Install MATE Desktop Environment on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin

MATE desktop environment is a fork of GNOME2 which brings an intuitive and attractive desktop environment to Linux users using traditional metaphors. The newest version, MATE 1.2 has been released. This release is more stable than ever and it includes support for many more applications, applets, and backends.

Below are the main changes and improvements in MATE 1.2:

• Numerous bug fixes
• All conflicts with GNOME were fixed
• All configuration files were moved to ~/.config/mate
• An undo/redo feature was added in Caja
• Libmate’s mate-open command is now faster to open applications.
• Mate settings daemon now supports the PulseAudio and GStreamer backends
• New applications: mozo (alacarte fork), python-caja, caja-gksu, caja-image-converter
• Artwork:
• Mate themes were renamed to avoid conflicts with GNOME
• A new MATE wallpaper was added
• MATE now features its own icon

Install MATE 1.2 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin
Although, MATE was introduced by Linux Mint, Ubuntu users can install it on their distributions including the newest version Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin. Please run the following commands to install MATE 1.2 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin:

• sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/ubuntu precise main"
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install mate-archive-keyring
• sudo apt-get update
• # this install base packages
• sudo apt-get install mate-core
• # this install more packages
• sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

For other distributions, please refer to MATE Desktop installation instructions.
Logout then select "MATE" Desktop Environment when logging in. Enjoy :)

via: Mate-desktop.org