MATE Desktop Environment Unofficial Backports

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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 3rd, '13, 21:07

I'm going for this also and I may give some feedback on any glitches I stumble over. As far as Gnome 3, I'll install a button on my lower lip and a buttonhole on the upper, and keep it closed for now. :) Suffice to say, I think an eventual Gnome 4 willl be very much like Gnome 2.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 4th, '13, 21:06

I got setup fine with Mate. I had checked everything in the repo list to make sure I was complete. Getting a single panel at the bottom populated to my liking was easy enough and I got a good color scheme going. I only have a couple niggles so far. First, I always prefer to have single-click to open anything. In Nautilus/edit/preferences/behaviors single-click is already selected but it doesn't work. I tried setting it to double-click to toggle it off and on but when re-opening, it is still set on single-click and still not working. I can't remember if I had had changed it in Gnome 3 beforehand or not. I seem to recall it was flaky in Gnome 3, sometimes taking one click and sometimes 2 but I'm not positive on that. In a live session on my laptop, Gnome 3 is working perfectly as far as single-click after selecting it. I tried logging out in the desktop to log into a Gnome 3 session to check it but I get a "Oops, something went wrong" or such message. That's the other niggle so far. Maybe this signifies a Gnome incompatibility? I was able to log in to a Gnome Classic session. Same faulty single-click there - it's check-marked but not working. Please verify if the single-click problem might be consistent. Otherwise, things look positive from here so far. I'm liking a green scheme except for dark text on medium-dark green in places is hard to see.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby tarakbumba » Jun 4th, '13, 22:45

I' ll check this soon. Btw, did you tried it with a new user? Another GNOME user said there are 2 MATE entries in gdm, but not told about an issue like yours.
Last edited by doktor5000 on Jun 4th, '13, 23:04, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: removed fullquote
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby doktor5000 » Jun 4th, '13, 23:05

Please next time do not use fullquotes, but only use the Reply function. Greatly improves clarity and reading flow ;)
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby tarakbumba » Jun 4th, '13, 23:19

Ok. Sorry...
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby doktor5000 » Jun 5th, '13, 00:12

Naah, no need to to be sorry :D
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 5th, '13, 00:15

I have to run some errands before I can try as a new user. I did try logging out and then back in as root. If I log into this same iteration of Mate (about halfway down the list) I get the brief red screen and then a new Mate desktop. I just checked and both Mate listings are one and the same. That is, if I log out of one and into the other, I have my same open apps. As root, I also had the same failure of single-click. I get the same failure if logging into Gnome Classic as either me or root.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby ralgith » Jun 5th, '13, 06:52

I'm pretty happy so far...
My one annoyance is that all the Gnome specific configuration programs that share the same names as MATE ones show. This would require a modification to their desktop entries to only show if the desktop is Gnome. Things like Preferred Applications. This is especially true since the Gnome one doesn't get populated with option.

My one other complaint is CREBS, but that is the fault of the CREBS author, not of MATE ;) Since CREBS seems to be abandoned, maybe I'll need to fork it. I already make a Mageia 3 RPM of it for myself, but with unmodified code. I need to modify code anyways so that manual hacks aren't required under Gnome 3, so I may as well add MATE support while I'm at it. In the meantime... if anyone wishes to add my repo and use CREBS (it's in the noarch section) you can do so via my urpmi file. To get the wallpapers into Gnome 3 you need to use the Terminal to do:
GSETTINGS_BACKEND=dconf gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri 'file:///home/dylan/.crebs/<filename>.xml'
While for Mate you right click your desktop, choose change desktop background, click the add button, use ctrl-h to show hidden files/folders, enter the ~/.crebs folder, change file type from images to all, and then select the appropriate XML. You may be wondering why I would use that when MATE supports chosing a folder. The reasn is that CREBS allows me to pick and choose my images, regardless of where they are. Which means I can use 2 images from one folder, 7 from another, and 6 more from another. I like that ;)

Otherwise, so far it seems pretty stable and I'm enjoying having my "Gnome 2" type look back so much. Thank you tarakbumba! I definitely want this in Mageia 4 as a permanent package.

Oh, and while typing this, I just noticed another issue. Mail-Notification doesn't always stay in the system tray (For MATE, I never had issues under Gnome 3 Fallback), even with new mail available. I noticed in Mageia 3 that it no longer is visible in the tray unless there is new mail. I dislike this behavior, and I'd like the old behavior back where it is always in the tray. Does anyone know if this is possible and if so how to do it?
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby ralgith » Jun 5th, '13, 07:08

And, I just found another bug. Sometimes when starting a program (Noticed with both gedit and pluma) that was last used maximized it will start maximized, but the minimize, restore, and close icons are missing and the title bar is the wrong color. I can correct it by right clicking the program on the taskbar and choosing to restore it, and then maximizing it again, however I always have gedit (and now pluma) stay maximized because that's how I prefer to use it. That makes this bug a huge annoyance for me.

