MATE 1.12 Brings GTK3 & Systemd Improvements, But No Wayland Yet

[phoronix]

Phoronix: MATE 1.12 Brings GTK3 & Systemd Improvements, But No Wayland Yet

The GNOME 2-forked desktop environment MATE has announced their v1.12 release today with a plethora of changes...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MATE-Desktop-1.12

[Jumbotron]

Can't speak to MATE 1.12 yet......but just got finished installing Ubuntu 15.10 with MATE 1.10.2 on a ThinkPad W530. What's weird is that also today, I tried installing Chapaeu 22 ( A Fedora 22 spin) and it failed at the choice of installing to the hard drive whereas it would run fine off the DVD. Before that, I tried installing Ubuntu 15.10 with GNOME but it would fail before even getting to the choice of running it from the DVD or installing it to my hard drive.

But Ubuntu MATE sailed right through and I am TOTALLY DIGGING IT !! Too soon to tell....but this just may make me switch my workstation at home from Linux Mint 17.2 with Cinnamon to Ubuntu MATE.

[Luke]

According to the MATE roadmap, Wayland will have to wait until MATE is gtk3-only at some future point. I suspect that in turn will wait until all distros build MATE with gtk3, which is now well supported. Wayland won't be easy for several reasons even then. Yes, GTK3 supports Wayland, but that is not enough for a DE. First of all, mate-panel will need to be able to interact with the compositor for the window list. GNOME is able to do that, but their compositor and window management are both part of gnome-shell. Not sure if Mutter exposes an external API for this but obviously a Clutter dependency for MATE would not be good.

The roadmap therefore lists a new Wayland compositor as the other big requirement, so as to be able to talk the the panel. Next, all code in mate-panel and some other mate programs that calls X directly will have to be changed or switched at runtime. Even then we will be looking at MATE on wayland not being so modular, able to use only it's own compositor/WM unless this becomes another standard like the old Freedesktop standards.

This is not just speculation on my part, I have both Weston and GNOME 3.18 installed and have played with this, on a runtime basis only so far. Trying to start a mate-panel in either gets a segfault in one of the X libraries, even if the panel has nothing in it but launchers, no window list or workspace switcher. That means the bare panel also calls X directly-and in a way that Xwayland cannot handle. Pluma will work, so will some of the MATE apps, but others segfault.

Also, neither Caja nor Nemo nor Nautilus can draw icons on the desktop in Wayland right now. All will run, but none can draw icons on the desktop. GNOME is talking of a future library split out from Nautilus for this, I've got another possible idea. Here's how I would go about it: Allow the file manager to be called with a switch (-d maybe?)that opens one window fullscreen and undecorated like a browser with F11, and in that window and that window only does not show the sidebar, toolbar, or menubar. Already custom backgrounds can be set for folders, so set one for the desktop and you are good to go. The filebrowser needs code to show the toolbars, etc in normal windows and hide them on a fullscreen window called with something like a -d switch, and the compositor needs to understand the "undecorated" signal.

[magika]

...

Have MATE decided to go with mutter for Wayland? Because marco is a sure dead end, and I haven't heard of anything to replace it.

[Luke]

Nobody at MATE has even discussed what to use for a Wayland compositor as far as I know. In my opinion Mutter would be a bad choice and I suspect many others would agree. It is heavy, it brings in a Clutter dependency, and Clutter has always been known for performance issues. MATE/Mutter/Wayland would be no match at all for MATE/compiz/Xorg just as Gnome-shell and Cinnamon cannot now march MATE for performance.

I have contributed to MATE but am not part of the main team, so I don't know what is being discussed other than on the mate-desktop forums or github.

[pjezek]

Well, those having opted for a traditional MATE seem not have opted for a bleeding edge of Wayland compositor. Those desiring their Wayland sessions should rather look at another DE more properly developed for a Wayland environment. Enlightenment E20 would be a good choice soon...

[Danny3]

I wonder what's the rush with so many releases (10, 11, 12) with so little improvements?
They should've done point releases

[dungeon]

I wonder what's the rush with so many releases (10, 11, 12) with so little improvements?
They should've done point releases

I think it is pushed because of Linux Mint timings mostly

http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2015/1...1-12-released/

[pgoetz]

But Ubuntu MATE sailed right through and I am TOTALLY DIGGING IT !! Too soon to tell....but this just may make me switch my workstation at home from Linux Mint 17.2 with Cinnamon to Ubuntu MATE.

Cinnamon continues to be slow and buggy, while Mate is rock solid. I just set up a new Arch workstation running Mate and am about to switch my spouse's Linux Mint/Cinnamon system to Arch/Mate as well.

[Jumbotron]

Yeah....have had nearly a full day on my Thinkpad W530 with Ubuntu MATE and my workstation with Linux Mint 17.2 with Cinnamon. There is a "snappiness" to the MATE that I don't "feel" with Linux Mint. Obviously some of this is due to newer libraries in Ubuntu MATE as well as the lighter DE of MATE vs Cinnamon.

I don't know....it just "feels".....better. Will give it a few more days....but it really looks like the workstation is getting a makeover to Ubuntu MATE.