Just did a fresh install of LEAP 15. 1 yesterday, and all went well, was having an issue with not being able to get into my twitter account in GNOME DE, so I added MATE via Yast Patterns and on reboot I can log into MATE DE, but there is no top or bottom control panels?? Tried to run a zypper ref && dup, but “nothing to do” . . . how would I get to something that will add panels into MATE? Back in GNOME session right now . . . but I do like MATE as my preferred DE . . . ???
I had the installer “use previous profile” for my install yesterday, and my preferred desktop background is loaded in MATE, but . . . no panels??
In one of my test VMs, I installed MATE by itself instead of adding to another Desktop, I didn’t see anything obviously amiss…
By top or bottom panels, you’re talking about across the top or bottom of the screen?
Should be across the bottom by default… and an application launcher button to the far left of the panel.
Try rt-clicking in an empty speace on your Desktop, what are your options?
Thanks for the reply . . . how did you get a “MATE by itself” install? In my installer I had the choice of Plasma or GNOME . . . which I would have wanted just MATE, but went with GNOME, which I thought MATE is “based on GNOME” so there wouldn’t be so many overlaps . . . or issues when adding MATE.
Anyway, MATE should have the drop down application launcher menu from the upper edge of the screen and a “dock-like” panel across the bottom . . . neither of which are showing up in my MATE session. I did right click on the desktop and from memory it gives a couple of options, “create new folder” “create launcher” . . . but I didn’t know what I’d want to “launch” to help get me back into the “tool bar” . . . I tried mousing up against the edge(s) to see if a bar would show up . . . nuttin’ . . . .
Yes, it was a relatively late change in the new installer for 15.1 that I criticized repeatedly with no effect… It’s not obvious how to install Mate or any other Desktop that’s not Gnome or KDE/Plasma as your first (and perhaps only) Desktop… And in truth, installing as the original Desktop is the only way to ensure everything is installed exactly as the Maintainers for that Desktop intend. Whenever you add a Desktop after install, some things like the Window Manager don’t change and are used across all your Desktops unless you manually switch.
If this is a brand new install and Mate is the only Desktop you’re interested in, you may want to re-install with the following instructions…
Although it’s impossible to expect any new User to divine the steps to installing a Desktop other than Gnome or KDE/Plasma, I describe this fully in my presentation slide deck on openSUSE, which walks you through the installation process, first tasks after install, how to find help and more.
Here are the following non-default choices that should be made (after the first which is default but you should verify)
The 15.1 install will offer to use online sources if a network connection is detected. Accept this default offer so that your installation choices will be far greater than what can fit on your DVD. openSUSE 2018-2020
When you see the screen where you choose your Desktop, choose the Generic Desktop, that adds only basic X11 packages and nothing more for the moment. This is the screenshot in my slide deck… openSUSE 2018-2020
Continue the Installation, setting your choices until you reach the Installation Settings screen (Summary) openSUSE 2018-2020
In the above screen click on “Software” and the following should display. You should see the MATE Desktop pattern in the Graphical Environments category, just as you see in the screenshot in the slide. openSUSE 2018-2020
For those who are more adventuresome and want to install only a WM and not a Full Desktop, you can either skip the above step selecting a DE pattern to run IceWM or if you want to run something else like Fluxbox, FVWM2, Openbox or something else, you can click on the “Details” button and browse the RPM groups or search for what you want. Why install only a WM and not a DE? – Because you’d have the nearly exact same extreme minimal resource usage of a text-only system but able to have a graphical environment to run things like Firefox. The main difference betwenn a WM only and a text only system is that some people believe simply running a graphical environment of any type increase the attack surface becoming more vulnerable to malicious hacks.
Otherwise, at this point simply start clicking “OK” accepting your selections and eventually proceeding to the actual installation.
The odd thing is that the 15.1 installation in Beta didn’t have this problem until approximately 2 mths before launch, then someone made the decision to make this change.
Thanks for those great details, I might have gone through something similar to this idea of getting other DE options in a previous install of some system, but I haven’t done it enough times to know to pick the “generic desktop” option over the Plasma or GNOME options . . . but many thanks for the detailed response. It does seem like the WM is bringing the GNOME concepts over to MATE now . . . from what you are saying it wouldn’t be “easy” to fix that, and it does appear that the MATE DE is “broken” . . . .
Other thing to increase the “odd thing” is that my installer is still a 15.1 “beta” version, which I just ran it . . . connected to ethernet and did pick the “online sources” option . . . but then I didn’t know to just pick “generic” . . . . Anyway, it’s not that GNOME is not “OK” . . . but, I do like MATE . . . I’ll probably run the install again in a day or so . . . ??!!
Just had another thought, could I try to log into ICEWM or another session from MATE or GNOME and then use Yast to try to remove GNOME, would that allow MATE to “re-assess” itself and bring it into the frame for WM adjustments?? Or, nope, once GNOME is set as the WM operator that would be the decision until a fresh install?
