MATE (desktop environment)#Component applications

MATE is named after the South American plant yerba mate and tea made from the herb, mate. The name is stylized in all capital letters to follow the nomenclature of other Free Software desktop environments like KDE Plasma and LXDE. The recursive backronym "MATE Advanced Traditional Environment" was subsequently adopted by most of the MATE community, again in the spirit of Free Software like GNU ("GNU's Not Unix!").{{Cite web |title=MATE desktop |url=https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/kali-linux-2018/9781788997461/924e3202-ad3c-41f5-9879-2456b3c4e094.xhtml |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221002001531/https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/kali-linux-2018/9781788997461/924e3202-ad3c-41f5-9879-2456b3c4e094.xhtml |archive-date=October 2, 2022 |access-date=October 2, 2022 |website=O'Reilly Media}} The use of a new name, instead of GNOME, avoids naming conflicts with GNOME 3 components.

Perberos, an Argentine user of Arch Linux, started the MATE project{{Cite web |date=August 21, 2014 |title=Mate Desktop Environment – GNOME2 fork (Page 1) / Community Contributions / Arch Linux Forums |url=https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=121162 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140821024415/https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=121162 |archive-date=2014-08-21 |access-date=2021-10-01}} to fork and continue GNOME 2 in response to the negative reception of GNOME 3, which had replaced its traditional taskbar (GNOME Panel) with GNOME Shell. MATE aims to maintain and continue the latest GNOME 2 code base, frameworks, and core applications.

MATE was initially announced for Debian on November 8, 2013, at its official website.{{Cite web |last=Karapetsas |first=Stefano |date=November 8, 2013 |title=Debian MATE Packaging Team |url=https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2013-11-08-debian-mate-packaging-team/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210917034125/https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2013-11-08-debian-mate-packaging-team/ |archive-date=September 17, 2021 |access-date=2021-09-17 |website=MATE |language=en}}

MATE became an official Arch Linux community package in January 2014.{{Cite web |date=February 16, 2014 |title=MATE is officially available in Arch Linux |url=https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2014-01-16-mate-officially-in-arch-linux/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250219014759/https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2014-01-16-mate-officially-in-arch-linux/ |archive-date=February 19, 2025 |access-date=2025-04-29 |website=MATE |language=en}}

{{See also|List of GTK applications}}

File:Mate-caja-IconView.en.png

MATE has forked a number of applications which originated as GNOME Core Applications, and developers have written several other applications from scratch. The forked applications have new names, most of them from Spanish.{{Cite web |title=MATEwiki |url=https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/mate-desktop/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210919110458/https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/mate-desktop/ |archive-date=September 19, 2021 |access-date=September 24, 2021 |website=mate-desktop.org}}

File:Mate-caja-1.26.png

File:Mate-caja-about-1.26.png

File:MATE 1.10.png]]

MATE fully supports the GTK 3 application framework. The project is supported by Ubuntu MATE lead developer Martin Wimpress and by the Linux Mint development team:

{{blockquote|We consider MATE yet another desktop, just like KDE, Gnome 3, Xfce etc... and based on the popularity of Gnome 2 in previous releases of Linux Mint, we are dedicated to support it and to help it improve. The most popular Linux desktop was, and arguably is, Gnome 2.}}

New features have been added to Caja such as undo/redo and diff viewing for file replacements. MATE 1.6 removes some deprecated libraries, moving from mate-conf (a fork of GConf) to GSettings, and from mate-corba (a fork of GNOME's Bonobo) to D-Bus.

One of the aims of the MATE developers is to provide a traditional user experience while using the newest technologies. In MATE 1.20, which was released in February 2018, support for HiDPI was added and the GTK version got increased to 3.22. The MATE 1.22 release migrated many programs from Python 2 to Python 3 and from dbus-glib to GDBus. In an upcoming version, support for Wayland will be added.{{Cite web |title=Wayland and Meson - MATE wiki |url=https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/developers-corner/wayland-meson/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221123203729/https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/developers-corner/wayland-meson/ |archive-date=November 23, 2022 |access-date=November 23, 2022}}

File:PV-BSD 10.1.2 MATE Screenshot.png 10.1.2 desktop (MATE) with dual monitor (dual head, pivot). The running free and open-source (FOSS) programs are: GIMP, OpenShot Video Editor, file manager, Eric Python development IDE. Also shown: Minecraft 1.8.7 (with "Forge" mods).]]

