icon then, now it is just degraded to a symbol.
you should never save in your word processing program etc to a floppy back then when that icon was standardized (or you just ask for trouble!)
Floppys was used for moving files back then, and perhaps backupping to before cds, and also as a installation media. so a floppy would rather had been a good symbol for network/backup/install, and not save then ;-)

bad icon then, meaningless icon now

if you want to design a new save-icon I guess you have to think longer than replacing the medium, what are you doing when "saving"?
Stop thinking about ram and disk, you can think "save" on a hypothetical system with only battery backed ram (or just don't turn off) no secondary storage memory - isn't save more about doing a checkpoint? "this is a good version of the document" - so we should work from there when we design the icon.

The point of a program where you can save, is that you can safely change and move things, testing new ideas etc, fully knowing that if you mess things up you can just skip all that by NOT SAVING.
I would say Save is more like the [OK] button in settings-dialogboxes, you don't have to worry about fucking something up when you go look at settings, you can always press [Abort] instead of [OK].
(btw, can I have OK/Abort dialog boxes in linux programs too plz?)

now 'OK' is quite short and OK for a textbutton really, but what symbol is ok for 'OK'?
I know some programs using a green check on their OK-buttons (good thing it is green though, because my language teacher always used that symbol (but red) to mark spelling errors so in my mind a check mark means 'Error', and a X means 'Yes' because that is what I used in [X]-boxes, am I alone in this?)

Anyway, if a green check mark is good on OK-buttons it is good on save-buttons too, because it is the same thing.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think the "save" icon should be a picture of Jesus. Perhaps in a full soccer outfit, standing in front of a goal.

"Copy" should naturally be the Borg cube. "Paste" should be a picture of Mr. Ed. "Delete" should be a Dalek.

Pardon me, I have to go design a new custom icon set. Thanks slashdot.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

What, are you some kind of noob that didn't bother running Linux until it actually existed?

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, not to jump to the defense of Windows or OS X, but you definitely can use alternative gui's with either of them. I personally have used both lightstep and bb4win (which was a clone of the linux wm "blackbox") on windows, and OS X supports X11 (in other words, use whatever wm you feel like).

Just because most people don't doesn't mean you can't. There are plenty of things you can't reasonably configure in Windows and OS X...this just isn't one of them.

Re:A problem

[mcgrew]

Well, hello, Mr Ballmer!

A problem with Linux in general is there is simply too much choice and no apparent standardization.

The problem with cars is too many choices and no apparent standardization; look, all different wheel sized, places to put the battery, seating differences, where the various controls are, etc.

You're a moron.

As to standardization, put the crack pipe down. Microsoft and Apple are the ones who won't follow standards (MS in the OS and Apple in the hardware).

Linux has crap adoption outside of open source circles

The fastest 10 supercomputers in the world run Linux. 2/3 of all smartphones run Linux (Android). My problem right now is too LITTLE choice -- the power connector on my notebook is going out and I need a new one. My only choices are "phone home to mommy" Chrome, and Windows eight, the very WORST notebook UI ever conceived. And if I buy one and install Linux, the last place I shopped informed me that installing Linux would void the warrantee.

You can shove your "OMFG too many choices I'm so CONFUSEDDDD!!" up your anonymous, trolling ass.

Does anybody know where I can buy a notebook that installing kubuntu won't void the warrantee?

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think about it, "download" and "save" are really the same thing. The only difference is that "download" usually refers to copying something from the internet somewhere and saving to local NV storage, whereas "save" (as seen, for instance, in an office program) usually means to copy from memory to local NV storage.

So, basically, they aren't really the same thing, because there are completely different assumptions about what each activity implies. It's good to keep an icon distinction because there are times when you may need to do both in an application.

I have no way to prove this, but I seriously doubt this. I think that if you polled everyone under the age of 25 who uses computers, you'd find they're more familiar with what a hard drive looks like than what a floppy disk looks like, because they probably barely remember floppies. Change that to under-20 and it'll be even more striking.

They might have an idea of what a hard disk looks like, but your suggestion was for a disk platter, which would be a much smaller demographic. Meanwhile, nearly everyone has encountered "floppy=save", regardless of whether they've seen an actual physical floppy disk.

