How to customize Linux Mint MATE?

[kokakolia]

Hi, so I just installed Linux Mint Mate on my laptop (Dell E7440). It's working rather well! But the default theme is uggo. So I went to "Appearance" and clicked on "Get more themes online". And it brings me to Gnome Look. So I download a theme...now what?

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

You have to choose which parts of it to activate. 

 

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/211535/installing-a-theme-mint-17-2

 

P.s. shoul've gotten cinnamon.

[kokakolia]

2 minutes ago, NoRomanBatmansAllowed said:

You have to choose which parts of it to activate. 

 

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/211535/installing-a-theme-mint-17-2

 

P.s. shoul've gotten cinnamon.

Well, I just switched to the built-in Mint-y dark theme and it looks okay. I just don't like having a grey interface. Why is Cinnamon better? It looks all the same to me LOL

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

1 minute ago, kokakolia said:

Well, I just switched to the built-in Mint-y dark theme and it looks okay. I just don't like having a grey interface. 

 

You know what I loved doing? 

 

The store had a Windows 10 theme (so windows, toolbar, start icon all looked like win10). Then, I added the default Windows 10 background. Looked pretty nice.

 

2 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

Why is Cinnamon better?

I just like it better, as someone who usually uses windows.

 

"Mate is based on Gnome 2 and it is a fork. Mate is good for low powered computers are people who like gnome 2. Mate suports GTK 2 and 3 themes. Mate doe not need powerfull hardware and can run better with open source drivers. Mate works good on arm, ppc, arm, and mips. Cinnamon is a fork of gnome 3 that uses gtk 3 and needs hardware acceleraton witch means a video card with good graphics drivers. Cinnamon looks like "windows" with its menu. Cinnamon has add ons, it's own thems, extensions, and desklets. Cinnamon is for people who want a more modern classic desktop unlike gnome. As a fork of Gnome it has many of its own applicatons like Nemo wich is a fork of Nautilus witch keeps removeing features. Mint them selfs make Cinnamon while Mate is made by the mate project. Cinnamon now has xapps in 18. Other tools for cinnamon or mint update, the mint software sources, ext. Cinnamon runs on other distros as whell like mangaro, cinbuntu, antergros, suse spins, PC-BSD. If you want a low powered desktop go with mate, want a modern desktop go with Cinnamon. There is also KDE witch is full of settings that you can treak to you hearts content and then there is the real widnows like DE XFCE."

Spoiler

 

 

[kokakolia]

Thanks! 

 

I am gonna try Ubuntu next and then Cinnamon. As a new user I just feel like installing a bunch of distros. 

 

My PC is quite underpowered with a core i5 4310u and 4GB of RAM so thought that Mate would be the choice. 

[Ashleyyyy]

15 minutes ago, NoRomanBatmansAllowed said:

suports doe powerfull whell mangaro cinbuntu antergros treak widnows

probably a good idea to use spell check in the future.... 

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

probably a good idea to use spell check in the future.... 

lol I copy pasted a reddit comment.

 

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

2 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

Thanks! 

 

I am gonna try Ubuntu next and then Cinnamon. As a new user I just feel like installing a bunch of distros. 

 

My PC is quite underpowered with a core i5 4310u and 4GB of RAM so thought that Mate would be the choice. 

Cinnamon ran quite well on my 4GB ram and some random  Pentium T4500

[kokakolia]

Raise your pitchforks! I am actually liking Ubuntu right now. The theme is good. And everything runs fine (so far, I have been using it for less than 5 minutes).

 

I chose Ubuntu purely on aesthetics.

[Ashleyyyy]

2 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

Raise your pitchforks!

...why

 

2 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

I am actually liking Ubuntu right now.

18.04? i had some issues with it related to logging in, please tell me if you have those problems too. i'm interested.. 

[Ashleyyyy]

21 minutes ago, NoRomanBatmansAllowed said:

Cinnamon ran quite well on my 4GB ram and some random  Pentium T4500

really? i always found it really heavy.. kinda like gnome.. especially when you compare it to LXDE.. on Lubuntu i have less than 400mb ram used from cold boot.. 

[kokakolia]

6 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

...why

 

18.04? i had some issues with it related to logging in, please tell me if you have those problems too. i'm interested.. 

The Linux celebrities on YouTube just hate on Ubuntu all day long. They love to bash Gnome 3 the most. Meanwhile, Linux Mint is the bomb diggity. So is Manjaro.

 

Anyways, I have no issues with the login screen. Everything just works. The touchpad feels different than in Linux Mint though. Maybe it's just a sensitivity thing...I also have to get used to this laptop.

[Ashleyyyy]

6 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

The Linux celebrities on YouTube just hate on Ubuntu all day long. They love to bash Gnome 3 the most. Meanwhile, Linux Mint is the bomb diggity. So is Manjaro.

true. i don't like Mint because it's too oversimplified for me. i love Manjaro but that's because i like Arch.. 

 

7 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

Anyways, I have no issues with the login screen. Everything just works.

good. my specific issue was that sometimes after putting in my password it would go to a purple screen and stay there, i had to reboot my laptop to log in.. but i'm glad everything's working for you. 

[Ashleyyyy]

by the way, i dislike Gnome 3 just because it's really heavy to run.. Gnome 3 is so heavy that on an older laptop like mine it just feels slow.. but i don't hate on Ubuntu specifically. i love distro's like Lubuntu that are really light and fast, but still Ubuntu based so much easier for new users than Arch.

 

Arch is very difficult for new users, or if you're afraid of the terminal. 

