MATE (desktop environment)
MATE (/ˈmɑːteɪ/)[4] is a desktop environment composed of free and open-source software that runs on Linux, and other Unix-like operating systems such as BSD, and illumos operating systems.[5][6]
For other uses, see Mate.Developer(s)
Name[edit]
MATE is named after the South American plant yerba mate and tea made from the herb, mate.[4] The name is stylized in all capital letters to follow the nomenclature of other Free Software desktop environments like KDE and LXDE. The recursive backronym "MATE Advanced Traditional Environment" was subsequently adopted by most of the MATE community, again in the spirit of Free Software like GNU ("GNU's Not Unix!").[7] The use of a new name, instead of GNOME, avoids naming conflicts with GNOME 3 components.[7]
History[edit]
An Argentine user of Arch Linux, named Perberos started the MATE project[8] to fork and continue GNOME 2 in response to the negative reception of GNOME 3, which had replaced its traditional taskbar (GNOME Panel) with GNOME Shell. MATE aims to maintain and continue the latest GNOME 2 code base, frameworks, and core applications.[9][10][11]
MATE was initially announced for Debian on November 8, 2013, at its official website.[12]
MATE became an official Arch Linux community package in January 2014.
Adoption[edit]
The MATE website (as of 8 September 2022) lists 27 Linux distributions and 5 Unix-like operating systems that support the MATE desktop environment.[22]