Using a disk platter also introduces the problem of having similar iconography for two distinct media types -- a round shape for both optical drives and for saving. You can't rely on colour to distinguish them, which means it would create ambiguity where there currently is none.

That's part of why the floppy icon still works: it's distinct from other common icons even when rendered in a stylised form with few lines.

People only understand clocks with them because they know what the positions mean, not because they understand the numerals. Try asking them to convert something like MCMLXXXVI; they probably won't be able to do it.

That's the point I was making. People understand them in that specific context due to familiarity and convention, not because they understand the underlying mechanics of the number system. Likewise, people generally understand floppy=save due to convention, without ever needing to see a floppy drive or understanding how to use one.

No, they can't, because nothing better has been invented. Some morons have suggested joysticks, but they clearly know nothing about basic mechanics, as joysticks have far less resolution than a steering wheel. Besides, steering wheels are not the original way of steering a car; the earliest models had tillers, which were indeed pretty stupid (though mechanically simple) and were later replaced with steering wheels. There were even a lot of people pissed about that, and who hated the change to steering wheels. Finally, if you want to see the cutting edge of driving technology, you have to look no further than F1 racing; all the latest stuff gets tried out there first, such as DSG transmissions. They're still using steering wheels (though rather small ones). If there were something better, they would have tried it there first.

Didn't know about the tillers thing, that's interesting to know. What I was trying to say was that there may be a better saving metaphor, but we haven't found it yet, just like with steering wheels. Not that there's some obviously superior solution already available that isn't being adopted.

There have been a lot of suggestions and ideas for replacing the floppy icon, but so far none of them have really managed to win.

Personally, I think we'll reach a point where saving is an obsolete concept before we replace the icon itself. Maybe with something like automatic saving and version control for unlimited undo stacks; that's getting off topic, though.

No, metaphors are only useful if the users using them understand them and can relate to them. Some things don't need to change much over the years, other things become obsolete and really shouldn't be used as newer users don't

Re:A problem

[Grishnakh]

Anyway, I'm not saying that there isn't a better option, just that we haven't come across anything that sticks yet,

I definitely agree with this, as I said before when I said that no one's come up with a sensible replacement for it yet. You correctly pointed out the problem with my platter icon idea: it looks too much like an optical disk. The other poster here had the right idea: when you save to disk, you're really saving a "snapshot" (and even in the floppy days, you didn't want to actually save it to a floppy most of the time). So what we need is an icon that represents a snapshot. What that would be, however, I have no idea. If you use a camera icon, people will think it has something to do with taking a photo, for instance.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

when you save to disk, you're really saving a "snapshot" . . . So what we need is an icon that represents a snapshot

That would be especially apt if programs as a whole start to move to some sort of automatic snapshotting/versioning when saving. Changing the mechanics of it would be a great time to change the icon as well, since it's technically new functionality.

I think we're going to be stuck with the floppy until there's some functional change in the saving behaviour that requires changing people's expectations, though. You don't want to change the user's expectations for saving if the saving itself hasn't changed, but once you change that it's a great time to make some tangential changes like icons.

It will still need a good, simple, representative icon though, but I'm clueless on what. It's especially hard right now because icons have to be identifiable at very small sizes (KDE, at least, tries to provide icons down to 16x16), and you lose a lot of room for detail and more complicated designs. It's taking a ridiculously long time to move to higher resolution displays (until recently monitors had been regressing due to 1080 TV crap...Whole rant there I don't want to get into), so that's still a big consideration unfortunately.

I almost suggested some kind of indication of duplication as a concept for snapshotting, but that's too similar to copying. The only direction I could think of with any potential is trying to capture the idea of "preservation" in some way, since that's what it ultimately does, but anything I think of is too abstract (freezing/ice/etc metaphors) or silly (Han Solo in carbonite)

Icons are a hard problem, just trying to make things understandable and recognisable, and that's before you consider different languages and cultures changing interpretations. Thankfully, I don't actually have to do work with this stuff; I just follow some of the discussions and commentary from KDE devs, so I've gotten an idea of some of the difficulty even with dealing with easier questions than what to do with save.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

and perhaps backupping to before cds

"backupping"? "backupping"? WTF kind of word is "backupping"? Are you some kind of moron? It's "backing up".