[kokakolia]

3 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

by the way, i dislike Gnome 3 just because it's really heavy to run.. Gnome 3 is so heavy that on an older laptop like mine it just feels slow.. but i don't hate on Ubuntu specifically. i love distro's like Lubuntu that are really light and fast, but still Ubuntu based so much easier for new users than Arch.

 

Arch is very difficult for new users, or if you're afraid of the terminal. 

I already found Linux Mint Mate difficult. There are too many pre-loaded apps that do very specific things. The task bar is minuscule, the scroll bar is minuscule, the icons are minuscule...The start menu annoyed me too with the categories...And the theme menu is a mess. It should install theme packs automatically like in Windows. You shouldn't have to mess around the terminal to download and install themes.

 

If you're referring to the laptop in your description...well, it's not very different from mine. I kinda feel the weight of Ubuntu on my laptop. It's not slow, but it takes like 1 second to load apps like Spotify or Firefox. I wouldn't exactly call it slow but it's not instantaneous. It doesn't bother me yet.

[Ashleyyyy]

14 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

If you're referring to the laptop in your description...well, it's not very different from mine. I kinda feel the weight of Ubuntu on my laptop. It's not slow, but it takes like 1 second to load apps like Spotify or Firefox. I wouldn't exactly call it slow but it's not instantaneous. It doesn't bother me yet.

i recommend this to new users really: https://ubuntu-mate.org/about/

 

watch the video on that page, it shows you the out of the box capabilities of that distro.

[Ashleyyyy]

and it's much lighter than Ubuntu because it uses the MATE desktop and not Gnome 3....

[kokakolia]

2 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i recommend this to new users really: https://ubuntu-mate.org/about/

 

watch the video on that page, it shows you the out of the box capabilities of that distro.

Right! I wanted to try Ubuntu MATE actually. It’s frequently called the “best Ubuntu distro” by YouTube people. 

 

I gotta say that Linux Mint Mate felt a bit snappier than Ubuntu. Maybe Ubuntu Mate is good compromise? 

[Ashleyyyy]

3 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

Right! I wanted to try Ubuntu MATE actually. It’s frequently called the “best Ubuntu distro” by YouTube people. 

 

I gotta say that Linux Mint Mate felt a bit snappier than Ubuntu. Maybe Ubuntu Mate is good compromise? 

i used it for a little bit and it's quite nice. it is a good compromise in my opinion.

it's a little to simple for me, but that's just me. i'm very comfortable with the terminal and stuff so.. 

[kokakolia]

2 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

i used it for a little bit and it's quite nice. it is a good compromise in my opinion.

it's a little to simple for me, but that's just me. i'm very comfortable with the terminal and stuff so.. 

After I switched off my laptop, watched a movie for several hours and then turned it back on, Ubuntu definitely feels snappier.  

 

I gotta say that the Gnome 3 (Ubuntu) desktop gives me mixed feelings:

 

+ It looks super cool, and I love having big icons.

+ it's very simple and elegant.

+ the gnome apps are easy to use and do what I need. The only apps I installed were Spotify and Discord. Done!

 

- managing multiple windows of the same app is clunky. I miss the taskbar sometimes

- the window buttons on the top right are painfully small. It is incredibly infuriating how these 3 round buttons are several times smaller than the height of the window frame. It would be fine if I had a high DPI optical gaming mouse, but I have to make due with a finicky touchpad.

- The app tray in gnome effectively duplicates what the desktop is already doing. Further, the icons are massive and it takes multiple pages to display them all. A list would be easier to navigate through and would display more apps. I just have the same complaint about the app tray on Android. It's completely redundant and forces you to click more. I much prefer just having the apps on the screen when you login, like on iOS. tl;dr app trays are stupid. Thankfully the useful dock just solves that problem.

- for some reason gnome 3 uses a lot of RAM

 

Overall, Ubuntu is an interesting beast. It's very forward thinking in a sense. It is clear that most people these days just use their phones for everything. Such people may never, ever have to use a desktop computer in their lives. Ubuntu does its best to adapt the look and feel of Android to the desktop. So Ubuntu is very intuitive and user friendly that way, more so than Windows with its traditional taskbar.

 

[jde3]

14 hours ago, kokakolia said:

Thanks! 

 

I am gonna try Ubuntu next and then Cinnamon. As a new user I just feel like installing a bunch of distros. 

 

My PC is quite underpowered with a core i5 4310u and 4GB of RAM so thought that Mate would be the choice. 

Ya just try stuff till you find something you like.

 

Gnome is doing thing differently. Different isn't bad but it takes a little time to get use to it.. think of it like beer, it's gross at first but once you get use to it there is nothing better. (or at least good) it's design is to get out of your way and help you focus on the work your trying to do and not the desktop your using and it does pretty well at that. It is the opposite philosophy of KDE/Plasma being that is for power users who want every option available on right click, Gnome will only give you the most used options.

 

Ubuntu changes a few things.. by default Gnome dosen't use an application launcher like a start menu nor does it use a taskbar. All task switching on gnome is done by the swipe/expose method usually. It also changes the "dock" to stay open.. thats not standard. Those are added by extensions and IMO kind of ruin the experience.. Gnome also has really good shortcut keys that you can use to navigate it really fast and minimizes taking your hand off the keyboard.

 

Personally I like XFCE as it's pretty light and simple, it's more of a classical Unix style desktop than a Windows one like Mate/Cinnamon and has a great file manager but to each their own.. All of the desktops are good in their own right. One to add you might like is LXQt it's like a minimal plasma..

[kokakolia]

I am on Mint Cinnamon now. It’s...fine. I got tired of switching distros and I settled with this.