Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

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darkstrike
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Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by darkstrike »

Hi Guys! I love the MATE Window Manager, which I have installed on my MSI Wind U100 netbook...however, I had installed the MATE version then as there was no XFCE version of Mint 17 released at that time.

Now, netbooks aren't the most powerful little machines, so I was curious how difficult it is to convert a MATE install to an XFCE install, or would it be easier to do a complete format and reinstall? I don't want to do the convert and end up with a lot of bugs :(

I had Mint 13 XFCE on it before, and I think the XFCE install ran a bit better than MATE is on this machine - it's got a single-core 1.6ghz Atom with 2gb of RAM.

Thanks for any help! :)
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xenopeek
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by xenopeek »

You can install the "mint-meta-xfce" package and that will allow you to choose at the login screen between MATE and Xfce, but it will be a bit of work to remove MATE and what processes it loads in the background. It's easier to do a fresh install to get the "cleanest", if you will, Mint Xfce install.

As for bugs, Mint 17.2 will come with a new Xfce version that is improved over the one shipping with Mint 17.1. But, using the Xubuntu PPA repositories you could already also install it on Mint 17.1 that way--if you happen to run into bugs that affect you on Mint 17.1 (else I'd just wait for 17.2).
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by darkstrike »

Thanks Xenopeek!

Guess I'll wait until 17.2 XFCE comes out and maybe do a full reinstall...
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by xenopeek »

There are plenty of happy users with Mint 17 Xfce and Mint 17.1 Xfce; don't hold off on that account...
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by darkstrike »

Haha, well, the Mint 17.1 MATE install I have atm DOES work fine, I just can't help but think that XFCE might be at least a tiny bit more snappy.

I don't mind the wait as I am content with my current install until then! :)
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by MtnDewManiac »

ByeByeXP wrote:i can't wait to get the upgrade to 17.2 and its "new" XFCE 4.12. Under LM16-XFCE, I tried the dev-PPA before, XFCE 4.11, but it made a mess of things and i had to undo a let of tweaks to get LM16 back to its XFCE 4.10 version ...
If you're talking about

Code: Select all

https://launchpad.net/~xubuntu-dev/+archive/ubuntu/xfce-4.12
, it's actually got Xfce 4.12 in it now, lol, and has caused no issues on my Mint Xfce 17.1 partition. YMMV, of course. Xfce 4.11 was a "development version," and folks are generally warned that issues can arise from using those on their daily-use "production" computers.

Regards,
MDM
Mint 18 Xfce 4.12.

If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
chrisonmint

Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by chrisonmint »

darkstrike wrote:Haha, well, the Mint 17.1 MATE install I have atm DOES work fine, I just can't help but think that XFCE might be at least a tiny bit more snappy.

I don't mind the wait as I am content with my current install until then! :)
I had a MATE install on an old macbook from 2006. It ran ok, but some menus were a little sluggish. I just installed LXDE which is MUCH faster. After logging out and choosing LXDE as the session, i then uninstalled anything with "mate" in the name. I got back over 200mb of disk space and the machine is running well.

On my main linux machine, i am running Xfce and I agree with the comments above about it being super configurable. I didnt see anything in MATE which I miss from Xfce, so I am very happy using Xfce now. I get the feeling Xfce is a bit faster than MATE generally.

I suggest installing Xfce and LXDE and try them both. You can always remove them later to get the disk space back, assuming nothing gets broken in the process!

Keep a backup of your data before going crazy!
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by Hoser Rob »

Actually IME xfce isn't all that much faster than mate on my 1gb netbook.

I installed mint 7 mate on it but I recently installed the lxde DE from the repos via synaptic. Now that is faster. And it doesn't seem nearly as buggy as Lubuntu 14.04 was when I had it on the same netbook. Haven't had any problems yet.

I'm very wary of installing multiple DEs. It can really cause problems depending on the libraries they use, which can conflict if one wants a different version of the same library package e.g. But this combo seems to work.

BTW it's not that I didn't like xfce when I ran it. I did. In fact on my laptop, which runs mint 17.1 Cinnamon, I discovered a regression when updating from 17 to 17.1. The kernel in 17.1 no longer works properly with the intel integrated video.

Apparently, that can be fixed by adding the ubuntu 3.16 hardware stack. But that may very well break something else. So I'm going to reinstall 17 soon, and this time with the XFCE spin. Cinnamon has too many silly bugs for me.

If you do reinstall I highly recommend setting it up with a separate /home partition if possible. This makes reinstalling so much easier, though you still need data backups.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
chrisonmint

Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by chrisonmint »

xenopeek wrote:There are plenty of happy users with Mint 17 Xfce and Mint 17.1 Xfce; don't hold off on that account...
Count me in on this. I use XFCE with Compiz for WM and its great. I tried MATE on a different machine, so cannot compare the speed, but XFCE is smooth and has lots of customisations with the panels etc. Works nicely with Docky or Cairo Dock if you like that sort of thing too.

