Best way to install mate desktop in Zenwalk

rng · 02-13-2016, 09:05 PM

I have installed Zenwalk and it works very well out-of-the-box. However, I prefer Mate desktop over XFCE4 (though XFCE4 is also very good- personal preference). Is there a meta-package which will pull all mate-desktop components to my system? What is the best way to install and run full mate-desktop in Zenwalk? Thanks for your help.

H1p8r10n · 02-14-2016, 03:19 AM

Hi,

found this : https://mateslackbuilds.github.io/

not tested

but looks good

JP

rng · 02-14-2016, 05:56 AM

It will be great if there could be a script to download all base and extra packages from http://slackware.uk/msb/14.1/1.8/x86_64/ , install them and make configuration changes to add Mate-desktop option to the login manager. Availability of Mate-desktop in Zenwalk will certainly make this excellent (but somewhat neglected) distribution more popular.

H1p8r10n · 02-14-2016, 06:26 AM

i'm not focusing on providing several desktop to satisfy all users, but rather :
- Stay compatible with any Slackware contribution
- be opened to contributions : if you want to provide a serie of packages for mates, with no overlap with Slack/Zenwalk base packages : you're welcome ! I will make them available as "mates" catégory from the Zenwalk repository

Appart of this : I don't think that Mates has so many more features than XFCE...

H1p8r10n · 02-14-2016, 06:32 AM

try this repo with netpkg : http://slackware.uk/msb/14.1/1.12/x86_64/

(not tested)
jp

Didier Spaier · 02-14-2016, 07:15 AM

But be careful: the recent ISOs for Zenwalk are based on Slackware current, whilst Mate packages provided by Willy and Chess are for Slackware 14.1 at time of writing. YMMV.

Another way would be to clone the git repo, build the packages yourself on Zenwalk and install them.

PS In see that there is also a /testing directory. But I don't know what is the target there, so ask for advice on IRC (#msb channel on freenode network) first.

H1p8r10n · 02-14-2016, 07:30 AM

yes Didier, good point, there may be some 14.1 dependencies broken in Slack current... (usually for simple CLI apps, it's not the case, but this is a complete desktop)

also to be noted : Slack 14.1 didn't have gtkmm support, and current has (some of the packages of the Mate Slack Build distribution packages are not required anymore)

rng · 02-14-2016, 07:35 AM

Quote:

I don't think that Mates has so many more features than XFCE...

There is one main feature. Its file manager 'caja' has search facility. One can press control-F there and search for a file by its partial or whole filename in that folder, including its subfolders. This is also available in Dolphin of KDE and Nautilus (Gnome) but not in Thunar of XFCE. I do not want to go to terminal/console everytime for finding files. Catfish finds files but I cannot manipulate them from there.