Features/MATE-Desktop

MATE Desktop

Summary

MATE Desktop is based on GNOME 2 and provides an intuitive and attractive desktop to Linux users who seek a simple, easy to use traditional interface.

Owners

• Name: Dan Mashal
• Email: dan.mashal AT fedoraproject.org

Co-maintainers

• Name: Rex Dieter
• Email: rdieter AT fedoraproject.org

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 18
• Last updated: 2012-08-13
• Percentage of completion: 85%
• Tagoh of i18n team has offered support to update imsettings for MATE Desktop

All packages but one have been submitted. A good percentage have already been approved or are about to be approved.

MATE Desktop itself has been built from source and works great and happily coexists with Gnome 3.

Detailed Description

MATE is a traditional Gnome 2 like desktop user interface. Many users have expressed interest in this feature since Fedora 15 in which Fedora was switched from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3.

For the advanced user that doesn't want a cutting edge desktop and just wants to keep it simple this is perfect for them.

The popularity of MATE Desktop is very high. It is one of the 2 choices of DE's for Linux Mint which is one of the most popular Linux distros out right now.

Benefit to Fedora

• Attract new users to Fedora.
• Give users another choice and freedom to choose what type of DE/WM they would like to use. This is one of the core foundations of the Fedora project.

Scope

MATE DE tracker bug

List of packages being imported in to fedora:

mate-common -- Approved.
mate-doc-utils -- Approved.
mate-corba -- Approved.
libmatenwck -- Approved.
mate-conf -- Approved.
libmatecomponent -- Approved.
mate-mime-data -- Approved.
mate-vfs -- Approved.
libmate -- Approved.
libmatecanvas -- Approved.
libmatecomponentui -- Submitted for review.
libmatekeyring -- Approved.
mate-keyring -- Approved.
libmateui -- Submitted for review.
libmatenotify -- Approved.
libmatekbd -- Approved.
libmateweather -- Approved.
mate-icon-theme Approved.
mate-dialogs -- Approved.
mate-desktop -- Approved.
mate-file-manager -- Approved.
mate-notification-daemon -- Approved.
mate-backgrounds -- Approved.
mate-menus -- Approved.
mate-window-manager -- Approved.
mate-polkit -- Approved.
mate-settings-daemon -- Submitted for review.
mate-control-center -- not ready yet
mate-panel -- Approved.
mate-session-manager -- not ready yet

How To Test

Upon approval of all packages a user would type "yum groupinstall @MATE-Desktop" and it would be added to their list of sessions to log in to on start up.
A "nice to have" feature would be to be included in the Anaconda install from the DVD.

User Experience

It will improve the user's desktop experience by giving them another choice of Desktops that they can use with Fedora.

Dependencies

Please see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=840149 for more information.

The main dependencies required by this package are python, GTK2, automake, libtool, gettext and pkgconfig.

mate-common will provide automake autoconf gettext intltool libtool so that it will not be in every package's buildrequires.

Contingency Plan

• If this feature is not ready by the deadline it will be included in the next Fedora release.

Documentation

• MATE Desktop website here.

Release Notes

• This is the initial release of MATE Desktop for Fedora 18. It brings back a classic, intuitive, and easy to use desktop that users have been long requesting.
• Release notes will be further updated as the completion of the project draws near. The project is currently 85% complete.

Comments and Discussion

• See Talk:Features/MATE-Desktop