MATE Desktop Environment

Mate Desktop

The MATE Desktop Environment is the continuation of GNOME 2. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. This could be a good alternative for user who prefer old-fashioned look and feel.

Installation

Funtoo portage tree offer a meta-package for MATE Desktop. For clean installation we would need to enable mate mix-in.

   Note

If you installing MATE from a basic stage3, please, enable a desktop profile before mate mix-in

root #  epro flavor desktop
root #  epro mix-ins +mate

After setting up mix-in it is necessary to rebuild packages, to ensure all USE flags are respected. This is required for a correct installation of build and runtime dependencies prior to MATE desktop installation.

root #  emerge -auDN @world

And after completion, installation is easy as following command:

root #  emerge mate-base/mate

Start

There are several different ways to start MATE:

• Editing the .xinitrc file in your user's home directory
• Using a display manager (e.g. SLiM, GDM, KDM or LightDM).

Mate team recommends LightDM http://www.funtoo.org/Package:Lightdm. The reference greeter is lightdm-gtk-greeter. LightDM attempts to use this greeter when started unless configured to do otherwise. If manual start prefered, edit .xinitrc file

   .xinitrc

exec mate-session

Use startx command to launch MATE Desktop.