Salix MATE 13.37beta1
Posted: 11. Apr 2012, 15:09
Here is the first beta release of our new Salix edition, using the MATE Desktop Environment. For anyone not familiar with MATE, it's a GNOME2 fork, that continues development of the GNOME 2.x branch. MATE uses the traditional desktop metaphor that was abandoned for newer GNOME 3.x releases. There was a lot of work involved by the MATE developers with forking MATE and most issues that appeared due to forking have been ironed out. The desktop experience provided by the MATE Desktop should now be on par with that of GNOME 2.32.x, with the added advantage that MATE is actually actively developed.
All of the GNOME parts that have been forked have been renamed, so that they don't conflict with GNOME 3.x applications, but otherwise the functionality and behavior is exactly the same as it was in GNOME 2.32.x. For example, the Nautilus file manager is now named Caja in MATE, the Evince document viewer is now Atril and the File-Roller archive manager is now Engrampa. These forked applications will probably play a much bigger part in future Salix versions, for other editions as well, especially if Slackware doesn't decide to move to GTK+3, which is highly unlikely.
Installation from these ISO images is performed using the standard Salix installer. These are not LiveCDs. The installation is identical to that of any other Salix edition and provides the option to make a Core mode installation, a Basic mode installation or a Full mode installation. The Core mode installation is identical to that present in all other Salix editions, it will only install a command line system, no GUI applications or environments. The Basic mode installation will install a very basic system with the MATE Desktop Environment, the Firefox web browser and the collection of Salix system tools, including the Gslapt package manager and Sourcery Slackbuild manager and not much more than that. The MATE Desktop Environment is as minimal as possible in a Basic mode installation, it only includes the Caja file, the MATE preferences tools and a few panel applets. A full mode installation includes everything that is present in the ISO images. That includes a full MATE Desktop Environment with all panel applets, the Atril document viewer, the Engrampa archive manager, the MATE power manager, MATE system utilities and more. The collection of software included in a Full mode installation resembles that of other Salix editions, especially the Xfce edition, including the Libreoffice suite, the Claws-mail emailing application, the Pidgin instant messenger, the GIMP image editor etc. Of course all Salix system tools that make system administration easier are installed, as in all other editions.
It would be great if you could download and test this new Salix MATE edition. You can download the beta1 ISO images from Sourceforge, using the following links:
Salix MATE 13.37beta1 (32-bit):
(size: 618MB, md5: 32cdd2a8f037ebe0bb24d237f564998a)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
Salix64 MATE 13.37beta1 (64-bit):
(size: 609MB, md5: 7ad0e8574dbd918490e1707df29146ab)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
Please report any issues, or success stories. We are working closely with the MATE developers and we'll try to fix any issues that might arise before a final release.
Have fun!
All of the GNOME parts that have been forked have been renamed, so that they don't conflict with GNOME 3.x applications, but otherwise the functionality and behavior is exactly the same as it was in GNOME 2.32.x. For example, the Nautilus file manager is now named Caja in MATE, the Evince document viewer is now Atril and the File-Roller archive manager is now Engrampa. These forked applications will probably play a much bigger part in future Salix versions, for other editions as well, especially if Slackware doesn't decide to move to GTK+3, which is highly unlikely.
Installation from these ISO images is performed using the standard Salix installer. These are not LiveCDs. The installation is identical to that of any other Salix edition and provides the option to make a Core mode installation, a Basic mode installation or a Full mode installation. The Core mode installation is identical to that present in all other Salix editions, it will only install a command line system, no GUI applications or environments. The Basic mode installation will install a very basic system with the MATE Desktop Environment, the Firefox web browser and the collection of Salix system tools, including the Gslapt package manager and Sourcery Slackbuild manager and not much more than that. The MATE Desktop Environment is as minimal as possible in a Basic mode installation, it only includes the Caja file, the MATE preferences tools and a few panel applets. A full mode installation includes everything that is present in the ISO images. That includes a full MATE Desktop Environment with all panel applets, the Atril document viewer, the Engrampa archive manager, the MATE power manager, MATE system utilities and more. The collection of software included in a Full mode installation resembles that of other Salix editions, especially the Xfce edition, including the Libreoffice suite, the Claws-mail emailing application, the Pidgin instant messenger, the GIMP image editor etc. Of course all Salix system tools that make system administration easier are installed, as in all other editions.
It would be great if you could download and test this new Salix MATE edition. You can download the beta1 ISO images from Sourceforge, using the following links:
Salix MATE 13.37beta1 (32-bit):
(size: 618MB, md5: 32cdd2a8f037ebe0bb24d237f564998a)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
Salix64 MATE 13.37beta1 (64-bit):
(size: 609MB, md5: 7ad0e8574dbd918490e1707df29146ab)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
Please report any issues, or success stories. We are working closely with the MATE developers and we'll try to fix any issues that might arise before a final release.
Have fun!