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#1 Re: DIY » Announcement of the OpenMATE desktop environment » 2024-03-21 13:31:27

GitHub was chosen simply as a means to kickstart the project, I do not and will never endorse any corporate-driven initiatives. Please keep off-topic discussion to a minimum.

The new rebased sources are up. The first stage will consist in carefully renaming the original GNOME sources to match MATE ones, like nautilus -> caja. Any help or suggestion is appreciated.

https://github.com/OpenMATE-Project

#3 Re: DIY » Announcement of the OpenMATE desktop environment » 2024-02-04 17:42:53

But your website https://github.com/OpenMATE-Desktop-Environment is still a "404 Page not found"!

I figured that the old organization name was a bit too verbose and since I see some interest in downstream projects such as mintMenu, I've created another, more suitable one. Can't edit the OP though.

https://github.com/OpenMATE-Project

#4 Re: DIY » Announcement of the OpenMATE desktop environment » 2024-02-04 16:11:52

Hello and thanks for your continued interest in this project.

Since I moved development and research to GNOME 2.x-based sources, the ones in the repo were outdated and it didn't make sense to keep them up as they would not be used anymore. I want to upload the sources in an already usable state, so that's taking some time while I sand the few quirks that still stand out e.g broken wallpaper rendering from Caja.

I'll spin a Devuan remix featuring the core of the desktop experience once I'm satisfied with the current state of OpenMATE. Here's something for the old school folks:

AawxS5Q.png

#5 Re: DIY » Announcement of the OpenMATE desktop environment » 2024-01-08 02:12:52

Happy new year! I've stalled a bit on the project since I discovered some breaking changes in MATE that are difficult to follow as their commit history is not as constant as GNOME's, so I'll rebase the sources on the very last GNOME 2 branches and rebrand them to match MATE ones.

Please let me know about your expectations on OpenMATE. Any more suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Would be amazing if you forked mint-menu (AKA MATE Advanced Menu) or brisk-menu as well, to go alongside her. She'd be unstoppable then! And it wouldn't have that awful regression where mint-menu can no longer have a custom icon.

I've taken a look at mintMenu and it seems doable for someone to take on this, as its last gtk+2 version isn't that old.

#6 Re: DIY » Announcement of the OpenMATE desktop environment » 2023-12-22 17:24:34

Thanks for all the encouragement! I really wasn't expecting such a positive reaction since caring for user experience unfortunely seems like a really niche thing these days.

Updated the announcement with repos and additional info.

#7 Re: DIY » Announcement of the OpenMATE desktop environment » 2023-12-16 15:50:06

Ron wrote:

Good news. I've been using Mate since I started with Linux, but with each new Mate release have been a little disappointed. Based on your screenshot, should we assume that the version of Mate you forked from is 1.4?

Yes, it will start from 1.4. Changes and improvements from later branches will be carefully cherry-picked, since most of them are unwanted such as gtk+3 bringup. Why 1.4? Because that's the last release that used MateConf instead of GSettings, and one of the goals of this project is to rely as little as possible on upstream GNOME.

#8 DIY » Announcement of the OpenMATE desktop environment » 2023-12-16 00:38:52

mrnhmath
Replies: 36

Hello! I would like to introduce an ambitious endeavor that attemps to bring some sense into the world of chaos that we live in.

The OpenMATE desktop environment is an intuitive and attractive desktop for Unix-like systems that uses traditional GUI metaphors. It is a fork of MATE, which in turn is a fork of the much-hailed GNOME 2.

This new project abides to freedesktop.org standards and specifications, but it makes an explicit stance on the display server debate by not embracing the structurally-flawed Wayland protocol. OpenMATE recognizes the importance and legacy of the X Window System protocol and will continue to use and promote its facilities.

Repos can be found at our Github organization. As can be seen, there's not much going on for now except for one little additional source for the future Goanna-based help viewer. Development will take place as we pick desirable changes from each upstream release branch.

Here's a sneak peek on what's to come. Anyone in for a Devuan remix featuring OpenMATE?

f8pMJbL.png

#9 Re: News & Announcements » Shape of things to come? 8^° » 2023-11-30 16:56:07

Salvation lies within ourselves. We don't need corporations dictating what should we use and this community is further proof of that.

#10 Re: Off-topic » Weak processor + minimal DE = no miracle! » 2023-11-23 18:10:27

Pale Moon doesn't require PulseAudio and permits disabling WebM directly in the settings. It's also inherently lightweight compared to Blink/Gecko/WebKit clones, that's why I suggested it, though YouTube will be just as a struggle as in a modern machine.

#11 Re: Off-topic » Weak processor + minimal DE = no miracle! » 2023-11-23 17:29:29

You're really pushing it by using a Chromium derivative with Brave-added garbage on top. Might have better luck with Pale Moon.

#12 Re: DIY » So I guess there's no getting around having to use GTK3 and Wayland? » 2023-11-22 18:31:33

Of course there is, it's open source after all. Just like Devuan works around systemd, with enough effort we can deal with GTK 3 and Wayland.

Here's my hacked-up fork of MATE. It's based on an old version that doesn't depend as much on "modern" XDG libraries and retains the light, familiar form and function of GNOME 2. If there's enough interest on something like this, I can clean it up and start a proper project.

#13 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Question - adding earlier Devuan repos as option restore to Python2 » 2023-08-31 22:08:55

You can compile it from source or manually download and install the python2.7 and libpython2.7-stdlib deb packages from the oldstable repository.

#15 Re: News & Announcements » Beowulf Beta is here! » 2020-05-01 22:17:58

golinux wrote:
mrnhmath wrote:

Should we override upstream and build xfce4 with gtk2 instead?

lol lol lol lol lol

Just who is the "we" that you propose should undertake this enormous task?  "We" are overworked and understaffed and our mission is to deal with systemd encroachments not everyone's personal wish list.  File a "bug" upstream with Xfce for starts.

Sorry if I came off as pushy, it wasn't my intention. By "we" I meant that some folks here seem to share this opinion, so it could be something for discussion.

#16 Re: News & Announcements » Beowulf Beta is here! » 2020-05-01 21:37:06

Been enjoying the beta so far except for one thing: the mix of gtk2 and gtk3 across the desktop components. What can be done about this? Should we override upstream and build xfce4 with gtk2 instead?

#17 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » compile firefox-esr (52) --enable-alsa ? » 2020-03-05 23:32:53

Forget Firefox 52, Basilisk will give you the same experience but with security fixes and improvements across the board.

#18 Re: Off-topic » Xfce 4.15 and client-side decorations (CSD) » 2020-01-21 19:04:23

Seems like the people who took over Xfce have no clue what its user base consists of.

#19 Re: Devuan » Meet cinnabar (Beowulf default theme) » 2019-05-31 19:59:33

Gosh that looks sexy. As a fan of Clearlooks and dark red, the new theme sounds like music to my ears.

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