EDIT 2: Instead of doing the above described right click on taskbar procedure I chose to close it while it was "bad" since I was done using it, and upon the next opening it has stopped doing the "bad". So at least it's fixed for me for the moment.


EDIT: Attached screenshots.
Pluma_Bad_Bar.png
Pluma_Bad_Bar.png (90.78 KiB) Viewed 6548 times

Pluma_Good_Bar.png
Pluma_Good_Bar.png (80.31 KiB) Viewed 6548 times
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby ralgith » Jun 5th, '13, 10:00

And... another issue. Java programs' menus and comboboxes don't work. They wont stay dropped down by mouse click. That's pretty much a deal-breaker right there since I'm a Java programmer.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 5th, '13, 16:15

I created a test user and still have the failure to get single-click to work. I didn't expect any different since root had the same but it doesn't hurt to have a test user for trying things out.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby tarakbumba » Jun 5th, '13, 21:16

ralgith wrote:And... another issue. Java programs' menus and comboboxes don't work. They wont stay dropped down by mouse click. That's pretty much a deal-breaker right there since I'm a Java programmer.

It is about Java not Mate as i understand. Please see Mate Issue#30. We need Mageia's Java should be patched but while Mate is not in official development we need to wait.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby tarakbumba » Jun 5th, '13, 21:51

azziam wrote:First, I always prefer to have single-click to open anything. In Nautilus/edit/preferences/behaviors single-click is already selected but it doesn't work. I tried setting it to double-click to toggle it off and on but when re-opening, it is still set on single-click and still not working.

Upstream has solved this issue. AFAIK it is after mate-file-manager 1.6.1 release. I'll patch my packages to fix this issue soon.

I'm also trying to reproduce your second issue, the login to GNOME3 issue, i need to know if this problem occurs only for you or other GNOME users. There is no such an issue in kdm or lxdm here.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby ralgith » Jun 5th, '13, 22:22

tarakbumba wrote:It is about Java not Mate as i understand. Please see Mate Issue#30. We need Mageia's Java should be patched but while Mate is not in official development we need to wait.


In that case... any chance you could package wmname so we can use that as a workaround in the meantime?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ja ... ow_Manager
http://tools.suckless.org/wmname
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 6th, '13, 18:57

I hope the single-click is fixed soon. Still, I may not even wait for it before making this my main desktop. My pclos gnome is perfect and pretty but it has one problem which I won't go into here. I'm having a little difficulty customizing Mate with the existing themes. Even after downloading and installing some additional controls and window borders, they don't seem to come out as they are intended to. There seems to be an underlying something that wants to make lot of things blue. Example - The theme called Traditional green is Blue and I can't seem to get a green window title bar. I also want my panel clock to have white letters/numbers instead of black but any theme that gives me that isn't looking good for me. Are you using compiz to get the transpareny in your title bar of your first screenshot? Here's what I have so far:

Image
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby tarakbumba » Jun 6th, '13, 23:38

ralgith wrote:In that case... any chance you could package wmname so we can use that as a workaround in the meantime?

I' m a bit busy here. If i can get some spare time why not? I can package that.

azziam wrote:I hope the single-click is fixed soon. Still, I may not even wait for it before making this my main desktop. My pclos gnome is perfect and pretty but it has one problem which I won't go into here. I'm having a little difficulty customizing Mate with the existing themes. Even after downloading and installing some additional controls and window borders, they don't seem to come out as they are intended to. There seems to be an underlying something that wants to make lot of things blue. Example - The theme called Traditional green is Blue and I can't seem to get a green window title bar. I also want my panel clock to have white letters/numbers instead of black but any theme that gives me that isn't looking good for me. Are you using compiz to get the transpareny in your title bar of your first screenshot? Here's what I have so far

Caja update pushed. Please test and feedback.
Would you mind to link this Traditional Green theme if it is not already in mate-themes package?
And yep, compiz was running in screenshots...
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 7th, '13, 00:25

