| MATE | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Fedora Linux with MATE version 1.26 | |
| Developers | Clement Lefebvre, Perberos, Stefano Karapetsas, et al.[1] |
| Initial release | August 19, 2011; 14 years ago (2011-08-19) |
| Stable release | |
| Written in | C[3] |
| Operating system | Unix-like,Unix |
| Type | Desktop environment |
| License | GPLv2+,LGPLv2+ |
| Website | mate-desktop |
| Repository | |
MATE (/ˈmɑːteɪ/MAH-tay)[4] is adesktop environment composed offree and open-source software that runs onLinux, and otherUnix-likeoperating systems such asBSD, andIllumos.[5][6]
MATE is named after the South American plantyerba mate and tea made from the herb,mate.[4] The name is stylized in all capital letters to follow the nomenclature of other Free Software desktop environments likeKDE Plasma andLXDE. Therecursivebackronym "MATE Advanced Traditional Environment" was subsequently adopted by most of the MATE community, again in the spirit of Free Software likeGNU ("GNU's Not Unix!").[7] The use of a new name, instead of GNOME, avoids naming conflicts with GNOME components.[7]
Perberos, an Argentine user ofArch Linux, started the MATE project[8] tofork and continueGNOME 2 in response to the negativereception of GNOME 3, which had replaced its traditionaltaskbar (GNOME Panel) withGNOME Shell. MATE aims to maintain and continue the latest GNOME 2 code base, frameworks, and core applications.[9][10][11]
MATE was initially announced for Debian on November 8, 2013, at its official website.[12]
MATE became an official Arch Linux community package in January 2014.[13]
MATE has forked a number of applications which originated asGNOME Core Applications, and developers have written several other applications from scratch. The forked applications have new names, most of them from Spanish.[14]
| Application name | Spanish translation | Forked from | Description | Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atril | lectern | Evince | Document viewer | EPUB support Caret navigation support[15] |
| Caja | box | GNOME Files (Nautilus) | File Manager | Extension support[16] |
| Engrampa | staple | Archive Manager (File Roller) | File archiver | |
| Eye of MATE | Eye of GNOME | Image viewer | ||
| MATE Calculator | GNOME Calculator | Calculator | ||
| MATE Control Center | GNOME Control Center | MATE desktop settings | ||
| MATE System Monitor | GNOME System Monitor | Graphical resource monitor | ||
| MATE Terminal | GNOME Terminal | Terminal emulator | ||
| marco | frame | Metacity | MATEwindow manager | |
| Mozo | waiter | Alacarte | Menu editor | |
| Pluma | pen | Gedit | Text editor |
MATE fully supports theGTK 3 application framework. The project is supported byUbuntu MATE lead developer Martin Wimpress and by theLinux Mint development team:
We consider MATE yet another desktop, just like KDE, Gnome 3, Xfce etc... and based on the popularity of Gnome 2 in previous releases of Linux Mint, we are dedicated to support it and to help it improve. The most popular Linux desktop was, and arguably is, Gnome 2.[17]
New features have been added to Caja such as undo/redo[18] and diff viewing for file replacements.[19] MATE 1.6 removes some deprecated libraries, moving from mate-conf (a fork ofGConf) toGSettings, and from mate-corba (a fork of GNOME'sBonobo) toD-Bus.
One of the aims of the MATE developers is to provide a traditional user experience while using the newest technologies. In MATE 1.20, which was released in February 2018, support forHiDPI was added and theGTK version got increased to 3.22. The MATE 1.22 release migrated many programs fromPython 2 to Python 3 and from dbus-glib toGDBus. In an upcoming version, support forWayland will be added.[20] MATE 1.28.2 had greater support for Wayland, but did not provide a completely seamless fully native Wayland session yet.[21]
Note that between each release, development versions are tagged with odd-numbered version numbers. These are not announced as official releases.
| Date | Version |
|---|---|
| 2011-06-18 | Announced at Arch Linux forum[22] |
| 2011-08-19 | Initial release[citation needed] |
| 2012-04-16 | 1.2 |
| 2012-07-30 | 1.4 |
| 2013-04-02 | 1.6 |
| 2014-03-04 | 1.8 |
| 2015-06-11 | 1.10 |
| 2015-11-05 | 1.12 |
| 2016-04-08 | 1.14 |
| 2016-09-21 | 1.16 |
| 2017-03-13 | 1.18 |
| 2018-02-07 | 1.20 |
| 2019-03-18 | 1.22 |
| 2020-02-10 | 1.24 |
| 2021-08-03 | 1.26 |
| 2024-02-12 | 1.28[23] |
The MATE website lists 27Linux distributions and 5Unix-likeoperating systems that support the MATE desktop environment.[24]
It is available on the official repositories of only 22 of those Linux distributions.[25]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(July 2025) |
MATE was praised for having a classic feel, with an "incredibly sharp" default theme and icon pack.[26] In addition, it was praised for being lightweight within the Ubuntu MATE operating system, a version of the Ubuntu desktop that uses MATE as its primary desktop environment.[27]
MATE has been praised for its speed and optimization being used dominantly on older machines. It has also been praised for its massive theming capabilities allowing users to also install themes.[28]
The inclusion of GNOME Shell in GNOME 3 was a controversial decision.[29] The users that preferred GNOME 2 have found MATE to be much more reliable for old-school users.[30]
Beginner users have praised the simplicity of MATE coming from its similarities to theMicrosoft Windows operating system, the MATE Welcome app and other factors.[30]
While you are at it, could you also fork gnome, and support a gnome-2 environment? –Linus Torvalds.
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