I don't know why they didn't just switch to MATE!?

Story: The end of the road for FuduntuTotal Replies: 13
Author Content
cmost

Apr 17, 2013
5:18 PM EDT
Fuduntu could have avoided this mess if the developers had implemented MATE instead of trying to hang onto the old, unmaintained Gnome 2.3x codebase. MATE is evolving nicely and its developers are keeping up with GTK3 changes and plans to compile MATE to support GTK3 apps. In the meantime, all one needs in MATE to run GTK3 apps (or Qt for that matter) is a compatible theme. Clearlooks is one that supports GTK2 and GTK3 right now. If Fuduntu had gone this route, it's core desktop functionality would have essentially remained the same but the underlying desktop would be ready for the future. It seems like a no brainer to me.
djohnston

Apr 17, 2013
5:46 PM EDT
@cmost,

Maybe they will do just that. They are just end of lifing the current codebase. They plan to rebase on something else. Time will tell if any lessons were learned.

montezuma

Apr 17, 2013
7:21 PM EDT
Maybe fewt has a comment. He has been on Lxer in the past.
slacker_mike

Apr 17, 2013
10:09 PM EDT
There is an article out that states they are re-basing on openSUSE. No decision on what DE.
kikinovak

Apr 18, 2013
5:54 AM EDT
This should be a lesson to all the users of spinoff distributions out there. The new kid on the block may shine like the latest trend, but when it comes to matters of perennity, that's a different story.

Better use the real thing: Slackware, Debian, RHEL, CentOS (the exception), Fedora, openSUSE, Arch or Gentoo.
CFWhitman

Apr 18, 2013
11:50 AM EDT
slacker_mike wrote:There is an article out that states they are re-basing on openSUSE. No decision on what DE.


I say they should choose from among IceWM, Fluxbox, JWM, and Openbox :-)

Seriously, though, I think I might stay away from the current upheaval surrounding Gnome and it's offshoots. If you want a full "desktop environment" there are always XFCE, KDE, RazorQT, LXDE, and Enlightenment around. It seems like you could find something you could live with.
caitlyn

Apr 19, 2013
3:24 AM EDT
The problem with MATE vs. GNOME 2 is that applets coded for GNOME 2 (and indeed, some apps) won't work with MATE without modification due to the changes in library names. You have to go through and modify the source for every affected app(let). No matter how you slice it, sticking with GNOME 2 or going with MATE are both painful for small distros with limited resources.
JaseP

Apr 19, 2013
9:40 AM EDT
Mate just didn't "have it" when I last tried it... Maybe it's gotten better. But, I've switched (back) to KDE... and am happier for it. Overhead be damned. I like my translucent menus ans widgets,... and it's still snappier than anything from Redmond...
jdixon

Apr 19, 2013
9:51 AM EDT
> ... and it's still snappier than anything from Redmond...

Now, now. I doubt it's that much or any snappier than Win98SE on the same machine. :)

Anything currently supported, I'll grant. But talk about damning with faint praise.
JaseP

Apr 19, 2013
9:54 AM EDT
Win98SE?!?! Sure I can get KDE to compete with that!!!... I just have to turn off every bell and whistle, at which point it'll LOOK as BAD as Win98SE...
jdixon

Apr 19, 2013
10:47 AM EDT
> ...at which point it'll LOOK as BAD as Win98SE...

Of course, but you did say "snappier than anything from Redmond". I could have used Windows 3.1 as my example. :)
CFWhitman

Apr 19, 2013
1:31 PM EDT
JaseP wrote:Win98SE?!?! Sure I can get KDE to compete with that!!!... I just have to turn off every bell and whistle, at which point it'll LOOK as BAD as Win98SE...


Actually, no, it still won't look as bad. It's funny, but you tend to forget how bad old interfaces looked until you see them again. People look at IceWM or JWM and think, 'that looks like Win95,' and in a way they're right, but if you actually bring up Win95 somewhere, you see all the work that has gone into subtle things like color gradients, image scaling, and font smoothing, and what a difference it makes.
Koriel

Apr 21, 2013
3:49 PM EDT
@CFWhitman You got that right I have just spent a whole 2 days using Windows NT fixing up a legacy app for a company and quite frankly I was shocked to find out how bad it was, seems my memory had managed to forget how bad it used to be probably in attempt to protect my sanity.

caitlyn

Apr 24, 2013
10:17 PM EDT
kiknovak: SUSE started as a spinoff of Slackware with rpm. Springdale Linux (formerly PUIAS) and Scientific Linux have both been around longer than CentOS, though I honestly don't think you can go wrong with any of the Red Hat clones. VectorLinux has been around for 14 years now. My point is that a spinoff isn't necessarily a bad thing. It depends on the developers and how large a community develops around a given distro.

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