I thought XFCE was a little more polished than MATE in my short time with it. I saw an interesting comparison on memory usage (only one measure of "snappiness") between different DEs, see below. Interestingly MATE used nearly half the RAM of XFCE, which was only a bit behind Cinnamon! Remember that these are older versions of all the DEs and RAM is only one thing to look at.

https://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2014/ ... =828&h=818
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Full article here:
https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/ ... -desktops/
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by Hoser Rob »

chrisonmint wrote:
xenopeek wrote:There are plenty of happy users with Mint 17 Xfce and Mint 17.1 Xfce; don't hold off on that account...
Count me in on this. I use XFCE with Compiz for WM and its great. I tried MATE on a different machine, so cannot compare the speed, but XFCE is smooth and has lots of customisations with the panels etc. Works nicely with Docky or Cairo Dock if you like that sort of thing too.

I thought XFCE was a little more polished than MATE in my short time with it. I saw an interesting comparison on memory usage (only one measure of "snappiness") between different DEs, see below. Interestingly MATE used nearly half the RAM of XFCE, which was only a bit behind Cinnamon! Remember that these are older versions of all the DEs and RAM is only one thing to look at.

https://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2014/ ... =828&h=818
Image

Full article here:
https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/ ... -desktops/
That's a very good series of articles. But that chart can be misleading. He got those figures from a bare bones install in a VM, and as he says YMMV.

I had cinnamon on my laptop until recently when I reinstalled mint with the xfce version. In an actual mint install there's a much bigger difference in ram usage and xfce is definitely faster. But for a DE that requires 3d hardware acceleration just to run itself, cinnamon is pretty zippy. It's just too buggy for me and I find I prefer the lighter, simpler approach of xfce.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
chrisonmint

Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by chrisonmint »

Hoser Rob wrote: I had cinnamon on my laptop until recently when I reinstalled mint with the xfce version. In an actual mint install there's a much bigger difference in ram usage and xfce is definitely faster. But for a DE that requires 3d hardware acceleration just to run itself, cinnamon is pretty zippy. It's just too buggy for me and I find I prefer the lighter, simpler approach of xfce.
I'm glad you said that. I havent tried Cinnamon at all, I went for the MATE version and then the XFCE version of Mint 17.1. I used both with Compiz as it was the only way to get rid of video tearing problems on my machines. I turned off most of the whizzy effects in Compiz but thought it worked really nicely as a video accelerated UI.

I use Mac OSX mainly at home, Windows 8 on my work machine. I think XFCE stands up to both of them in general use, but Mac OSX has more polish to it.

My main complaint about Linux (see my other threads) is that the user switching seems so broken. I am hoping that 17.2 will fix some of the issues.

Oh, and I do wonder how much better things would be if there were LESS DE's to choose from. Would it be simpler for new users to choose? Would developer efforts be more focused? ...might it be less fun?
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by Hoser Rob »

chrisonmint wrote: ... I do wonder how much better things would be if there were LESS DE's to choose from. Would it be simpler for new users to choose? Would developer efforts be more focused? ...might it be less fun?
It might be less fun, but I think that sort of thing is the biggest problem with linux. Too many DEs and API's. It doesn't give developers much incentive to make linux apps, does it?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
chrisonmint

Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by chrisonmint »

Hoser Rob wrote: It might be less fun, but I think that sort of thing is the biggest problem with linux. Too many DEs and API's. It doesn't give developers much incentive to make linux apps, does it?
Good point. I was optimistic when Canonical came along with Ubuntu - that we would see a focused central development target. They went on strange tangents making Unity and Mir etc... actually made things worse. Well, maybe not worse, but definitely not much better.

Its funny how ubuntu releases are now the base for so many distros, which take it upon themselves to "fix" the UI crazyness and odd choices of focus. (Yes I know that Ubuntu is in turn based on Debian, but that was a pain to install last time I looked)

Ah, well. Here we are in Linux mint with a choice of 4 supported DEs... and I didnt choose one of the main two. Am I part of the problem?!
chrisonmint

Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by chrisonmint »

ByeByeXP wrote:
chrisonmint wrote:... Ah, well. Here we are in Linux mint with a choice of 4 supported DEs... and I didnt choose one of the main two. Am I part of the problem?!
What "problem"? Afaict, just like any well-designed car, the 5 major DEs (Cinn, Mate, Unity, Xfce, Lxde) provide the eyecandy + driveability layers for me to drive the darn thing (read: OS). Ime -- on my aging systems -- both Cinnamon & Unity are too heavy a footprint (100% most of the time), Mate & Xfce or on a par re. system stress, Lxde is very light but a bit limited re. tweakability. Mate & Xfce are about even re. tweaks, applets, and panels, but configuring Xfce's panel (imho) wins hands-down for my specs (right-side vertical panel in deskbar-mode, 2 rows of panel buttons, with many of those providing me with multiple/grouped launchers in each button (when it makes sense, i.e. all my office-related apps are grouped under a single button).

