How to keep using MATE Desktop in 2026

MATE Desktop
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If you love MATE, you’re probably already aware that the project is going through a rough patch. Martin Wimpress, the founder of Ubuntu MATE, announced in March 2026 that he’s stepping back after 12 years, and the future of Ubuntu MATE’s LTS releases is uncertain. A non-LTS 26.04 release may still happen, but without new maintainers stepping up, long-term support is at risk.

Upstream, MATE Desktop development has slowed significantly with fewer active contributors, and MATE 1.28 has been slow to land across Debian and Ubuntu due to packaging delays. Wayland support remains experimental and incomplete.

That said, MATE is NOT dead yet, and if you love the workflow there’s no reason to abandon it today. You just need to be smart about how you run it. Here are some tips for MATE users who want to keep using it as long as possible:

Choose your distro wisely

MATE may not see frequent upstream releases, but your kernel, drivers, and system libraries still need to stay current. Make sure you’re on a distro that keeps the underlying system patched regardless of the desktop environment.

  • Linux Mint still ships a MATE edition and is supported until 2029.
  • Fedora has a MATE+Compiz spin that stays current.
  • Arch and its derivatives carry MATE in their repos and will continue to as long as the packages build.
  • Debian also carries MATE (1.26 in Trixie, with 1.28 in Testing). If you’re on Ubuntu specifically, the uncertainty around LTS support this cycle is a real concern, so consider one of these alternatives.

Stick with X11 for now

MATE’s Wayland support is still very early and not ready for daily use. X11 is where MATE is stable and fully functional. Don’t rush to a Wayland-only setup.

Learn to install MATE manually

If your preferred distro stops shipping a MATE edition, you can almost always install it from the repos on top of a minimal or alternative desktop install. It’s just a sudo apt install mate-desktop-environment or sudo dnf install @mate-desktop away depending on your distro.

Back up your MATE config

Your panels, applets, keybindings, and theme settings live in ~/.config/dconf and ~/.config/mate. Back these up so you can restore your exact setup if you need to move distros or reinstall.

Get involved!

The project needs contributors now more than ever. Even non-code contributions like documentation, bug reporting, and testing help keep things alive.

Check out the MATE Desktop GitHub and the community discussion on linuxcommunity.io - MATE and Ubuntu MATE forum.

The MATE desktop still offers one of the best traditional Linux workflows out there. With some smart choices, there’s no reason you can’t keep using it for years to come.

I’m very much a MATE noob, so what are your tips for keeping MATE going? Drop them below…

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I have not been using Ubuntu MATE (or Linux for that matter) for all that long (switched to Linux in 2023 and been for the most part running UM since late 2024), but some things I have picked up on are as follows:

  1. In my opinion, out of all the distributions offering the MATE desktop, Ubuntu MATE offers the best “spit and polish” out of the box with themes compatible with GTK4, the MATE Tweak tool with several panel layouts, and a fantastic selection of backgrounds. We used to have the Ubuntu MATE Welcome (Welcome Application) and Software Boutique (App store) but those have been deprecated for some time. I also have VMs running Fedora MATE+Compiz spin and openSUSE Tumbleweed MATE, but (in my opinion) I feel that they have not really been kept updated, using older themes that don’t always work great with modern applications, and just don’t have the same cohesiveness as UM does.
  2. If you are using MATE Desktop on a distro, I suggest scouring the GNOME Look page for themes that support GTK4. Otherwise, you’ll have all your GNOME applications falling back to the Adwaita theme and it will look really out of place since the default MATE themes are GTK3 (as far as I know, maybe even GTK2).
  3. If your distro has the ayatana indicators (I know Arch does in the AUR, other distros might, but this is what Ubuntu MATE uses for indicator technology), I think they are superior to the built-in MATE indicators and panel applets. I suggest installing and using them.

Otherwise, to be honest, I can’t think of any other issues with MATE in 2026. I’ve also tried the vast majority of Desktop Environments (likely all the popular ones) and i3 window manager but MATE fits my workflow the best.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to correct anything or add if I missed something or was wrong.

Thanks,
Jaymo

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This is interesting. Thanks for sharing.

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No problem at all @hydn .

There is actually one other thing I forgot to put in. Ubuntu MATE >=24.04 does not respect dark themes in GTK4 apps in my case using the Yaru themes shipped.

I was able to solve this with AI by writing a systemd user service to read the MATE theme, apply it as the GNOME theme in dconf, and set preference to dark theme.

Please see below.

NOTE: The code below is generated with AI (Deepseek). I have verified that it works for my purposes but use at your own risk.

In ~/.config/systemd/user under file fix-gnome-theme.service:

[Unit]
Description=Sync MATE theme to GNOME settings
After=graphical-session.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "sleep 5 && MATE_THEME=$(gsettings get org.mate.interface gtk-theme | tr -d \"'\") && gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme \"$MATE_THEME\" && gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme 'prefer-dark'"

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Set this to start on login by typing systemctl --user enable fix-gnome-theme.service in the terminal as a standard user (i.e., not “sudo”).

Jaymo

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Ubuntu 26.04 LTS still has the MATE desktop too.

I’ve done some Quality Assurance installs, and used one I’d not deleted to make a change before writing a comment on a recent support question - I’d made a snap free install of Lubuntu resolute (26.04) & made package changes to switch lubuntu-desktop (LXQt & apps) to ubuntu-desktop (GNOME & apps) using team meta-packages.

As that install still existed (partition hasn’t yet been replaced; or a erase disk & install hasn’t over written it) I just removed ubuntu-desktop and installed ubuntu-mate-desktop and I have the MATE desktop functioning.

I selected to use lightdm as its what most Ubuntu MATE users will be used to anyway; and at least with my quick play it looked good.

Some comments on change -

  • the install actually remained snap free just as installing Ubuntu Desktop earlier had,
  • the lack of Ubuntu MATE team work does show a little; the wallpapers package detail still indicates 24.10 (ie. don’t be expecting newer wallpapers! alas that’s not a first time),
  • it booted up showing the original Lubuntu plymouth screen but I’d not bothered changing that when I installed Ubuntu Desktop (easy fix if I cared; I don’t as this install may not survive the day), and
  • as someone had reported to me before, some (parts) of the GNOME desktop remained (GNOME selectable at login/greeter [lightdm]); but as they showed up in some dpkg lists I ran so I don’t see removing them as difficult (and FYI: I believe I’d run apt autoremove)

To know what’s in Ubuntu MATE’s future, we’ll just have to wait and see, but I still do see hope there.

( GDM3 as greeter on 26.04 allowed me to start Xorg/X11 sessions; that was my only real surprise ! )

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