MATE () is a

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...

composed of free and open-source software that runs on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

, and

illumos Illumos (stylized as illumos) is a partly free and open-source Unix operating system. It is based on OpenSolaris, which was based on System V Release 4 (SVR4) and the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Illumos comprises a kernel, device d ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

Name

MATE is named after the South American plant

yerba mate Yerba mate or yerba-maté (''Ilex paraguariensis''; from Spanish ; pt, erva-mate, or ; gn, ka'a, ) is a plant species of the holly genus '' Ilex'' native to South America. It was named by the French botanist Augustin Saint-Hilaire. The lea ...

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 KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

and

LXDE LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained personal computers such as netb ...

. The

recursive Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics ...

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

"MATE Advanced Traditional Environment" was subsequently adopted by most of the MATE community, again in the spirit of Free Software like

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

("GNU's Not Unix!"). The use of a new name, instead of GNOME, avoids naming conflicts with GNOME 3 components.

History

An Argentine user of

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...

, named Perberos started the MATE project to

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

and continue

GNOME 2 GNOME 2 is the second major release of the GNOME desktop environment. Building upon the release of GNOME 1, development of GNOME 2 focused on a greater design-oriented approach that simplified and standardized elements of the environment. It als ...

in response to the negative reception of GNOME 3, which had replaced its traditional

taskbar A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running. The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally as ...

(

GNOME Panel GNOME Panel is a highly configurable taskbar for GNOME. It formed a core part of the desktop in GNOME 1 and GNOME 2. It has been replaced in GNOME 3 by default with GNOME Shell, which only works with the Mutter window manager. There are many '' ...

) with

GNOME Shell GNOME Shell is the graphical shell of the GNOME desktop environment starting with version 3, which was released on April 6, 2011. It provides basic functions like launching applications, switching between windows and is also a widget engine. ...

. 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. MATE became an official Arch Linux community package in January 2014.

Component applications

MATE has forked a number of applications which originated as

GNOME Core Applications GNOME Core Applications is a software suite of approximately 30 application software that are packaged as part of the standard free and open-source GNOME desktop environment. GNOME Core Applications have the look and feel of the GNOME desktop, an ...

, and developers have written several other applications from scratch. The forked applications have new names, most of them from Spanish. Mate-caja-1

Development

MATE fully supports the

GTK GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and propriet ...

3 application framework. The project is supported by

Ubuntu MATE Ubuntu MATE is a free and open-source Linux distribution and an official derivative of Ubuntu. Its main differentiation from Ubuntu is that it uses the MATE desktop environment as its default user interface (based on GNOME 2), instead of the ...

lead developer Martin Wimpress and by the

Linux Mint Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to i ...

development team: 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 GConf was a system used by the GNOME desktop environment for storing configuration settings for the desktop and applications. It is similar to the Windows Registry. It was deprecated as part of the GNOME 3 transition. Migration to its replacemen ...

) to GSettings, and from mate-corba (a fork of GNOME's Bonobo) to

D-Bus In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...

. 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 Pixels per inch (ppi) and pixels per centimetre (ppcm or pixels/cm) are measurements of the pixel density of an electronic image device, such as a computer monitor or television display, or image digitizing device such as a camera or image scanner ...

was added and the GTK+ version got increased to 3.22. The MATE 1.22 release migrated many programs from

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

2 to Python 3 and from dbus-glib to

GDBus In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...

. In an upcoming version, support for Wayland will be added.

Release history

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.

Adoption

The MATE website (as of 8 September 2022) lists 27 Linux distributions and 5

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

s that support the MATE desktop environment, The website also provides a

Distrowatch DistroWatch is a website which provides news, distribution pages hit rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/ open source Unix-like operating systems. It now contains information ...

hyperlink to "''query DistroWatch.com for all the distributions that support MATE.''"

Reception

References

External links

*
Official wikiMATE Desktop in OpenSourceFeed GalleryOld Official wikiMATE Desktop forumsnow closed
{{GNOME Desktop environments based on GTK Free desktop environments GNOME Software forks