MATE Desktop: How to Get the Most Out of It

MATE Desktop
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I’ve been meaning to put this together for a while now. A lot of us Linux users, myself included at one point, don’t realize just how widely supported MATE actually is. We often assume Ubuntu MATE is THE option, when really it runs seamlessly across a wide range of distros.

That’s kind of the whole point, and part of what drew the MATE community to this forum in the first place since it’s distro-neutral. So we put together this guide as a living reference for anyone wanting to run MATE, no matter what base they prefer!

This is a wiki post, so if you spot something out of date, missing, incorrect, or want to add a distro or a tip, go ahead and edit it. That’s what it’s here for.

A bit of context first. MATE is a continuation of the classic GNOME 2 desktop, built for people who want a traditional, lightweight, no-nonsense layout.

It’s available pretty much everywhere, either as a dedicated edition, an official spin, or straight from a distro’s repos. Here are the main ways to run it.

Alpine Linux

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Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and Busybox. The main focus of Alpine besides security is simplicity and resource efficiency.

Artix Linux MATE

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An Arch-based, systemd-free distro that offers MATE as one of its official editions. A solid pick if you want a rolling release with the classic MATE layout but prefer an alternative init system (runit, OpenRC, s6, or dinit) instead of systemd.

CachyOS MATE

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An Arch-based, performance-tuned distro that offers MATE as one of its selectable desktop environments. A good fit if you want MATE’s classic layout on a heavily optimized rolling base, with custom kernels and CPU-targeted builds doing the heavy lifting underneath.

Debian (MATE)

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MATE is a first-class option in the Debian installer. Pick “MATE” in the desktop task selection during net-install, or grab a live image with “mate” in the filename. Rock solid and about as vendor-neutral as it gets.

Fedora MATE-Compiz Spin

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Fedora’s official MATE spin, bundled with Compiz if you want 3D window effects on top of the lightweight base. Marco is the default window manager, so you can skip Compiz entirely if you prefer something leaner.

Linux Mint MATE

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A polished, beginner-friendly option on the Ubuntu base. Stable, well-supported, and a common recommendation for people coming from Windows.

Manjaro MATE (community edition)

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An Arch-based route to MATE with rolling releases and access to the AUR. Worth being upfront: this is a community-maintained edition, not one of Manjaro’s official flagship spins, so maintenance can be less consistent than the others here. Check current availability before committing.

openSUSE MATE

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MATE is maintained for openSUSE through the X11:MATE repositories and works on both Leap and Tumbleweed. YaST makes setup and administration genuinely easy if you’re newer to Linux.

Parrot OS

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Parrot Security (ParrotOS, Parrot) is a distribution based on Debian Stable designed for security experts, developers, and privacy-aware people.
It includes a full portable arsenal for IT security and digital forensics operations.

Parrot used to have MATE-desktop as default. Now KDE-plasma is default but MATE and other desktops are installable and fully supported.

Porteus MATE

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Porteus is a remix of the Slax Linux operating system, developed by a community of talented Slax users who want to keep its spirit alive. It is known for booting very fast, supporting several languages, and its ability to install, update and remove packages with a dependency-resolving package manager.

Distributed as hybrid Live CDs

This edition is distributed as two hybrid Live CD ISO images, one for each of the supported hardware platforms (32-bit and 64-bit). It can be burned to a blank CD disc or deployed on a USB thumb drive.

SparkyLinux MATE

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A lightweight Debian-based distro that offers a dedicated MATE edition. Built on Debian’s testing or stable branches depending on the line you pick, it’s a solid choice for older or lower-spec hardware where you want MATE’s efficiency plus Sparky’s own collection of custom tools.

  • Site: https://sparkylinux.org
  • Download: Download Sparky stable - SparkyLinux
  • Tip: Sparky ships its own APTus tool, a GUI front-end that makes installing extra apps, drivers, and tweaks a few clicks instead of hunting through the command line. Worth exploring right after install to set the system up the way you want.

SpiralLinux MATE

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A set of Debian-based spins focused on simplicity and out-of-the-box usability, with a dedicated MATE edition. It’s essentially a preconfigured live installer that pulls from the official Debian repos, so you end up with a clean stock Debian system that’s already polished and ready to go.

Trisquel GNU/Linux

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A fully free (libre) distro endorsed by the Free Software Foundation, with MATE as the default desktop on its flagship edition. If running a system with no proprietary blobs or non-free firmware matters to you, this is the MATE option built entirely around that principle.

Ubuntu

You can add MATE to an existing Ubuntu install with the ubuntu-mate-desktop package, then pick MATE at the login screen. Grab a base Ubuntu image here if you’re starting fresh.

Ubuntu MATE

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The flagship MATE experience, maintained by people on the MATE dev team itself. If you want MATE exactly as the developers intend it, start here. Great docs and an active community.

Don’t see your distro? You can probably still run MATE.

Almost every major distribution ships MATE in its repositories even without a dedicated edition. The MATE project keeps a general install guide covering manual installs from official repos, which is handy if you’re already running something else and want to switch desktops without reinstalling.

