MATE

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MATE (pronounced to rhyme with latte, not late) is a fork of the GNOME 2 desktop environment designed to retain the look and feel of a 'traditional' desktop environment.

According to the MATE team's manifesto, they aim to keep a traditional desktop look and feel, maintain an open development model, have an open relationship with GNU/Linux distributions, and serve as a good alternative for lower-end hardware.

Note
MATE bugs can be reported at Gentoo Bugzilla — please provide sufficient details (how to reproduce, emerge info, logs, error messages, etc.).

Installation

Architecture Support

MATE is available for amd64 and x86. As of March 2019, testing versions are available for ~arm,~arm64, ~loong and ~riscv. Support for other architectures will be considered with support of people testing and reporting issues, please reach out in #gentoo-mate (webchat) on Libera Chat if interested in this.

USE flags

First enable or disable desired USE flags for mate-base/mate.

USE flags for mate-base/mate Meta ebuild for MATE, a traditional desktop environment

+base	Install base MATE Desktop applications that are recommended for the most common usage; for example, this installs the file manager. Disable this and other USE flags if you want a more minimal MATE Desktop.
+extras	Install additional MATE Desktop applications that are recommended for extended usage of the MATE Desktop as upstream sees it; for example, this installs MATE Desktop's office related applications. Disable this if you plan to use your own non-MATE Desktop alternatives or a custom mixture of MATE and non-MATE packages.
+notification	Force notification daemon to default to MATE's notification daemon. Enabled by default. Disable if it causes conflicts with other installed desktop environments.
+themes	Install MATE Desktop's themes; if you use other themes, you can disable this to spare some space and time.
bluetooth	Enable Bluetooth Support
help	Install gnome-extra/yelp to handle in application help menus and documentation browsing

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2024-09-17 17:50 More information about USE flags

Installing MATE

Profiles

OpenRC

It is highly recommended to run a desktop profile when running a Desktop Environment, using amd64 as an example this can be done by running:

root #eselect profile set default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop

root #emerge -vauDU @world

systemd =

It is highly recommended to run a desktop profile when running a Desktop Environment, using amd64 as an example this can be done by running:

root #eselect profile set default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/systemd

root #emerge -vauDU @world

Combined hardened profiles

Users that run hardened profiles can also combine it with all the features of the desktop profile. For steps on doing this please follow Hardened_Desktop_Profiles.

Emerge

First, you will need xorg-server:

root #emerge --ask x11-base/xorg-server

To install the MATE desktop environment meta package run the following command:

root #emerge --ask --changed-use mate-base/mate

Usage

Either a display manager (SLiM, GDM, LightDM, etc.) or the startx command can be used to start MATE during system the system boot process.

Display manager (DM)

To make the display manager work specify a MATE session (mate-session) in the configuration of the display manager; some perform this action interactively, others will need to have a configuration file modified. The default session can also often be changed by setting XSESSION="Mate" in /etc/env.d/90xsession:

FILE /etc/env.d/90xsessionEnabling MATE

XSESSION="Mate"

The MATE team recommends LightDM as the display manager. Install x11-misc/lightdm:

root #emerge --ask x11-misc/lightdm

OpenRC

Set LightDM as the default display manager:

FILE /etc/conf.d/display-manager

DISPLAYMANAGER="lightdm"

To start LightDM on boot, add dbus and display-manager to the default runlevel:

root #rc-update add dbus default

root #rc-update add display-manager default

To start LightDM now:

root #rc-service dbus start

root #rc-service display-manager start

systemd

To start LightDM on boot:

root #systemctl enable lightdm

To start LightDM now:

root #systemctl start lightdm

Manual start

To start MATE manually create a ~/.xinitrc file in a user's home directory. Make its contents as follows:

FILE ~/.xinitrc

exec mate-session

Note that dbus-launch may be needed between exec mate-session for D-Bus communication to work, for example:

FILE ~/.xinitrc

exec dbus-launch mate-session

Desktop portal

Because apps are trying to support Wayland, some functionality in MATE relies on the XDG Desktop Portal. For example, Firefox installed from Flatpak will fail to open a user's "Downloads" directory without desktop portal implementation. Therefore xdg-desktop-portal-xapp is needed as it works with MATE.

root #emerge --ask sys-apps/xdg-desktop-portal-xapp

The user should then logout and log back into their graphical session to ensure that everything works correctly.

Configuration

Compositing

Compositing is not enabled by default. To enable compositing run System → Preferences → Windows and click the tick box alongside Enable software compositing window manager in the General tab.

Window centering

Window centering is not enabled by default. To enable window centering run System → Preferences → Windows and click the tick box alongside Center new windows in the Placement tab.

Window snapping

Window snapping is not enabled by default. To enable window snapping run System → Preferences → Windows and click on the tick box alongside Enable side by side tiling in the Placement tab.

Change applications menu icon

The applications menu icon is set to start-here by default. To use a different icon, copy the user's icon to a folder such as /usr/local/share/pixmaps and execute the following:

user $gsettings set org.mate.panel.menubar icon-name <icon>

Where icon is the name of the icon without the file extension. Restart MATE panel.

