4 ms·

> XFCE and MATE need quite a bit of mucking around to actually look "normal" That's an odd statement. Sure XFCE may not be as polished or consistent, but most

> XFCE and MATE need quite a bit of mucking around to actually look "normal" That's an odd statement. Sure XFCE may not be as polished or consistent, but most distros will ship a pretty consistent desktop. Mate on the other hand received plenty of UX work from Red Hat and Canonical back when it was still Gnome 2 and you still have all the themes and styles from that era, to me it doesn't get more 'normal' than that. (OK, they changed the accent color to green and there is apparently no easy way to change that, but I'd say that's the only step back in that regard.)

qalmakka 5y ago
I am 100% convinced that GNOME 2 was one of the greatest UIs of all time. Its UX was incredibly simple yet beautiful, and GNOME 3 and 4 instead feel gimmicky and disconnected from reality when compared to it. Mate really deserves more love nowadays.
- grumpyprole 5y ago
  My theory is that GNOME (basically RedHat) were concerned about software patents. I cannot think of any other reason why they would make it so different to the mainstream and thus less intuitive for most. IMHO it is not an improvement. Luckily Ubuntu have made it slightly more normal.
  - toast0 5y ago
    Around the time of GNOME 3, everybody was doing big changes to their desktop experience. There must have been something in the air that said let's screw up desktops. This was when Windows 8 was putting tiles everywhere (but you know, not actually everywhere) and OS X was ruining things in a more subtle way I can't remember.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Everyone involved has talked extensively over the years about what they think about the desktop UI experience there is no need to add complexity.
approxim8ion 5y ago
I guess by normal I just mean what my family members might be used to coming from Windows. XFCE is much better in that regard but the GNOME2 workflow that MATE seems to stick to is not quite easy to pick up from them, so it involves either configuring panels myself or getting a hold of the MATE Tweak tool to change the layout to Redmond or whatever.

qalmakka 5y ago

I am 100% convinced that GNOME 2 was one of the greatest UIs of all time. Its UX was incredibly simple yet beautiful, and GNOME 3 and 4 instead feel gimmicky and disconnected from reality when compared to it. Mate really deserves more love nowadays.

grumpyprole 5y ago
My theory is that GNOME (basically RedHat) were concerned about software patents. I cannot think of any other reason why they would make it so different to the mainstream and thus less intuitive for most. IMHO it is not an improvement. Luckily Ubuntu have made it slightly more normal.
- toast0 5y ago
  Around the time of GNOME 3, everybody was doing big changes to their desktop experience. There must have been something in the air that said let's screw up desktops. This was when Windows 8 was putting tiles everywhere (but you know, not actually everywhere) and OS X was ruining things in a more subtle way I can't remember.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Everyone involved has talked extensively over the years about what they think about the desktop UI experience there is no need to add complexity.

approxim8ion 5y ago

I guess by normal I just mean what my family members might be used to coming from Windows. XFCE is much better in that regard but the GNOME2 workflow that MATE seems to stick to is not quite easy to pick up from them, so it involves either configuring panels myself or getting a hold of the MATE Tweak tool to change the layout to Redmond or whatever.