Lastly, system stability is an issue for me and my non-geek family. I have been running several LM-Mate & LM-Xfce systems for weeks on end w/o shutdowns (just turned off the monitor) with no memory-leak issues (Cinn is notorious for that). What finally "made my day" were the (mostly darkish) themes i found on uberstudent's XFCE-distro; i gleaned those off their live CD, and installed on my LM-XFCE 17.1 systems ... Perfect, for me, anyway :)

One major gripe if have with LM: its XFCE-distro seems to be Mint's stepchild...
Thanks, I feel much better now ;-). I agree with you on the mate vs xfce decision, I had similar thoughts. I also thought the mint menu was slow to open... Think it's due to the search function slowing things down on first click. Fixable, but I didn't know that so jumped over to xfce.

And regarding the mint focus on mate and cinnamon, I was thinking of using xubuntu instead for this reason. I stuck with mint as I had already run the mate version.
chrisonmint

Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by chrisonmint »

ByeByeXP wrote: Now, the bad news: imho, xubuntu's distro is VERY minimalistic; it utterly lacks the polish & completeness of LM-XFCE 17 / 17.1; it isn't close enough to WinXP to be a serious jump-to replacement for XP; it isn't feature-complete (out of the box) enough to provide a go-to alternative to Mint's distros -- it doesn't even have Synaptic or Gdebi preloaded ...
interesting - this is why Mint became a ubuntu-beating distro, right?

have you thought about Zorin-lite? Or is that LXDE... yes it is, i just checked. scratch that. Zorin core is GNOME 3 (tamed to look like a traditional desktop...)
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by MtnDewManiac »

ByeByeXP wrote:I've been waiting patiently for Xfce 4.12 (incl. its numerous enhancements)
You could have done what I did some time ago to my Mint 17.1 Xfce partition and added the PPA for Xfce 4.12. Your Update Manager would then have updated all your Xfce 4.10 (and related) components to the current "stable" versions.

Regards,
MDM
Mint 18 Xfce 4.12.

If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
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Re: Convert MATE to XFCE install...?

Post by MtnDewManiac »

ByeByeXP wrote:Good point, MDM :) ... Indeed, a year ago, i played around with one of my LM16xfce-based test paritions, added the PPA for XFCE 4.11, and bumped LM16's XFCE version from 4.10 to 4.11.

Alas it it made a mess of things and took quite some work to get it stable.
A year ago was when Mint 16 went "out of support," lol. Probably(?) wasn't a factor in your instabilities. The fact that the Xfce developers considered 4.11 to be a "development" - as opposed to "stable" - version might have, though. IDK if you added the Xfce 4.10 PPA before adding the 4.12 one (as it used to state at the 4.12 PPA page); I read about issues caused by not doing so, but it's been a while and I don't remember anything specific.

I'd say, "Good news! I haven't had any issues with Mint 17.1 running Xfce 4.12," (which appears to be true AfaIK) but as I didn't have any issues with using the Xfce PPAs previously (started with Mint 14)... IDK. You shouldn't have any issues. You might want to visit the Xfce community web forum and read through ToZ's "What's New in Xfce" thread. It's a running list of the changes and improvements to Xfce "after 4.10" (and it has grown to be somewhat large).

Actually, I did have one issue: One of the panel applets had lost its (right-click menu) About option. Minor gripe, I suppose :roll: . But I filed a bug report at the proper website - bugzilla.xfce.org - and the developer dropped a fix ~25 hours later.

Regards,
MDM


Alas it it made a mess of things and took quite some work to get it stable. I now have three LM17.1-based "production" systems with XFCE 4.10, they are rocksolid and my family is happy. But i continue testing with 2 junkers (an 11yo HP-Pavilion with AMD Athlon 2800+ XP, 1GB, plus my old Sony laptop mentioned above) as my multi-boot distro-testing mules. So i'll pick up on your suggestion and pull in the 4.12 PPA to bump their LM17.1 partitions from XFCE 4.10 to 4.12 and see what happens ...

Compared to Cinnamon & Unity, imho, there are still a few shortcomings of XFCE: there's no real "Drawers" applet equivalent, and support of WinXP-equivalent "shortcuts" to file-type objects WITHIN the DE is rather clumsy. Example: just try to add a symlink to a .pdf to either the Whisker- or XFCE-menu -- you'll know what i mean; or try to setup an XP-equivalent "taskbar" (read: panel/deskbar) with shortcuts to a bunch of docs you're working on ...[/quote]
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