MATE 1.24 Released For Letting GNOME 2 Continuation Live On In 2020

[dragon321]

GNOME Fallback/Flashback/Classic/whatever didn't exist in the early days of GNOME 3. Nobody expected they would implement it, but I suppose they were forced to because of the commercial distributions that have GNOME as the default desktop.

Fallback/Flashback and Classic are different things . Flashback (formerly Fallback) is alternative shell for GNOME which uses GNOME Panel and Metacity instead of GNOME Shell. It exist since GNOME 3 was created. GNOME Shell need working GPU acceleration to run so it was used as alternative session in case of not working GPU acceleration. Now llvmpipe is used instead. GNOME Classic was introduced in GNOME 3.8 and it's just GNOME Shell with some extensions and tweaks changing default appearance to look similar to GNOME 2.

There are some differences between GNOME Flashback and MATE. GNOME Flashback components follows development of GNOME 3 while MATE try to preserve GNOME 2 by developing forked source code improving it to use modern technologies (GTK+3, Wayland etc.) and still keeping UI/UX of GNOME 2 shell and core apps.

[doublez13]

The first sentence of this story should read "For those still fond of a sane and stable desktop environment".

For those who still want desktop icons!

[Hibbelharry]

The first sentence of this story should read "For those still fond of a sane and stable desktop environment".

I don't agree, and I don't think everybody does, so Michael's sentence is right.

[brouhaha]

When Fedora switched to Gnome 3 (with Fedora 15 IIRC), I tried using "fallback" (or "classic" or whatever the hell it was called at the time), and it was absolute junk. It was claimed to preserve the "look and feel" of Gnome 2, but it did so in only the most superficial and non-functional manner possible. It didn't allow icons or launchers that Gnome 2 had. I think there were some other omissions, but those were the dealbreakers for me. When I asked about it, I was told that those were not part of "look and feel". What utter BS. I tried Cinnamon, which was pretty good, but I like MATE better. I haven't looked back since.

It's possible that Gnome 3 fallback (or classic or whatever) may be better now, but frankly I don't care. It's been clear since Gnome 3 was first introduced that the Gnome developers are only interested in new shiny things, and not in preserving any features that users have come to depend on, and also that they want to dumb everything down rather than making it easily configurable.

[k1e0x]

The first sentence of this story should read "For those still fond of a sane and stable desktop environment". Seriously, F- that Gnome3 trash. I've jumped around between different Linux distros (been a desktop Linux user since 1996, Slackware w/ FVWM on 486!) but I won't even consider a distro unless they offer a MATE spin.

I was there too. I used Gnome 1, Gnome 2, commercial paid Ximian Gnome, paid nautilus file manager, Sun's JDE version.. but when I see Mate now.. I just see a really old desktop that uses old desktop methodologies. Taskbars? Aplication lists? god.. noo Taskbars should no longer exist in a world with things like expose style being much more easy to use. And if I really wanted that old style I'd just use XFCE as it's better anyhow..

I do understand that a lot of people get very comfortable with that style.. but it'd be like wanting to use the Windows 3.1 interface because it was familiar.. no.. some things need to stay in the past. Gnome 3 has way faster workflow and ease of use if you can learn it get use to it.. and if not, there are a lot of other modern desktops out there too.

[Duff~]

MATE is a great project, but my main and first GNOME 2 alternative is still XFCE.

[andyprough]

There's a lot of derision on this forum for anything that isn't using the same RedHat commodity software as all the big commercially-supported distros. Anyone with a different thought about how to approach the desktop or the init system or audio or graphics is openly mocked. Major projects like Gentoo and Arch are completely ignored. Kind of sad to see. This used to be an enjoyable and eclectic community where someone could learn a lot, but now conformity appears to be all that matters.

[Hendrix]

I was there too. I used Gnome 1, Gnome 2, commercial paid Ximian Gnome, paid nautilus file manager, Sun's JDE version.. but when I see Mate now.. I just see a really old desktop that uses old desktop methodologies. Taskbars? Aplication lists? god.. noo Taskbars should no longer exist in a world with things like expose style being much more easy to use. And if I really wanted that old style I'd just use XFCE as it's better anyhow..

I do understand that a lot of people get very comfortable with that style.. but it'd be like wanting to use the Windows 3.1 interface because it was familiar.. no.. some things need to stay in the past. Gnome 3 has way faster workflow and ease of use if you can learn it get use to it.. and if not, there are a lot of other modern desktops out there too.

I'm all in about learning something new and doing something differently. But the new way has to actually be better than the old one. In many ways reforms over classic desktop paradigms aren't really improvements IMO. For example expose. Instead of just clicking the taskbar and focusing window it needs first to do hot corner or keybinding or such, slight delay when doing animations, search which window you want to focus and then clicking. So there's extra steps and delays and it produces more visual and workflow disturbance and it needs more resources to do that.

[240Hz]

What is the point of mate when xfce exists ? Fragmenting resources for no good reason

[dragon321]

For those who still want desktop icons!

I think installing extension or Nemo would be easier than changing desktop environment.