Ah, I have Caja 1.6.1-5 and I have single-click after rebooting. Actually, it's not just Traditional Green (and yes, it is one of the stock selections). I have a bright blue title bar whether I select Trad. Gr., Crux, Quid (purple), or any other window border except for a few like Black Mate, Green Laguna, Menta, and maybe a few more. Is it possible to blow away all themes and start again without my butt falling off? If there were just some default that would reset everything it would be good. Maybe there is some bug lettnig this blue stay persistent from some theme I tried. I'll try compiz anyway and probably override everything. I haven't used any compositing in a ling time. Always figured it just used up resources.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby tarakbumba » Jun 7th, '13, 18:58

@azizam, i can not see the theme issue on my desktop:
Image

You can delete your theme settings by deleting ~/.config/mate and if exists .gtk2rc file...
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby ralgith » Jun 7th, '13, 22:05

I also see the theme issue. Currently using the Traditional Green, but my program title bars are blue for active and gray for inactive.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 8th, '13, 00:10

For unrelated problems with my Thinderbird and Firefox, I completely reformatted and re-installed Mageia from scratch. This gave me a chance to double-check a couple problems. I played around with Gnome 3 again for some time before gettnig back to Mate. I tried exploring what Mageia/Gnome 3 had on hand for apprearance customizing. In selecting a few different themes to have a peek at, it seemed to me they also were possibly blue when they should been something different. In fact I don't think I've seen any title bar in either DE that wasn't bright blue or some gray or white. Maybe a bug somewhere in Mageia, I think. OTOH, I don't know much about how the DE integrates with the OS. I noticed when I installed Mate again that the 2 Mate entries are still in the list for log-in session. I still am unable to log out and into a Gnome 3 session. I saw the Gnome 3 blank desktop in the color I'd left it but the failure notice popped up before anything loaded.
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby tarakbumba » Jun 8th, '13, 21:39

Ok, i think i have find gnome3 and duplicate MATE entries bugs source and how to fix them. To confirm these @aziziem please follow these steps and feedback; after that i will update relevant packages:
1- Please move /usr/share/xsessions/mate.desktop elsewhere or
Code: Select all
mv  /usr/share/xsessions/mate.desktop  /usr/share/xsessions/mate.desktop.bak


Does this removes duplicate MATE entry in gdm? (mate-session-manager package)

2- Please modify /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop and replace
Code: Select all
NotShowIn=KDE;

line with this:
Code: Select all
OnlyShowIn=MATE;


Can you open gnome-shell session? (mate-polkit package)

Please, open bug report at my github repo for each of these for future reading.

I'm also searching the themes issue. While gnome 3 installed, i get almost same issue with you, except color is not blue but orange...
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 9th, '13, 17:13

I couldn't test any of this last night because I tried maybe 10 times and Mageia would not boot up but just get to some point and stop. I was going to photo the screen this morning. with my camera but it booted up first try.

Item #1 is fixed by following your instruction. I logged out and back in and saw now just one Mate entry in session list.

#2 I am unable to open /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop but just get an option to launch it and nothing happens. I tried in a terminal:
Code: Select all
[pete@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost pete]# gedit /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop

(gedit:8015): EggSMClient-WARNING **: Failed to connect to the session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported


** (gedit:8015): WARNING **: Could not connect to session bus
[root@localhost pete]#


What is the proper method to edit that line?
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby doktor5000 » Jun 9th, '13, 17:21

azziam wrote:#2 I am unable to open /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop but just get an option to launch it and nothing happens. I tried in a terminal:
Code: Select all
[pete@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost pete]# gedit /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop
** (gedit:8015): WARNING **: Could not connect to session bus
[root@localhost pete]#


For graphical programs you should use su - or gksu.
Otherwise there's no "proper methode", just use any editor you like, maybe vim, mcedit, nano, emacs ...
You could even use sed to change that line ...
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby ralgith » Jun 9th, '13, 18:35

joe is my editor of choice on the command line ;)
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Re: [Preview] MATE Desktop Environment

Postby azziam » Jun 9th, '13, 20:39

Evidently, su - does not work in Mate. gksu (never used it before)pops up a dialog to enter what I want to run and as who. My guess was to enter in the Run box "gedit /etc/xdg/autostart/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop" As I said, it was a guess. I'm not seeing a way to get to the contents of polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1.desktop to edit a line.

Code: Select all
[pete@desktop1 ~]$ su -
su: user - does not exist
[pete@desktop1 ~]$ gksu

(gedit:7780): EggSMClient-WARNING **: Failed to connect to the session manager: None of the authentication protocols specified are supported


** (gedit:7780): WARNING **: Trying to register gtype 'GSocketMsgFlags' as enum when in fact it is of type 'GFlags'
[pete@desktop1 ~]$
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