2) Check back here in a few months, see if I’ve updated with good news. Meanwhile, get back to whatever you were doing, because you don’t want to be doing this.

Added:

I tried to get info from Mate about the problems I encountered. They really provide no way to do that, so I tweeted about it referring to their handle, so they would see.

The tweeted back two responses. The first one said a combination of “nothing is broken” and “tough luck.” The second twee is shown in this screen grab:

That is a moving GIF with the boy’s eyes blinking. It is intended to mean, “tough shit, sucker!” or words to that effect.

(I provide a screen shot because I assume cooler heads will prevail, maybe, at Mate HQ, and the immature dickhead who tweeted that will be countermanded. Or maybe not. We don’t ever hear anything good about their development community. Only bad things.)

So, don’t look for an Ubuntu Mate explainer on this blog.

Preparing to install Xubuntu right now!

For me this started about a month ago and I found a quick fix. Go to terminal and enter:

killall mate-panel

This kills the mate-panel. Then, the panel will automatically come back, and some stuff that was broken may now be less broken.

This worked to restore the volume control until about two weeks ago, and that stopped working. I probably changed something else on the panel. So, the above fix may or may not work for you.

A second fix, not as good, is working for me. I opened the Control Center, and found the “sound” section (under “Hardware”) Then, I dragged that to the panel.

This allows you access to the volume control, though not as a simple widget. Rather, it give you the whole sound system configuration dialog.

Once I did that I realized that I’ll just keep that on the panel even when the sound applet starts working again, because it is pretty darn convenient.

Meanwhile, yes, this is a bug, it has been reported and it is being discussed. I think this is simply something that will eventually be fixed, and after some future upgrade you’ll find it is no longer a problem.

This is a momentous occasion because this will be the first version of Ubuntu’s main flavor that does NOT include Unity as its default desktop.

If you don’t know, Unity was a menu and control system for the desktop, your main interface when working with the computer other than, obviously, while using a particular application. It was the look and feel, the essence, of the operating system. Unity was supposed to unify things, like diverse features of a typical desktop, like Ubuntu running on a cell phone, a desktop, a laptop, a whatever.

Unity used a modus operendus that many other interfaces were shifting towards. I hear there are versions of Windows that looked a bit like this, and Gnome from version 3.0 onwards had this basic approach.

This was a shift away from a style of interface that first emerged with early Linux desktops like Xfce and its variants, and which Windows users got to see on Windows 2000. It was a good, easy to use, intuitive, hard to break, and stay out of the way system. The Unity approach was supposed to stay out of your way too, but it did that by getting giant, in your face, making decisions for you, being extremely complex in its supposed simplicity, and in its earlier version, automatically looking stuff up you might want to buy while you were searching, say, for a file on your hard drive. All very non-Linux like.

So, let me say “I told you so” this one time, and note that Unity is dead. Now, the default Ubuntu desktop interface will be a current or recent version of Gnome. Which is a little, but not much better. The far better interface, in my view, is the one that forked off the earlier Gnome when it was still Gnome 2-something. This is called Mate (pronounced Mah Tay, like the obscure Australian plant).

Anyway, this will be the first post-Unity release, and I applaud Ubuntu for realizing that Unity had to go, and for moving on. Must feel good.

The version of Gnome to go with the Artful Aardvark will probably be Gnome 3.26.

The Ubuntu default desktop’s Gnome will be slightly modified, and will include a “let me sell you stuff on Amazon” button. Removing this will be on the list of things to do after installing Ubuntu 17.10 (stay tuned for that).

Since Gnome will be Ubuntu’s default desktop, there will no longer be a separate flavor of Ubuntu for Gnome.

There are a lot of details under the hood you probably don’t care about, such as Wayland as the default display with an optional X.org session, P:robaabl LInux kernel 4.14 (or 4.13), etc.

Mozilla Thunderbird will probably be left off. There will be improvements to the network manager, blue tooth, and better support for video cards, with improved multi monitor abilities. The windo control buttons default position will move to the other side of the window from where they were before. I tend to move them to where I want them, and mine ar on the top right, as will be 17.10’s, so I guess I moved mine recently.