You are welcome to add or edit the above post to improve it. That’s the whole idea of a community wiki post.

Most screenshots captured using distrosea.com

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GNOME 2, but, it's a personal website
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Fantastic post. I love this straight-to-the-point summary of each distro with helpful links. Beautiful ! :star_struck:

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Thanks @tkn :penguin:

If anyone is runing Ubuntu with MATE installed. Can we get a screenshot, please? Also for CachyOS MATE and openSUSE MATE.

Are we missing any others?

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b.t.w. Rgarding the strikethrough I assume that there is no Open SuSE MATE then ? :innocent:

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There is, I got the screenshot from their website: https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:MATE

Thanks!

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Thanks. Yes I know it’s not default. I had the default MATE screenshot before. What I was looking for was

Manually. I can revert the screenshot back to Ubuntu-MATE.

It’s a Wiki post, anyone can edit. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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Oops. I only gave you Ubuntu-MATE screenshots, no screenshots of post installed MATE on standard Ubuntu (I don’t have that).

My apologies, I skimmed too fast over the text. :face_with_open_eyes_and_hand_over_mouth:

(Deleted my two misplaced posts to prevent this thread to become too convoluted)

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No worries! Thanks for adding Porteus! :penguin:

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CachyOS MATE screenshot has landed in the post :slightly_smiling_face:

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I have run 6 of the Distros mentioned all with the MATE desktop. When I do a search for a new OS to try at DistoWatch the MATE desktop is the only one I ever check to be included in the results. I find the Desktop just as important as the OS and for myself more important.

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And I see others added as well. Very cool! I think the quick visuals are helpful.

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Yes, and sorry that I wasn’t aware of the alphabetical order :innocent:

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Screenshot at 2026-06-10 14-44-16

I leave the Mate Panel almost as it is, but move it to the bottom. MATE is a traditional desktop, but highly customizable.

How many of you take the traditional MATE desktop and modify it to look more modern, things like no panels and docks instead?

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I have no idea what “modern” means.

Most of the times I encounter the term “modern” with respect to desktops, it turns out to mean “functionally incapacitated, enshittified and near-useless” :rofl:

I don’t give a donkeys ear about “modern” or “classic” or “retro” or “futuristic” or whatever meaningless fashionstatement can be thought of.

No panel or dock is what I have on my mediacenter because it is just practical on that appliance and not as a fashion statement. (Well, the panel is hidden actually because it contains som minimal needs outside of the regular intended use)

But yeah, you can count on it that I modify it to my liking, I always did.
Compare it to moving to a new house:
Everyone has its own preferences in color(paint), wallpaper, furniture etc.
Same with desktop for me. That is another reason why I love MATE
(and dislike the butt ugly, harder to read, unchangeable adwaita crap)

Where I always start:

  1. I choose a dark theme
    ( No dark theme means exit desktop and that is non-negotiable (see below why))
  2. I often just remove the bottom panel and replace it with plank
  3. find me a nice desktop wallpaper
  4. find me a nice lightdm wallpaper
  5. add what I need on the panel (two or three things added to the default)
  6. strip everything I don’t need

About why a dark theme is non-negotionable for me

Light-themes have the same effect on me as looking right into a theaterspotlight without sunglasses. I’ll get pain in my eyes and a headache within an hour. Also very thin black characters on a screaming white background are very hard to read for me. The halo of the intense white, bleeds into the black of the extreme thin characters which makes them completely undecipherable.
Lowering the brightness also lowers the contrast so it stays as unreadable as that it was. There is nothing to gain that way.

Another thing that makes dark theme even more compulsary:

I often work side by side with lighting techs.
Everyone in a theater knows that if the lighting guy arrives, it will get dark (yes really) :joy:.
Working in the dark with an extreme light theme (which is the norm on desktops nowadays) is absolutely not possible. I have to give up within half a minute.

So yeah, dark theme everywhere. I even have addons on some of my browsers to invert colors on “modern” websites, which are ofcourse extremely white with extremely thin black characters because it is fashionable (instead of ergonomical)
I love the fact that Atril has a color invert function under ctrli and use it regularly.

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That gave me a huge laugh to start the day, but I must say I feel exactly the same about those modern desktops!

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I believe dark themes also save battery life on laptops too?

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Not really because the backlight behind the wall of black LCD pixels is still on.

Unless you have one of those fancy monitors that have “dynamic backlight” where the backlight behind dark LCD pixels gets dimmed
These screens are always advertised with as “real deep blacks” and often have a contrast ratio that outsmarts the competition

It would also save quite some if you are working with an OLED display (or a LED videowall but no mortal would have that in their livingroom :grin:)

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“Modern” means no panels, and docks instead ??

FLUXBOX!! :smiley:

The modern desktop of the 21st century

Tiny Core Linux has the best modern desktop. No panels, but a dock instead:

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Now I understand the popularity of “modern”

Tiny Core is cool!!

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We need the :skull: emoji in reactions. :rofl:

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Fluxbox vs. GNOME, etc. - desktop US and workflow