"XXXup" (one word) -> noun
"XXX up" (two words) -> verb

Re:A problem

[Gravis Zero]

What iconography would you suggest replace the floppy disk for save?

<Bob> DAMMIT! Where is the save button?!
<Jake> Click the Jesus button.
<Bob> Huh?
<Jake> Jesus saves.

Re:A problem

[Anonymous Coward]

it is a new word. you are free* to use it :-)

I will backuppingly backuppify your backuppy backuppost to archive.is
And we all know now that the backupificationprocess to floppies is not a good idea, due to the badsectors that will guaranteed bite you in the butt.

Now... any thoughts about the save symbol?

(*additional shipping and handling not included)

Re:A problem

[LoRdTAW]

Brilliant!

Re:A problem

[LoRdTAW]

Though I 100% agree with you, you also have to account for the various languages of the world. I used this site: http://www.nicetranslator.com/, selected every language (including Klingon!) and translated "save". Now since I am not a linguist, save might not be used the same way in each language so this isn't very accurate. But if you look, some languages have more than four characters, and as many as 11 or so. So your UI elements would have to resize which may interfere with the layout and cause overlap or other problems.

A universal symbol that means save would be much better and so far the floppy disk is that symbol. But the new generation of kids don't even know what a floppy is. So you run into that problem. A new universal symbol that won't become outdated is needed.

Debian: Always on the cutting edge!

[Anonymous Coward]

Early 2012, it was requested that MATE be included in said repositories, and almost 2 years later, it appears we're almost there.

Woah man! I can't believe just how on-the-ball and quick to adapt Debian is as a desktop system*! Boy howdy, was that fast! Hey, guys, I hear there's a rumor that they'll officially add Firefox 3.5 into the repos sometime before the next decade! Man, won't THAT be crazy fun times?

*: Yes, shut up, I know that True Admins(tm) only use server software written at least twenty years ago by their own sentient neckbeards because it's only then just getting secure, but an article about support for a desktop environment implies a desktop system, which tends to NOT be quite so old.

Re:Debian: Always on the cutting edge!

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Firefox, probably not. ICEWeasel, absolutely possible.

Re:Debian: Always on the cutting edge!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a quick-to-adapt distro, try Ubuntu. It was so quick to adapt that it quickly adapted a whole new desktop environment as default overnight once during a routine system update.

Re:Debian: Always on the cutting edge!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a sad day when I realized that upon doing a new install of a distro, my distros started including certain window managers as "default". Thank you Slackware for not falling into this kind of douchebaggery.

Re:Debian: Always on the cutting edge!

[aestrivex]

It makes little difference to me whether its in the repos or not. It's not like it was hard to get MATE working with debian. 2 years ago I added one line to /etc/apt/sources, ran #apt-get mate-desktop, restarted the machine, and it worked. Sure, that's cool and all that it'll be in the official repos and require 20 seconds less effort to switch to pretty soon. But you pointing out that debian is an unacceptable desktop solution is nonsense. More precisely, it isn't for everyone, specifically people (perhaps such as yourself?) that wish for their system to be exactly as they want it and have no time for messing with backports. But this does not change that installing software such as MATE or iceweasel-current on debian stable is not tremendously challenging.

Awesome!

[twocows]

MATE is fantastic for those of us who liked GNOME 2 and want to continue using it and receiving updates for it. They're not including it by default from what I can tell, they're just making it an option to install in the repos. I'm pretty happy about this, I'll definitely be using it.

Re:Awesome!

[Joepie69]

Running it on my debian system for some time now using the deb packages they from the mate website. Works smooth.. Only have to be carefull with mdm (mate display manager). There exists also a mdm package in the debian repos so when you blindly to apt-get install mdm you will likely not get what you expect..

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using LightDM myself, with MATE on Debian, and it works flawlessly.

Re:Awesome!

[marcello_dl]

No, not awesome, MATE!

G'Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Mate

Debian Repositories...

[Anonymous Coward]

First Post Debian Edition!

Current status?

