"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." (Robert A. Heinlein)

Friday, 31 July 2015

Test Drive: Ubuntu Mate 15.04 on the EEEPC 900


Ubuntu Mate is a Ubuntu derivative distribution equipped with Mate desktop environment. Ubuntu Mate has been recently admitted among the official Ubuntu derivatives, I've been reading some very positive post about it so I decided for giving it a quick (live) look on the EEEPC even if I had already reinstalled my netbook computer with Xubuntu,

First impressions

After the usual process of preparing a USB disk an booting the netbook from it I've been welcomed from a very Gnome-2-looking interface.
The default interface provide the usual Applications, Places and System menus:


 
Compliant to the “old style” philosophy Mate offers a great variety of settings
and setting-up your customized desktop is just matter of minutes

Nice but … is it worth switching to?

Mate on Ubuntu works fine and it's lightweight enough to run smooth even on the EEEPC. I can see advantages of using Mate over more heavyweight desktops like Gnome or Unity but would I have any advantages in using Mate instead of XFCE on my netbook? XFCE already provide me with all the “classic” user interface features together with a great stability and community support. Mate doesn't have any visible lack of features but also doesn't have anything of really appealing to make me think over my EEEPC installation choice. I'll keep en eye on it, of course, since I'm still curious to see how this desktop environment, born like a “Gnome 2 replica”, is going to be in the future.

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