Look for a post coming up soon on how to upgrade (for some of you) and later, what to do after installing it!

Then, install it and consider doing these things. Get your system up to date. Yes, yes, you just installed it but that install image was old(ish). Update and upgrade now:

First, you probably want to open the Software Center, to to Software and Updates, and enable all the Ubuntu Software Sourcews (other than source and the CDRom option). Then:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade


Go to Preferences/Additional Drivers and then allow additional drivers, and pick a proprietary driver for your graphics card if you like.

Install the Synaptic Package manager and if you like use it for some of the following updates. I like Synaptic package manager better than the Ubuntu software center.

sudo apt-get install synaptic

You might not need to install gdebi but make sure it is there. This is an application that installs .deb files.
sudo apt-get install gdebi

So now you have a better set of installation tools.

Go to the Google Website and install Chrome. Not Chromium Chrome. Chrome will run Netflix for you. Later, when you run it, it will ask if you want it to be your default browser. Your choice (I use Chrome as my default browser.)

Using Synaptic Package Manager (if you like) you may want to install vlc media player, and your favorite audio software.

I like emacs, you probably don’t, but if you do, this is a good time to install it, and consider updating your .emacs file.

Open up the control center and fiddle with stuff.

You then might want to head on over here and see if you want any of the suggested software for power management or other functionality.

There are two pieces of bad news that relate to this that we’ll get out of the way. First Ubuntu’s default distribution, which uses the Unity Desktop by default, broke a key Linux feature. If you install Ubuntu with Unity, you can’t easily change your desktop. Or, if you try, you’ll break your system. Ubuntu seems to want you to use Unity no matter what. Second, while at one time all flavors of Ubuntu were treated more or less alike (though the “Default” was gnome) now, the non-Unity distros are called “Older and other” and you have to dig around to find them. Apparently, Ubuntu wants you to use Unity no matter what. Where have I heard that before?

So, long term, don’t expect Mate, or KDE, or any of the other non-Unity distributions to remain as Ubuntu Flavors. I strongly suspect Ubuntu will eventually boot out all the non Unity distros. This will happen about the time Ubuntu gets past a certain percentage of the portable device market (which, at this time, it is not really part of) and it becomes in the interest of Ubunut’s backers to unify the look and feel, with Ubuntu Unityish being the operating system for the next generation of smart phones of which they will sell many. I assume. Or maybe not, we’ll see.

So, why should you install mate? Consider the following two reasons:

1) It isn’t Unity, it works better if you like the traditional Gnome 2.0 style of a desktop. This is really the only way to get that style desktop.

2) It isn’t Unity, and at this point as many of us as possible have to be using something other than Unity (unless of course you happen to like Unity in which case you’ve probably stormed off by now so good bye) in order to send the message that no, we won’t have the Linux Desktop broken by a big gorilla that first takes over the whole Linux thing by being so good at it then tells us what we have to eat for dinner every day thereafter. Thank you very much.

Beyond that, the reason to install the Ubuntu flavor of Mate instead of Mate on some other distro is that, like it or not, Ubuntu has the best distro if you don’t want to totally roll your own or fiddle a lot. You still have to fiddle (see here for example) but most will get their computer off the ground a lot faster and less painfully with Ubuntu.

I was not really happy with some of the earlier incarnations of Mate, partly because this Gnome fork seemed to have broken a lot of nice Gnome features, rather than just forking them. Now, however, either they have stopped doing that or I’ve forgotten what features Gnome had that I liked and don’t care any more. But seriously, Mate as implemented (version 17) on Ubuntu Linux (14.10) is a clean and nice installation.

To install go here, download the appropriate file, then make a bootable DVD or USB. The USB is easier. You can use the ddrescue command indicated here to make a bootable USB. Don’t make the mistake I did. I forgot that not all USB ports on your computer are created equal. Even if your bios is configured to allow you to boot from USB, that may refer to only some of the USB ports. Your computer might even be labeled to indicate this (mine was, but the labeling was tiny and criptic so I was unaware of it!) If you think you’ve got a working boot USB, and it does not work, move it to a different port.

Then, after you have installed Mate, you may want to mess around with it to make it work better.