Show or hide desktop icons

Desktop icons are enabled by default. They can be hidden or shown individually using dconf.

Hide all desktop icons

user $dconf write /org/mate/desktop/background/show-desktop-icons false

Hide individual icons

To hide the computer icon:

user $dconf write /org/mate/caja/desktop/computer-icon-visible false

To hide the user directory icon:

user $dconf write /org/mate/caja/desktop/home-icon-visible false

To hide the network icon:

user $dconf write /org/mate/caja/desktop/network-icon-visible false

To hide the trash icon:

user $dconf write /org/mate/caja/desktop/trash-icon-visible false

To hide mounted volumes:

user $dconf write /org/mate/caja/desktop/volumes-visible false

Alternatively, dconf Editor may be used to show or hide desktop icons. Navigate to org → mate → caja → desktop.

Show volume control

To control pulseaudio and see the volume control icon in the notification area, make sure to compile media-libs/libmatemixer with pulseaudio USE enabled.

Applications

This is a list of GNOME 2 applications that have been renamed and included in the MATE desktop environment.

Icon	GNOME 2	MATE	Type
	Alacarte (alacarte)	Mozo (mozo)	Menu editor
	About GNOME (gnome-about)	About MATE (mate-about)	About Desktop Environment
	Baobab (baobab)	Disk Usage Analyzer (mate-disk-usage-analyzer)	Disk usage analyzer
	Control Center (gnome-control-center)	Control Center (mate-control-center)	Example
	Evince (evince)	Atril (atril)	Document Viewer
	Eye of GNOME (eog)	Eye of MATE (eom)	Image Viewer
	File Roller (file-roller)	Engrampa (engrampa)	File Archive Manager
	GConf (gconftool-2, gconf-editor)	MateConf (mateconftool-2, mateconf-editor)	DE Configuration System
	Gedit (gedit)	Pluma (pluma)	Text Editor
	Metacity (metacity)	Marco (marco)	Window Manager
	Nautilus (nautilus)	Caja (caja)	File Manager
	Take Screenshot (gnome-screenshot)	Take Screenshot (mate_screenshot)	Screen Capture Tool
	Terminal (gnome-terminal)	Terminal (mate-terminal)	Terminal
	Zenity (zenity)	MateDialog (matedialog)	GTK Dialog Boxes

Applets

This is a list of GNOME 2 panel applets that have been renamed and included in the MATE desktop environment.

Icon	GNOME 2	MATE	Type
	gweather	mateweather	Panel Weather Applet
	gnome-invest-applet	mate-invest-applet	Stock Tracking Applet
	gnome-netspeed-applet	mate-netspeed-applet	View Internet Speed
	gnome-inhibit-applet	mate-inhibit-applet	Inhibit Power Saving
	gnome-trash-applet	mate-trash-applet	Shortcut to Trash
	gnome-panel-notification area	mate-panel-notification-area	Notification Area
	gnome-panel-window-list	mate-panel-window-list	Switch Windows using the Taskbar
	gnome-panel-window-menu	mate-panel-window-menu	Switch Windows using a Menu
	gnome-panel-workspace-switcher	mate-panel-workspace-switcher	Switch Workspaces
	gnome-sticky-notes-applet	mate-sticky-notes-applet	Create, View, Manage Sticky Notes

Autostart

MATE is capable of automatically running binaries or scripts on a per-user basis.

Autostart entries can be added via System → Preferences → Start Applications.

From the command-line, entries can be added in the ~/.config/autostart directory as XDG formatted .desktop files. Be sure to include a line that says X-MATE-Autostart-enabed=true. For example:

FILE ~/.config/autostart/example.desktopMATE autostart example

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/path/to/executable
Hidden=false
Name=Autostart example
Comment=This file shows that the line below is needed for MATE to autostart an executable
X-MATE-Autostart-enabled=true

FAQ

Does MATE rely on a specific service manager or init system?

No, MATE has been tested to work with both OpenRC and systemd and might work on other service managers and init systems too (untested, but no known reason for it to break); systemd support was added in release 1.6.

Can MATE be installed side-by-side GNOME packages or do they block?

As the MATE packages use their own categories, it is possible to have MATE and GNOME 3 installed at the same time which allows the user to test either; taking it even a step further, if the user change MATE to not have a top panel (as it gets hidden under the GNOME 3 shell) the user can even start mate-session within GNOME 3 and run MATE and GNOME 3 at the same time.

How do I enable the panel shadow?

Due to a race condition, the panel shadow does not appear after logging in to the MATE desktop, even with compositing enabled. The user must first copy /usr/share/applications/mate-panel.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/mate-panel.desktop. Then set X-MATE-Autostart-Phase to Applications, and add a delay:

FILE /usr/share/applications/mate-panel.desktop

X-MATE-Autostart-Phase=Applications
X-MATE-Autostart-Delay=2
X-MATE-Provides=windowmanager
X-MATE-Autostart-Notify=true

The user may need to adjust the delay as needed. Finally, restart Marco with the following command:

user $marco --replace

Using MATE with dual screens

When using MATE desktop with multiple screens, it must be emerged with the xinerama USE flag enabled. Specifically, the window manager that is powering mate-desktop, which is x11-wm/marco. This will solve issues like windows being maximized over both screens in MATE desktop.

