Well Hello MATE!

The other day we got a new Sabayon daily ISO to try out and use. This iso is for the MATE desktop environment. So you can head to your favorite mirror and download Sabayon_Linux_DAILY_amd64_MATE.iso and make yourself a live bootable disc or usb device.  I had previous tested out MATE by just installing it via limbo repo, which you can do also.  It’s  good to test the live iso and installing via entropy on an installed system.  Keep in mind that this is a young and new project so it may take some time to gain some features.  It’s also meant to be minimal stuff included.  You won’t find firefox or chromium as Midori is the default browser.  Feel free to give feed back on the Sabayon dev mailing list.  So lets take a look at this ISO: (click images for larger version)

Sabayon MATE Edition Default

On boot I was presented with the Login window so I selected MATE from the session type and typed in sabayonuser as username and than hit enter and this is what one will be presented with.  Notice there is a top panel, but it is blank.  You can simple add the items you want on the panel by right clicking on it.

Sabayon MATE Edition

As you can see in the above pic I added the menu, window list, clock, and a run application as there is no Alt + F2.  This is all personal preference as to what you want. Editing the background and themes is as easy as right clicking on the desktop and choosing change background.

Sabayon MATE Edition

Hey it’s getting better looking all the time. I had to use equo and install the faenza-icon-theme to get the icons with the theme.

Sabayon MATE Edition

So now I am liking how things are setup and was very simple and quick to do.  No need to hunt down or install crazy extra apps to change things around.

Sabayon MATE Edition

One thing still bugging me was the icons on the desktop.  In Linux mode, I do not like icons on my desktop, no matter what desktop environment.  With windows, I have icons all over my desktop, strange, but seems more of a windows thing to me. So I wanted to get rid of my icons. I had to install mate-extra/mate-conf-editor with equo.  I think personally this should be a default application as it allows customization.  Now my icons are gone, woot!

Sabayon MATE Edition

So there we are, remember to keep in mind that this is minimal so things like flash and java aren’t even there.  You can simple add what you need via entropy after install.  How about we make it bit more special and add in compiz fusion?

Sabayon MATE Edition

So I fired up equo and issued a command line:

equo install x11-wm/compiz-fusion x11-wm/compiz x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-mainx11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra x11-wm/emerald x11-themes/emerald-themes x11-apps/fusion-icon

I than added fusion-icon and emerald  - -replace to the Startup Applications under System – Preferences.  One thing you will need to do is fire up CCSM and make sure Window Decoration is checked otherwise you will loose your window decorations.  You will need to check other things also like move window and all that good stuff.  After that I logged out of the desktop environment and restarted xdm by doing  Ctrl +Alt + F1 at the login screen.  Once I logged back in, I had all the eye candy greeting me.  Wobbly windows, emerald, and cube of course.

Sabayon MATE Edition

So if you don’t like the new Gnome or KDE and miss the old gnome, this is about as close as you’re gonna get.  Download the ISO and give a test run or install it via entropy.  We would love to hear your input on it.

Enjoy!