[RDW]

The original article seems to be Slashdotted (hey, can we still do that?!), but from the MATE blog:

http://mate-desktop.org/blog/2013-11-08-debian-mate-packaging-team/

"The MATE Team is very happy to say hello to the new Debian MATE Packaging Team, that is working hard to get MATE included into the next release of Debian...First packages are already in the repositories and there are many others in ftp-master NEW queue."

which links to:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=708385#31

"The plan is to provide MATE inside the Debian archive before the end of the year (if the FTP master time will find enough time to review our uploads)."

Of course if you don't mind using the upstream repository, you can install it right now:

http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download

Give Mate a try

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm usually not too fussy about the desktop, but when I upgraded a Ubuntu release I found it very difficult to work under Gnome3.

Maybe it's just my own shortcomings, but I had to stop doing my actual work for a while to look for something better.

Xfce was OK, but I finally settled on mate running on Debian wheezy. It's been stable for me with no issues.

Give it a try if you're looking for a "traditional" desktop on Linux.

Re:Give Mate a try

[Anonymous Coward]

Unity and Gnome3 are not the same thing. While you can install gnome3 on ubuntu, that wouldn't happen automatically by upgrading ubuntu, you'd wind up with unity instead.

Living on Debian Time

[NotFamous]

Early 2012, it was requested that MATE be included in said repositories, and almost 2 years later, it appears we're almost there.

2 years, or "an afternoon discussion" in Debian time.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[olau]

The problem in this instance is that MATE is basically a fork of GNOME which was already in the repository. It's my understanding that a lot of stuff had to be sorted out to prevent clashes and to ensure that Debian doesn't end up with a bunch of garbage packages that will have to be maintained for the next Debian release.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when it hits RHEL.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[VortexCortex]

What the real problem is is that GNOME 3 is different enough from GNOME 2 that it should have been called something else entirely.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[VortexCortex]

Done. I'm using on a RHEL box, but I install from sources. You don't have to wait so much if you just learn to use your computer.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[steveha]

It's my understanding that a lot of stuff had to be sorted out to prevent clashes

I'd like a citation on that, please.

My understanding is that GNOME 2.x clashes with GNOME 3.x, so right at the beginning of the MATE project they worked very hard to rename everything. "libgnome" became "libmate" and so on, specifically so that MATE would not clash with GNOME 3.x. The MATE guys did all this work years ago, so clashing never was a problem for MATE and isn't now.

In further support of this idea, I will remind you that Ubuntu and Debian have had MATE packages available in alternate repositories for about as long as MATE has existed. I personally install MATE on every new Ubuntu system I install, and I never have seen any clashes.

As for "ensure that Debian doesn't end up with a bunch of garbage packages" I think you are getting closer. When MATE was first proposed for Debian, I believe the reaction was approximately "Debian already has GNOME and that is the standard. Go away." This confused me at the time, as Debian has literally tens of thousands of packages (including Xfce and other desktops that compete with GNOME), and I didn't see the harm in a handful of additional packages that filled a need that I personally cared very much about.

P.S. With the release of GNOME 3.0, a relative of mine embraced the GNOME Shell desktop and has been using it ever since. "Once you get used to it you can be pretty productive with it." He told me that he is rethinking that now, as the most recent changes from the GNOME guys rip out useful functionality from Nautilus. So he is either going to run GNOME Shell but install Caja (the MATE file manager), or just run MATE.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[Anonymous Coward]

if you have a few gigahertz and some cores that aren't being used very often, compiling everything over and over can be pretty nice

Re:Living on Debian Time

[Blaskowicz]

The nemo file manager could be an interesting option, it's a fork of nautilus 3.x, precisely to add the missing stuff in and improve on it ; it is Cinnamon's file manager. It uses GTK3. So it might be less disruptive than caja in a Gnome 3 environment.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[Blaskowicz]

Reply to myself,
Cinnamon's backends have been moving away from Gnome 3, been forked and renamed. Previously Cinnamon stuff of a particular version would need Gnome 3 stuff from a particular version, possibly held back a notch in some cases.. It's probably safer to try the Nemo from Cinnamon 2.0, which ought to not conflict with Gnome 3. I didn't try any of this.
I did kind of the reverse thing before, using nemo on Mate. It was a bit of a mess (two file managers fighting for the right to render the desktop icons, stuff that opens in caja from the panels and in nemo from the desktop..)

