Jump to content

MATE

From postmarketOS Wiki
Revision as of 00:16, 6 January 2022 by Jakko (talk | contribs) (Changing "Miscellaneous" paragraph to "Input")
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. Uses packages from Alpine repo.

Install MATE Desktop

Run pmbootstrap init and choose mate in the interface section. The Alpine repository already contains all the packages for x86_64, armv7 and aarch64 architectures.

Display

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

Input

  • Disable mouse cursor by sudo vi /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf, change #xserver-command=X to xserver-command=X -nocursor, logout or reboot.
  • To simulate right mouse clicks with the touchscreen, long-click the return key of the onboard keyboard to get some mouse click options at the right side of the keyboard. For other possibilities of right mouse click emulation, see Input_methods#Simulate_secondary_click.
  • Currently there is an issue with touch events in the panel, see pmOS #1308 and upstream.
  • Clicking the onboard icon in the panel shows or hides the virtual keyboard. In the settings of onboard, a bigger floating icon for show/hide can be enabled.

Additional software

  • For sound to work out of the box, install pulseaudio-utils and pavucontrol (might be implemented soon, MR pmaports !2820).
  • 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.