I'm setting up a networked file server using CentOS 7. This computer is going to sit in a closet and hopefully not need much direct attention. On top of that, I'd really like to not have to buy a monitor for it--actually, I want to use the monitor that is currently connected to the server on my desktop.

I have chosen mate over gnome as my desktop. When I log in directly, it remembers to present me with mate.

I set up vnc, the remote desktop server program on the fileserver computer. This works just fine except for one thing. When I log in remotely, I appear to get the gnome desktop instead of the desired mate desktop. It doesn't matter whether I'm using remmina, vinagre, or tigervnc as the client.

Worse, there is no mate panel (which I generally refer to as a systray...sorry, old habits die hard).

Interestingly, I seem to have been running a mate desktop all along and just didn't know it.

I opened a terminal and entered the command
$ mate-session &

this also had the added benefit of giving me the panel (systray) I wanted.