Note that there are an odd number of versions between each official release. They are treated as versions under development, and are not announced as official releases.

The MATE website lists 27 Linux distributions and 5 Unix-like operating systems that support the MATE desktop environment.{{Cite web |title=MATE Desktop Environment |url=https://mate-desktop.org/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506174218/https://mate-desktop.org/ |archive-date=May 6, 2021 |access-date=2022-09-08 |website=MATE}}

{{Expand section|date=May 2022}}

MATE was criticized for having no Wayland support https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/when-will-mate-on-wayland-come-out/24254 but in version 1.28 Wayland support was "initially added".https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/developers-corner/wayland-meson/ Some users are now sticking more to the Wayland support, as Wayland has significant improvements since.

{{Portal|Free and open source software|Linux}}

• Budgie
• Cinnamon
• GNOME Flashback
• LXDE
• LXQt
• Xfce

{{Reflist|colwidth=30em|refs=

{{Citation |last=Karapetsas |first=Stefano |title=What's new in next Caja |date=June 17, 2012 |url=http://blog.karapetsas.com/posts/2012-06-17-whats-new-in-next-caja.html |work=Stefano Karapetsas's Blog |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416192106/http://blog.karapetsas.com/posts/2012-06-17-whats-new-in-next-caja.html |access-date=2014-04-15 |archive-date=April 16, 2014 |url-status=live}}

{{Citation |last=Karapetsas |first=Stefano |title=Undo/Redo in Caja |date=January 3, 2012 |url=http://blog.karapetsas.com/posts/2012-01-03-undo-redo-in-caja.html |work=Stefano Karapetsas's Blog |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416192108/http://blog.karapetsas.com/posts/2012-01-03-undo-redo-in-caja.html |access-date=2014-04-15 |archive-date=April 16, 2014 |url-status=live}}

{{Citation |last=Laishram |first=Ricky |title=Linus Torvalds Ditches GNOME For Xfce |date=August 4, 2011 |url=https://digitizor.com/linus-torvalds-ditches-gnome-for-xfce/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150411094010/http://digitizor.com/2011/08/04/linus-torvalds-ditches-gnome-for-xfce/ |publisher=Digitizor |quote=While you are at it, could you also fork gnome, and support a gnome-2 environment? – Linus Torvalds |access-date=2021-05-28 |archive-date=April 11, 2015 |url-status=live}}.

{{Citation |title=A Gnome 2 Fork: The MATE Desktop Environment |date=November 17, 2011 |url=http://ingeek.com/a-gnome-2-fork-the-mate-desktop-environment/ |work=ingeek |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140214105804/http://ingeek.com/a-gnome-2-fork-the-mate-desktop-environment |access-date=2016-12-12 |archive-date=2014-02-14 |url-status=dead}}

{{Citation |last=Lefebvre |first=Clem |title=Important fix for MATE – Feedback needed |date=December 1, 2011 |url=http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1901 |work=The Linux Mint Blog |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203025924/http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1901 |access-date=2011-12-10 |archive-date=December 3, 2011 |url-status=live}}

{{Citation |title=MATE Desktop Environment – Where does the name come from? |url=https://mate-desktop.org/ |work=MATE |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506174218/https://mate-desktop.org/ |access-date=2015-07-03 |archive-date=May 6, 2021 |url-status=live}}

{{Citation |last=Larabel |first=Michael |title=A Fork Of GNOME 2: The Mate Desktop |date=August 17, 2011 |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTgxMA |work=Phoronix |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160630121554/http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTgxMA |access-date=2011-12-04 |archive-date=June 30, 2016 |author-link=Michael Larabel |url-status=live}}

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{{Commons category|MATE (desktop environment)}}

• {{Official website|https://mate-desktop.org}}
• [https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/#!index.md Official wiki]

{{Desktop environments and window managers for X11 and Wayland}}

{{GNOME}}

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Category:Desktop environments based on GTK

Category:Free desktop environments

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