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MATE

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Revision as of 23:07, 16 September 2021 by Jakko (talk | contribs) (Reference merge requests for keyboard, network-manager-applet and terminal color)
MATE running on Samsung Galaxy S Advance (i9070)
MATE running on Samsung Galaxy S Advance (i9070)
In postmarketOS
Package postmarketos-ui-mate
Status Available

MATE is a desktop environment forked from the maintained code base of GNOME 2. It is installable on postmarketOS.

Status

It works on most devices with a working display, works fine without hardware acceleration. Also it has Hi-Dpi support. So apps will look better and usable. Use packages from Alpine repo.

After the postmarketOS loading splashscreen you will get a black screen for 20-30 seconds before the desktop appears. This seems due to an issue with marco (MATE window manager):

mate-session[1377]: WARNING: Application 'marco.desktop' failed to register before timeout

Install MATE Desktop

Run pmbootstrap init and choose mate in the interface section. The Alpine repository already contains all the packages for x86_64, armhf and aarch64 architectures. Nothing has to be done to enable it.

On Extra packages:

  • Add an on-screen keyboard like onboard, matchbox-keyboard or corekeyboard, see Input_methods#Conventional_on-screen_keyboards. (Implemented on edge by MR !2464.)
  • The network-manager-applet is recommendable. It will automatically show up in the notification area of the panel. (Implemented on edge by MR !2505.)

After installation:

  • The shell will automatically launch upon boot. If it doesn't, have a look at /etc/profile.d/start_mate.sh script.
  • Add the on-screen keyboard to Preferences -> Personal -> Startup Applicactions. Command e.g. /usr/bin/onboard. Thereafter, logout or reboot. (Also implemented on edge by MR !2464.)

For the official MATE instructions, see their website.

Display

Follow the Display guide to optionally change it to landscape mode or fix display related issues.

Miscellaneous

  • For terminal usage: Change text color within the terminal by Edit -> Profile Preferences -> tab "Colors" -> uncheck "Use colors from system theme" -> choose e.g. built-in scheme "Custom", text color a light grey and backgrund color black (which optionally can be set transparent in the "Background" tab). (Implemented on edge by MR !2525.)
  • Disable mouse cursor by sudo vi /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf, change #xserver-command=X to xserver-command=X -nocursor, logout or reboot.
  • Secondary mouse click see Input_methods#Simulate_secondary_click.
  • In case you didn't add network-manager-applet to extra packages on init, see WiFi#Using_NetworkManager how to set up wifi by command line.

Additional software

  • As a browser, install e.g. firefox or firefox-esr. To enable touch screen behaviour, add a new file sudo vi /etc/profile.d/firefox-touch-scrolling.sh and write export MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1, in about:config change dom.w3c.touch_events.enabled from 2 (default, auto-detect) to 1 (enabled). For better touch screen usability, install package mobile-config-firefox (more information).
  • For phone applications, try calls, chatty and gnome-contacts, which are used in Phosh. Package modemmanager needs to be installed, start the service by sudo rc-service modemmanager start, add it permanently by sudo rc-update add modemmanager default and reboot.
  • To view PDF files, install package atril, for alternatives see PDF#PDF_viewers.