MATE

Keywording[edit | edit source]

MATE is available for x86 and amd64. As of March 2019, testing versions are available for ~arm and ~arm64. Adding support for ~ppc is being considered. The status of MATE keywording can be tracked in bug #508072.

USE flags[edit | edit source]

First enable or disable desired USE flags for mate-base/mate.

Packages[edit | edit source]

To install the MATE desktop environment meta package run the following command:

Additional software[edit | edit source]

Display manager (DM)[edit | edit source]

To make the display manager work specify a MATE session (mate-session) in the configuration of the display manager; some perform this action interactively, others will need to have a configuration file modified. The default session can also often be changed by setting XSESSION="Mate" in /etc/env.d/90xsession:

XSESSION="Mate"

The MATE team recommends LightDM as the display manager. Install x11-misc/lightdm:

DISPLAYMANAGER="lightdm"

Manual start[edit | edit source]

To start MATE manually create a ~/.xinitrc file in a user's home directory. Make its contents as follows:

exec mate-session

Note that a ck-launch-session and/or dbus-launch may be needed between exec mate-session for ConsoleKit and/or DBUS communication to work, for example:

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch mate-session

Compositing[edit | edit source]

Compositing is not enabled by default. To enable compositing run System → Preferences → Windows and click the tick box alongside Enable software compositing window manager in the General tab.

Window centering[edit | edit source]

Window centering is not enabled by default. To enable window centering run System → Preferences → Windows and click the tick box alongside Center new windows in the Placement tab.

Window snapping[edit | edit source]

Window snapping is not enabled by default. To enable window snapping run System → Preferences → Windows and click on the tick box alongside Enable side by side tiling in the Placement tab.

Change applications menu icon[edit | edit source]

The applications menu icon is set to start-here by default. To use a different icon, copy your icon to a folder such as /usr/local/share/pixmaps and execute the following:

Where icon is the name of the icon without the file extension. Restart MATE panel.

Show or hide desktop icons[edit | edit source]

Desktop icons are enabled by default. They can be hidden or shown individually using dconf.

Show volume control[edit | edit source]

To control pulseaudio and see the volume control icon in the notification area, make sure to compile media-libs/libmatemixer with pulseaudio USE enabled.

Applications[edit | edit source]

This is a list of GNOME 2 applications that have been renamed and included in the MATE desktop environment.

Icon	GNOME 2	MATE	Type
	Alacarte (alacarte)	Mozo (mozo)	Menu editor
	About GNOME (gnome-about)	About MATE (mate-about)	About Desktop Environment
	Baobab (baobab)	Disk Usage Analyzer (mate-disk-usage-analyzer)	Disk usage analyzer
	Control Center (gnome-control-center)	Control Center (mate-control-center)	Example
	Evince (evince)	Atril (atril)	Document Viewer
	Eye of GNOME (eog)	Eye of MATE (eom)	Image Viewer
	File Roller (file-roller)	Engrampa (engrampa)	File Archive Manager
	GConf (gconftool-2, gconf-editor)	MateConf (mateconftool-2, mateconf-editor)	DE Configuration System
	Gedit (gedit)	Pluma (pluma)	Text Editor
	Metacity (metacity)	Marco (marco)	Window Manager
	Nautilus (nautilus)	Caja (caja)	File Manager
	Take Screenshot (gnome-screenshot)	Take Screenshot (mate_screenshot)	Screen Capture Tool
	Terminal (gnome-terminal)	Terminal (mate-terminal)	Terminal
	Zenity (zenity)	MateDialog (matedialog)	GTK Dialog Boxes

Applets[edit | edit source]

This is a list of GNOME 2 panel applets that have been renamed and included in the MATE desktop environment.

Icon	GNOME 2	MATE	Type
	gweather	mateweather	Panel Weather Applet
	gnome-invest-applet	mate-invest-applet	Stock Tracking Applet
	gnome-netspeed-applet	mate-netspeed-applet	View Internet Speed
	gnome-inhibit-applet	mate-inhibit-applet	Inhibit Power Saving
	gnome-trash-applet	mate-trash-applet	Shortcut to Trash
	gnome-panel-notification area	mate-panel-notification-area	Notification Area
	gnome-panel-window-list	mate-panel-window-list	Switch Windows using the Taskbar
	gnome-panel-window-menu	mate-panel-window-menu	Switch Windows using a Menu
	gnome-panel-workspace-switcher	mate-panel-workspace-switcher	Switch Workspaces
	gnome-sticky-notes-applet	mate-sticky-notes-applet	Create, View, Manage Sticky Notes

Autostart[edit | edit source]

MATE is capable of automatically running binaries or scripts on a per-user basis.