Using MATE with Android phones

To connect Android devices and open them in mate-base/caja the user need to compile gnome-base/gvfs with the mtp USE flag.

Can I replace the default screen-shot tool with X?

mate-screenshot is provided in mate-extra/mate-utils provides basic screenshot capabilities. If the user don't like it and need a more advanced tool, like x11-misc/shutter the user can replace the default behavior of the Print Screen button by editing the following configurations option with dconf-edtior:

org.mate.marco.keybinding-commands.command-screenshot $user-command

If the user feel comfortable doing this with the command line the user can do:

user $dconf write /org/mate/marco/keybinding-commands/command-screenshot \"foo\"

or with:

user $gsettings set org.mate.Marco.keybinding-commands command-screenshot 'foo'

Suspend and Hibernate buttons are missing from the shutdown dialog

If only "Restart Cancel Shutdown" buttons appear in the dialog, make sure both mate-base/mate-session-manager and mate-base/mate-power-manager were built with elogind flag.

Wayland Support

As of 1.28 all MATE programs have Wayland support enabled with wayland however mate-wayland-session is currently only available in the mate-overlay as early testing has deemed it too unstable for a wide release. If the user are interested in helping with testing please visit the IRC channel #gentoo-mate (webchat) on Libera Chat.

Note
All bugs must be reported to mate-overy issue tracker

Prepare system

Add the USE flag wayland as a global USE flag:

FILE /etc/portage/package.use/waylandwayland USE flag

*/* wayland

Next, preform a system update with:

root #emerge -vauDU @world

Enable overlay

root #emerge -va eselect-repository dev-vcs/git

root #eselect repository enable mate-overlay

root #emerge --sync

mate-wayland-session

root #emerge --ask mate-base/mate-wayland-session

Desktop Manager

Currently SDDM is being used by upstream and the Gentoo MATE team to test wayland support with Gentoo. More testing with other DMs and feedback given would be very helpful.

Switching to PipeWire

By default, mate-base ships a pre-configured PulseAudio server. As the transition to Wayland continues, users may wish to install PipeWire for screen capture.

Switching to PipeWire is very simple. First, unmerge pulseaudio-daemon:

root #emerge --unmerge media-sound/pulseaudio-daemon

Add the pipewire and pulseaudio USE flag globally:

FILE /etc/portage/make.conf

USE="pulseaudio pipewire"

Add the sound-server USE flag to PipeWire

FILE /etc/portage/package.use/pipewire

media-video/pipewire sound-server

Then, emerge PipeWire:

root #emerge --ask media-video/pipewire

To start PipeWire on systemd, follow the instructions at pipewire

Removal

root #emerge --ask --depclean mate-base/mate $(qlist -IC 'mate-base/*')

To remove all packages with the name MATE (eix required):

root #emerge --ask --depclean $(eix -I -# mate)

Troubleshooting

GLib-GObject-ERROR: object GsmAutostartApp 0x73ca40 finalized while still in-construction

When the user get this error (see ~/.materc-errors), it is usually preceded by a warning, fixing the warning could fix the problem; for example, when I get to see:

CODE

mate-session[881]: WARNING: Could not parse desktop file /home/username/.config/autostart/some-naughty-broken-program.desktop: Key file does not have key 'Name'
mate-session[881]: GLib-GObject-ERROR: object GsmAutostartApp 0x73ca40 finalized while still in-construction

In this case, the user can resolve this by moving away the desktop file or fixing it up by adding the Name key. If the user want a clean start, the user can move those files out of the way by backing them up:

user $for f in ~/.config/autostart/*.desktop ; do mv "${f}" "${f}.bak" ; done

Failure to emerge due to conflicts with x11-libs/gtk+:3 and x11-themes/mate-themes{,-meta}

Unfortunately, due to some packaging requirements, there is the potential for users to have an issue with proper dependency resolution when installing mate-themes{,-meta}. Generally speaking, the simplest solution is to oneshot the appropriate mate-themes package, allowing subsequent emerges to happen without issue. For example, if the user have x11-libs/gtk+-3.18 installed, the user will want to

root #emerge -1av '=mate-themes-3.18*'

or if the user have gtk+-3.20 installed, the user will want to

root #emerge -1av '=mate-themes-3.20*'

Failed to acquire org.freedesktop.timedate1.set-time: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.Error.Failed:

In order to set the system time through the calendar applet or mate-control center (or through mate-admin) the user will have to compile:

root #emerge --ask app-admin/openrc-settingsd

And then add it to the default run level:

root #rc-update add openrc-settingsd default

Logout and re-login and the user will be able to set the system time.

See also

• Desktop environment — provides a list of desktop environments available in Gentoo.
• KDE — a free software community, producing a wide range of applications including the popular Plasma desktop environment.
• Gnome — a feature-rich desktop environment provided by the GNOME project.
• Xfce — a lightweight desktop environment built to be fast, good looking, and user friendly.