Some useful tips for the Linux MATE desktop.

John Cartwright 2 Comments

Useful keyboard shortcuts for the Linux MATE desktop.

Ctrl-Shift-N. This is the shortcut that is used in the Caja file
manager to create a new folder. The new folder will be highlighted
to enable you to type a name.
Crtl-Alt-D. Hide all windows and show the desktop. Press this again
to bring everything back.
Ctrl-Alt-L. Lock the screen.
Alt-F2. Show the run dialog to launch a program.
PrintSc. Take a screen-shot of the entire desktop.
Alt-PrintSc. Take a screen-shot of a single window.
Alt-F1 Show the main menu on the panel to select an application to
load.
Alt-Space Open the window menu, i.e the same menu you get by
right-clicking the title bar.
Ctrl Alt T Open a terminal window the easy way.

Use the MATE Tweak Tool to modify your desktop

The MATE Tweak Tool may be used to tweak various settings in your
Linux Mint MATE desktop. This is useful for turning off desktop icons
and changing themes.
In the image above I have defined a new shortcut that opens a new
terminal when I press Win-T. The windows key has a use after all.
You may use the System->Preferences-Keyboard Shortcuts utility to
see the keyboard shortcuts and define new ones.
To add a shortcut to the panel, right-click a program icon in the
MATE menu and select Add to panel. Or drag the icon to the
panel.
Enable window snapping.
To have two windows open side by side, enable a simple setting to
enable window snapping on the Linux Mint MATE desktop.
Go to Menu > Control Center > Personal
Click Windows to open up Window Preferences.
Tick Enable side by side tiling under the Placement tab.
The MATE desktop; just like the older Gnome 2.32 desktop that
Ubuntu 8.10 used. Everything seems to work as you would expect.
Apparently the MATE desktop may be installed in PC-BSD as well. So
even UNIX users can enjoy this new port of Gnome.
How to remove the desktop icons on the Linux MATE desktop. This
hides all of the icons; but this makes the desktop cleaner. Read the
post here: http://www.securitronlinux.com/linux-mint-2/disable-
desktop-icons-on-the-linux-mint-13-mate-desktop-very-easy-with-
the-configuration-editor/.

Some awesome GTK themes for the Linux Mint MATE desktop.
Lovely GTK themes for the Linux Mint MATE desktop. These themes
are the best available for the Linux Mint MATE desktop. Get these
and make your desktop look even better.
How to make the Linux Mint 14 MATE desktop look like Windows XP
Luna. How to theme the Linux Mint MATE desktop to look like the
Windows XP Luna theme.
How to install a lovely Windows 7 GTK theme on Linux Mint 14.
Make your Linux Mint MATE desktop look like Windows 7.
Cool GTK and Metacity theme to make MATE look like CDE. Make
your MATE desktop look like the UNIX CDE desktop environment.

Some more awesome themes for the MATE desktop

Here is a post with a collection of more awesome themes for the
MATE desktop.
http://www.securitronlinux.com/bejiitaswrath/some-more-good-
themes-for-the-linux-mint-mate-desktop/.
Windows 8 UI theme for MATE:
http://www.securitronlinux.com/bejiitaswrath/windows-8-metro-ui-
theme-for-metacity-available-make-your-linux-mint-mate-desktop-
look-like-windows-8/.

bejiitaswrath
desktop, linux, mint

2 responses to Some useful tips for the Linux MATE desktop.

by Alexis
I installed the mate desktop on my new 12.04 because unity was
making my computer run like windows95 on dialup.
After I installed mate, everything is lightning fast when I use it, but
it doubleed up on some applications, (time and date, users and
groups, main menu, screensaver, calculator, screenshot, disk usage
analyzer, and system monitor) They seem to be all system type
apps, and was wondering why this hapenned and if I should remove
them.
Or
If maybe mate uses different versions of these and needed a
different version, so I should leave them be?
Thanks
Reply

by John Cartwright
Try deleting the ~/.config/mate folder. That should reset the MATE
settings.