Edition

MATE

GNOME 2, continued. Traditional, light, and endlessly rearrangeable.

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The classic two-panel layout, one right-click away.

What it is

MATE is a maintained fork of GNOME 2, with Marco handling windows. Mint ships it with a single bottom panel, much like Cinnamon — but the classic two-panel layout, menus along the top and a task list along the bottom, is a few clicks away.

Lighter than Cinnamon, heavier than Xfce, and the most willing of the three to be rebuilt into whatever shape you had in mind.

Choose it if

  • you liked GNOME 2 and never stopped
  • you want to lay the panels out yourself
  • the hardware is older but not ancient
  • you want traditional without going minimal

Look elsewhere if

  • you want the newest desktop features — take Cinnamon
  • you need the absolute lightest — take Xfce
  • you'd rather not configure anything at all

The same in every edition

Same Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base. Same Update Manager, Timeshift, Driver Manager and Software Manager. Same repositories, same apt, same installer, same security updates until April 2029. The desktop is the only thing that changes — and you can install another one later without reinstalling the system.