Re:Living on Debian Time

[spike hay]

Yeah because everyone has the time to fuck around compiling stuff and dealing with update nightmares.

Package managers are there for a reason.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[steveha]

I could have been mistaken... maybe he was planning to use Nemo rather than Caja. That would make more sense; Nemo is a fork of the 3.x version of Nautilus and should fit better with a GNOME 3.x desktop.

Last time I tried Cinnamon the basics worked but the whole user experience was very rough. Like, I had to make a string of format codes to get the clock to display what I wanted, drag-and-drop didn't work to put launchers on a panel, that sort of basic thing.

Are you using Cinnamon? Have they improved the polish on the user experience yet?

I wish the Cinnamon guys well. For now, the easiest thing is just to run MATE, but in the long run my computers will probably all end up running Cinnamon.

Re:Living on Debian Time

[Blaskowicz]

I'm using Mate or Xfce, Cinnamon would be heavier in disk accesses and ram for me and especially I want to run a desktop that can run on all computers not just mine. So I run a 2D desktop.

I read the Mint news and it's progressing, for instance in Mint 14 they made a unified control panel in Cinnamon instead of having two control panels (a Gnome 3 one and a Cinnamon one) ; Cinnamon 2.0 brings the bigger changes. Overview with screenshots here http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2013/10/cinnamon-2-0-released/

Re:Living on Debian Time

[Anonymous Coward]

What the real problem is is that GNOME 3 is different enough from GNOME 2 that it should have been called something else entirely.

How about "Dead Man Walking"?

Color Schemes

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact is, people loved the doo-doo brown wallpaper.

There were some complaints about it. It wasn't a terrible color, it just wasn't the best. Most people wanted Ubuntu to adopt a more conventional color scheme, like the usual generic blue that window managers tend to default to. However, Ubuntu insisted on being different. I guess the designers don't feel creative enough if they choose some color which simply has one of the RGB triplet maximized and the other two minimized. Nevermind the fact that, for whatever reasons, such simple colors are the most attractive when you have to look at them every day.

Personally, I didn't think the brown was that bad, and so I was quite disappointed to see it replaced with that ... fuck, I don't even know what to call it. It wasn't a color, it was just awful. Thankfully Linux Mint fixed it by taking the obvious approach of replacing it with a simple primary color, which is all anybody ever wanted.

Re:Color Schemes

[aestrivex]

For what its worth, white is a collection of multiple primary colors and green is a secondary color. So mint does not use a primary color, unless the mint 16 rc has changed their color scheme to bright red without my knowing.

Only 2yr to action?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I wonder who in Debian they blew to get something new accepted in only 2yr.

Re:Only 2yr to action?

[Mister Liberty]

That's a feature.
Any stability the Internet (TM) might boast off -- that's Debian right there.

good news

[ssam]

This is good news. GNOME2/MATE is a very nicely evolved traditional desktop, that I am sure has more person hours of testing than all the other linux desktops put together (being the default in most major distros for years).

Having it in the official repos, saves having to hunt down the addresses of the repos when installing. A strength of debian is how broad the repos are. Thanks for the hard work folks.

I like to drink Mate

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been used gnome2 for years, and now I'm testing gnome3 and I don't like it very much. Its too smartfone, I don't know... I will try MATE when it came to Debian.

better later than never...

[madcat_sun]

It take its time, but at least, I wonder why debian doubt so long?

Re:better later than never...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody offered to be the package maintainer for the entire DE most likely.

Good

[cerealito]

It's good to see a major distribution acknowledging the efforts of the MATE team. Hopefully other distributions will follow (Arch Linux, I'm looking at you)

MATE/Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

gosgog:
I am not a 'geek', but I gave up MSN years back, I started with Ubuntu,, got into Linux, have been into Aussies U2, Mint, , Cinnamon,Bodhi & am currently in PointLinux (Mate) & love it!

Gnome 3.8 Classic Mode

[Anonymous Coward]

How is MATE better than GNOME 3.8 in Classic mode?

Gnome 3.8 Classic Mode

[bloodandsoil]

How is MATE better than Gnome 3.8 in Classic Mode?