Autostart entries can be added via System → Preferences → Start Applications.

From the command-line, entries can be added in the ~/.config/autostart directory as XDG formatted .desktop files. Be sure to include a line that says X-MATE-Autostart-enabed=true. For example:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/path/to/executable
Hidden=false
Name=Autostart example
Comment=This file shows that the line below is needed for MATE to autostart an executable
X-MATE-Autostart-enabled=true

Does MATE rely on a specific service manager or init system?[edit | edit source]

No, MATE has been tested to work with both OpenRC and systemd and might work on other service managers and init systems too (untested, but no known reason for it to break); systemd support was added in release 1.6.

Can MATE be installed side-by-side GNOME packages or do they block?[edit | edit source]

As the MATE packages use their own categories, it is possible to have MATE and GNOME 3 installed at the same time which allows you to test either; taking it even a step further, if you change MATE to not have a top panel (as it gets hidden under the GNOME 3 shell) you can even start mate-session within GNOME 3 and run MATE and GNOME 3 at the same time.

How do I enable the panel shadow?[edit | edit source]

Due to a race condition, the panel shadow does not appear after logging in to the MATE desktop, even with compositing enabled. You must first copy /usr/share/applications/mate-panel.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/mate-panel.desktop. Then set X-MATE-Autostart-Phase to Applications, and add a delay:

X-MATE-Autostart-Phase=Applications
X-MATE-Autostart-Delay=2
X-MATE-Provides=windowmanager
X-MATE-Autostart-Notify=true

You may need to adjust the delay as needed. Finally, restart Marco with the following command:

Using MATE with dual screens[edit | edit source]

When using MATE desktop with multiple screens, it must be emerged with the xinerama USE flag enabled. Specifically, the window manager that is powering mate-desktop, which is x11-wm/marco. This will solve issues like windows being maximized over both screens in MATE desktop.

Using MATE with Android phones[edit | edit source]

To connect Android devices and open them in mate-base/caja you need to compile gnome-base/gvfs with the mtp USE flag.

Can I replace the default screen-shot tool with X?[edit | edit source]

mate-screenshot is provided in mate-extra/mate-utils provides basic screenshot capabilities. If you don't like it and need a more advanced tool, like x11-misc/shutter you can replace the default behavior of the Print Screen button by editing the following configurations option with dconf-edtior:

org.mate.marco.keybinding-commands.command-screenshot $your-command

If you feel comfortable doing this with the command line you can do:

or with:

Suspend and Hibernate buttons are missing from the shutdown dialog[edit | edit source]

If only "Restart Cancel Shutdown" buttons appear in the dialog, make sure both mate-base/mate-session-manager and mate-base/mate-power-manager were built with elogind flag.

GLib-GObject-ERROR: object GsmAutostartApp 0x73ca40 finalized while still in-construction[edit | edit source]

When you get this error (see ~/.materc-errors), it is usually preceded by a warning, fixing the warning could fix the problem; for example, when I get to see:

mate-session[881]: WARNING: Could not parse desktop file /home/username/.config/autostart/some-naughty-broken-program.desktop: Key file does not have key 'Name'
mate-session[881]: GLib-GObject-ERROR: object GsmAutostartApp 0x73ca40 finalized while still in-construction

In this case, you can resolve this by moving away the desktop file or fixing it up by adding the Name key. If you want a clean start, you can move those files out of the way by backing them up:

Failure to emerge due to conflicts with x11-libs/gtk+:3 and x11-themes/mate-themes{,-meta}[edit | edit source]

Unfortunately, due to some packaging requirements, there is the potential for users to have an issue with proper dependency resolution when installing mate-themes{,-meta}. Generally speaking, the simplest solution is to oneshot the appropriate mate-themes package, allowing subsequent emerges to happen without issue. For example, if you have x11-libs/gtk+-3.18 installed, you will want to

or if you have gtk+-3.20 installed, you will want to