Or could I run “zypper rm gnome”??? and then try to run “zypper install mate” and see if it pulls any new packages?? Any of that worth trying before running a fresh install, and adding the nvidia stuff, and the b43 legacy modules . . . ???
no issue until you reboot - then you are stuck - you can get a terminal on the desktop by right-clicking and it will open a terminal in the user’s Desktop and you can go from there
Virtual images from Friday night do not have an issue. All the have updated do.
Drats!! Darn those MATE guyz!! That seems to fit the timeline, I think I did the fresh install on Friday and then I added the MATE DE on Saturday, and it came up broke . . . ???
I’m booted up in my desktop computer right now in U-MATE 19.04, which I haven’t updated for a few days . . . I guess I should wait, or try it and see if it breaks too?? But, I’ll check out your commands in the laptop in a minute, I don’t recall seeing a “desktop terminal” option when I right-clicked on the desktop yesterday, but I guess there is always a TTY to try it out on??
At least if this is a “systemic” issue the MATE guyz are prolly working overtime to fix the problems and should be “fixable”??
I think it is an OpenSUSE MATE issue - I no longer use any other distributions - I think I saw some mate updates Friday or Saturday. Luckily the remote logs for computer 4 are still in the buffer.
The following 3 packages are going to be upgraded:
libmate-menu2 mate-menus mate-menus-lang
Tried to right-click on the MATE session desktop and nope, no “desktop terminal” in the drop down menu . . . whereas back over here in the U-MATE in the desktop, there is.
Also, tried to log into a TTY in the Leap MATE session and all I got was a black window in F1 . . . F2 brings the GUI back and all the rest of the F keys bring a black window . . . so I’m “stuck” in the MATE “box” until I hit the power button to get out of it . . . ??
Cool. I guess my question is whether I need to do anything, like from GNOME Yast, remove MATE, or . . . do nothing and at some point the MATE guyz will fix the problem and if I run “zypper” in a GNOME terminal or like right now I’m in SLE Classic . . . I could use xterm to run a zyp ref/dup and it would bring in the corrected packages and the problem would be . . . “fixed”??
Back over in U-MATE 19.04 desktop I ran an “apt update/upgrade” and it only showed two packages to upgrade with “libldap” in their names, ran them, and logged out and back in . . . the GUI survived with panels and such . . . so possibly as you mentioned this could be exclusively an OpenSUSE MATE DE packaging issue . . . ???
Just a guess here. Since you did this yesterday, your MATE is probably fully up-to-date. It seems that a recent update broke MATE and you may have the broken version.
Best wait till the next round of MATE updates. Or you could try reverting to the previous versions of “libmate-menu2”, “mate-menus” and “mate-menus-lang” (with the Versions tab in Yast Software Management).
OK, yes @larryr did point out that the MATE DE seems to have self-destructed a few of its functions . . . your idea of trying to revert the packages might work, but not sure if that would happen in the MATE DE itself . . . I can get into the /home folders, but other apps were launching . . . . Perhaps using Yast in one of the other DEs might be able to get to Yast and try to revert those packages . . . ???
OK, I did try to “revert” via your suggestion, and that did provide a top toolbar, but the left most “application launcher” part of it was not there . . . so, one step forward . . . but not 100% . . . don’t know if I restart will it “fix” it?? There was an “error” posted when I logged in something about “Brisk” applet error, do I want to delete it or not?" I just closed the window because I didn’t know if I wanted to delete it???
I’ll try a restart, obviously I don’t want to run a zypper upgrade command???
edit: OK, before I restarted I right-clicked on the new tool bar and got the “add to panel” drop down menu which I clicked on, and then I “added” a “MATE main menu” applet, which went somewhere in the middle of the toolbar, but it has all of the items listed . . . so, in that sense I think it is “working”!!!
Sorry, on logging out and then in, the MATE session now did not accept my password and goes to a grey window . . . broke down again . . . : -= ((( I’ll try to log into something else, seemed to be so “close” . . . .
Got out of the MATE session and back in via GNOME Classic . . . that’s it for a Sunday evening’s efforts . . . thanks for the helpful suggestion.
Followed @nrickert’s suggestion to downgrade the three packages yesterday, and it got a toolbar, but then on logging out my password wasn’t accepted . . . today I got a GUI software updater message, so I ran “zypper ref” . . . and it listed the three packages . . . checking in Yast it shows that it likely wants to go back to the broken packages??
The following 9 packages are going to be upgraded:
aaa_base aaa_base-extras ebtables gnome-music gnome-music-lang libmate-menu2
mate-menus mate-menus-lang quota
Alrighty, thanks for that code . . . right now I’m hoping that the devs will get this one straightened out pretty quickly, but, if it seems like this will drag on for weeks then maybe I’d want to lock these 3 packages?? although unfortunately it didn’t entirely “fix” the problem . . . it juts moved the problem from “no toolbar” to “not being able to accept my log in password and going to a grey screen for the MATE session” . . . ?? So it’s “difficult” to decide whether I should just run the zypper upgrades showing . . . lose the toolbar . . . and just follow along with the zypper path until the “fix” shows up??
Gnome Classic is pretty close to MATE as it is . . . but if I run this “zypper al” command, how to “unlock” ?? “zypper ul xxxx”???
