Ubuntu MATE seeking maintainers as the creator looks to move on

Ubuntu Mate, "Wimpress Mate" to be precise, has been my favourite take on this DE.
True labour of love, the only distro that has tempted me to switch away from Mint.
This man is not a simple "maintainer" and cannot be replaced at least not easily.

Let's hope the new maintainer will finally do what we're all waiting for and rename it to Mubuntu.

Quoting: tmtvlLet's hope the new maintainer will finally do what we're all waiting for and rename it to Mubuntu.

M'buntu tips hat

I used Ubuntu MATE as my main distro on my laptop in 2019 when I was still learning linux I really like the "familiar" layout and still use the layout in KDE. Wish the layout that they had could be easily be put on other ditros never could get the layouts out side of ubuntu mate. Hope they can get someone to step up.

You can also always use GhostBSD if you really like the MATE desktop. Not Linux, but FreeBSD kicks ass too.

What's the attraction of MATE over Cinnamon or current GNOME with classic-look extensions? Serious question, not trying to start any desktop wars.

Quoting: wytrabbit

Quoting: tmtvlLet's hope the new maintainer will finally do what we're all waiting for and rename it to Mubuntu.

M'buntu tips hat

Muubuntu

Quoting: wytrabbit

Quoting: tmtvlLet's hope the new maintainer will finally do what we're all waiting for and rename it to Mubuntu.

M'buntu tips hat

Muubuntu

Quoting: PhlebiacWhat's the attraction of MATE over Cinnamon or current GNOME with classic-look extensions? Serious question, not trying to start any desktop wars.

I'm using MATE on arch. The attraction for me is that the thing just works without breakages or problems. I know exactly how it behaves from years of using it and it does exactly what i need it to do without any problems.

I ran it for some time a good while back. Too many issues with compositor with only good old "compiz" really doing everything I needed it to do. But that too degraded over time until I just had to leave it. It always felt like they did not just stick to traditional desktop paradigms, but stuck with old tech as well. How is it doing with Wayland?

Mate itself is still stuck on x isn't it? With all the distros dropping x and going wayland only, if mate doesn't migrate to full wayland support as cinnamon is doing, will it even have a future at all?

Quoting: EhvisI ran it for some time a good while back. Too many issues with compositor with only good old "compiz" really doing everything I needed it to do. But that too degraded over time until I just had to leave it. It always felt like they did not just stick to traditional desktop paradigms, but stuck with old tech as well. How is it doing with Wayland?

theres picom option these days (MATEs own software rendering compositor is bad yeah). But i personally don't care or use compositor at all. Snappy and responsive desktop without any fluff animations is what i value more.

Quoting: JarmerMate itself is still stuck on x isn't it? With all the distros dropping x and going wayland only, if mate doesn't migrate to full wayland support as cinnamon is doing, will it even have a future at all?

there is experimental wayland support also but it's very basic and broken.

What distros are dropping X11 support? there are still things that dont work on wayland some people require, so i doubt X will go anywhere soon. If that time comes we will see.

Quoting: XpanderWhat distros are dropping X11 support? there are still things that dont work on wayland some people require, so i doubt X will go anywhere soon. If that time comes we will see.

All of them...

Fedora
Ubuntu
Opensuse
Popos
Mint
Gnome (I know not a distro, it's a de, but still relevent) is fully wayland only, no x at all.
^ this is just off the top of my head, I could look up more, but it's pretty much all the major parent distros.

I'm sure you can add X back in to some of these if you want, but that's not the point. X will of course still be used by the legacy people, but every day that passes that percentage will go down and down until there's a stable like 0.1% or something.

Last edited by Jarmer on 31 Mar 2026 at 2:29 pm UTC

^
Sigh, I guess I'll have a tough time ahead of me, since I do need X11 for my Steam Controller mouse support.

Quoting: Jarmer

Quoting: XpanderWhat distros are dropping X11 support? there are still things that dont work on wayland some people require, so i doubt X will go anywhere soon. If that time comes we will see.

All of them...

Fedora
Ubuntu
Opensuse
Popos
Mint
Gnome (I know not a distro, it's a de, but still relevent) is fully wayland only, no x at all.
^ this is just off the top of my head, I could look up more, but it's pretty much all the major parent distros.

I'm sure you can add X back in to some of these if you want, but that's not the point. X will of course still be used by the legacy people, but every day that passes that percentage will go down and down until there's a stable like 0.1% or something.

Technically, isn't it the desktop environments that are adding Wayland support, not the distros?

However, adding Wayland support does not equal removing Xorg support. The Mint team, for example is adding Wayland support to the Cinnamon desktop. They are not, however, removing Xorg support. KDE is shipping Plasma with Wayland enabled, but they have not completely removed Xorg support either. XFCE is in the alpha stages for Wayland, but they always move slowly.

I can't speak to Gnome, Cosmic or Budgie. Haven't been following them as closely. I will admit that I have heard that Fedora and Ubuntu intend to ship with Wayland as default but that does not mean that they are dropping Xorg, just that they are favoring Wayland -- likely because their DE of choice is also doing so.

That being said, one of my laptops has a Kepler GPU. As long as I remain on the proprietary driver, I will never be able to use Wayland on that laptop. Many users of legacy Nvidia hardware will be in the same state. If only Nvidia would let the open-source community take over full management of their legacy GPU drivers instead of hording tech secrets on what they consider to be defunct hardware. If Nvidia thinks they will force legacy hardware enthusiasts to buy their new GPUs by denying us support, then they are truly clueless...

Go NVK!

Last edited by Caldathras on 31 Mar 2026 at 5:44 pm UTC

Quoting: PhlebiacWhat's the attraction of MATE over Cinnamon or current GNOME with classic-look extensions? Serious question, not trying to start any desktop wars.

Well, the attraction over GNOME with extensions is that from what I've heard on this site many, many times, extensions tend to break when GNOME gets a significant update, and I'd rather have something that keeps on working. I do kind of wonder if it would feel like something I'm uncomfortable with, but with an overlay, rather than just feeling comfortable.

Anyway I like Mint, which doesn't really do GNOME. I was actually one of the GNOME 2 users who moved to Mint when I couldn't hack GNOME 3 (and around the same time Mandrake, I mean Mandriva, died). Odd to realize that's ancient history now.

Cinnamon . . . I haven't tried it in a while, so I don't know what it's like these days. It's certainly available to me as a Mint user, so I probably will give it another shot at some point. Back when I was first deciding which to use, Cinnamon was earlyish days and felt kind of . . . brittle, plus there was a function I wanted that it wouldn't at that time do. Probably does that function nowadays and probably feels fine now, but MATE does everything I want the way I want it and feels comfortable, so I just haven't had much motivation to investigate.