Is Manjaro MATE Dying?

Non-technical Questions
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Sorry about the terse topic title, but it really is the simple question. My uninformed impression in recent years is that Gnome and MATE are considered by some to be outdated technology. I’m obviously new to Manjaro Gnome MATE, and thus this forum, having migrated here from Ubuntu MATE recently and finding it beautifully easy to install (1hr.) compared to my flailing attempts with Debian MATE (2days w/o success, which underlines my lack of Linux system chops).

Today the latest Gnome update apparently caused my so far “minor” issue (details below), as compared to serious problems in new Forum posts. I’m wondering if stats in the two other Forum subtopics here might reveal something about a Manjaro “mainstream” flavor. I see that “About the Xfce category” has 1.4k Views, Gnome 1.6k, and KDE 3.9k. Is this an indication that most Manjaro users and active development is in KDE Plasma? If so, is that a more “stable” and better supported “mainstream” flavor of Manjaro? Is it time for a casual user like me to join that crowd and migrate to Manjaro KDE Plasma? I need a solid everyday OS to look/feel identical for Firefox, Thunderbird and LibreOffice - on a Dell 12GB desktop with fast 1TB nvme, and two antique Apple MacBooks with limited RAM and hobbled internal SSDs. It did yesterday, so I’m holding off updates on the MacBooks.

As to my Gnome update issue on the Dell, for me so far it’s only slow opening of some apps:
26 seconds for Firefox (<1 sec. before today’s Gnome update).
51 seconds for gnome-text-editor (Kate instantaneous), etc.
Some apps open normally while others take close to a minute. I guess something to do with which apps use some aspect of Gnome or MATE?

I presume whatever the Gnome update issue(s) are, they’ll be fixed in a future update. I’ve liked Manjaro MATE a lot, prefer it to Ubuntu, and hope my simple question can be answered here.

So my question again: Is Manjaro KDE Plasma more stable than Gnome as my family’s everyday OS now and in coming years?

Moderator edit: Corrected topic title as this is about MATE, not GNOME

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… Do you mean gnome or mate? They are 2 different desktop environments.

No … it simply means the number of posts and views … this can be interpereted in any number of ways … maybe KDE users are just more chatty, for example.

Arguably the most ‘stable’ and ‘mainstream’ would technically be XFCE as its what phil uses and its the most solid, slow-developing, DE out of all of them. Then again … that also means XFCE can be considered ‘dated’ in some respects … it was very slow to adopt GTK3 for example.

No. Your DE choice is entirely subjective.
I dont like gnome so I wont use it. I also have a distaste for how gnome is developed.
But thats me … Many users and Manjaro Team members use Gnome.
The Gnome desktop itself is alive and well … they push updates regularly.
Whether you like those updates might be another question … but again … its all subjective.

Read the update announcement. Its one of the first items addressed.
And again and again in multiple posts there and other seperate threads.

I’m not entirely sure that bare ‘stability’ is really something that one necessarilly outdoes the other in.
Gnome is arguably more of a moving target because until recently they were hostile to userspace configuration … what hasnt changed is gnome is known to be rather opinionated about its development and direction. Thats something that can be frustrating for some … and a non-issue for others. I’m still not sure it could be considered much more than partisan to proclaim gnome or kde ‘more stable’. In both cases there is active development and sometimes things change or break.

It will ultimately come down to which one feels better to you.
Some easy measuring sticks might be
1 - Which one is mroe integrated with tools you rely on
2 - Which one requires the least configuration to set up to your liking
(less deviation tends to equal less breakage and less work)

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What “some”? First I’ve heard of it. GNOME is still the most popular DE in the world (with high probability, statistics for this kinda thing don’t really exist).

Survivorship bias. More issues reported with KDE = less stable, not more stable. The categories are only for threads that specifically pertain to elements of the DE, not to how many users there are of a certain DE. KDE also just has a lot (lot lot lot) more depth to its configuration, which ends up overwhelming people and they need help finding where a setting is or how to do some advanced configuration.

This happened to every DE, it’s a bug in a shared library.

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Users only tend to post on the forum when they have issues. Perhaps Gnome has less issues than KDE so that’s why there are less posts?

Personally I’m not a fan of Gnome but it’s definitely one of the 3 most popular DE still

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Not that easy. More users mean also more issues. But you can argue in both ways, both are valid, since no more information is available.

I don’t like KDE while a lot do. Maybe I am just old-school, but the more technical versed you are, the more minimalistic you go. So DWM, I3 or SWAY would be preferred, then XFCE, GNOME and then possibly KDE, if no other option is available but with gnashing of teeth.

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Is that so.

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https://thisweek.gnome.org/

GNOME Shell & Mutter

Looks pretty busy to me, and it all rolls downstream

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No idea, having thought MATE was a desktop UI on top of the Gnome OS flavor. The default apps all seem to be Gnome and I added things like Nemo and Kate that I like from KDE. Here’s what System Monitor sez: Manjaro 64bit, Linux 6.1.31-2-MANJARO x86_64, MATE 1.26.1, Intel® Core™ i5-9400 CPU @ 2.90GHz × 6, Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2).

Ah, so maybe that would be best to try out next on an external nvme from an SD iso.

Interesting points, in that the latest update has moved me to ask. :thinking:

Didn’t find that in searching the Gnome category here. If this is something I missed before clicking Go on the update, is there somewhere to read it now?

Thanks. Guess it was lazy of me to ask, and you’re recommending installing all three for comparison. Seems like the plethora of Linux options is both a blessing and dare I say “curse” in that it may take me a few weeks to sample options.

Again, thank you for the quick and helpful reply.

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Thank you for the very helpful context!

Though I’ve much preferred some KDE apps, config nightmares is exactly what would be nice to avoid.

This also is good to know, since if I checked out ManjKDE now it might well exhibit the same or other issues that will also be fixed in a new update.

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Thanks. This seems to be a common implicit and explicit thread in replies so far.

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This was sort of true at one point.
Mate is a fork of gnome that continues the classic gnome2.

It should mostly be using its oen stuff, such as mate-panel, mate-session-manager, et al.

In the update announcement:

If so then it is misleading. KDE is pretty solid … the vast majority of ‘issues’ are born out of user configuration (combined with lack of understanding).
I keep no backups and write to you on a Manjaro KDE (Unstable branch) installed back in 2018 :wink:

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Thanks for the links. I’ll try to check them out later.

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The 2 big names you most likely will see in linux forums are Nvidia & KDE.

Because Gnome & Amd don’t suck :laughing:

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Nvidia can be a pain - especially when combined with Wayland.

Wayland is getting more and more momentum as display backend on Gnome and Plasma both.

Gnome cannot be tweaked as much as Plasma and therefore Gnome - at least in aspect of theming - can be considered less prone to problems related to theming.

Plasma on the other hand is so configurable - it is possible to get lost in the options - and therefore user applied theming to SDDM and Desktop Look and Feel often cause headaches on updates.

Keeping your personal look and feel customization to an absolute minimum will give you the best options of surviving an update.

Keeping your custom packages (built from AUR) to an absolute minimum with no update check is also a contributing factor tthat increases the survival rate.

Some informative educational topic - at your disposal …

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So after looking at the links, it seems my ManjMATE falls into some netherworld not covered in the gtk pacman workaround you kindly shared in that reply. When installing ManjM I imagined the Gnome forum here would apply, but maybe the MATE fork of Gnome is why nobody replied to my post there.

Anyway, it’s easy enough to wait for now. I’ve swapped from TextEditor to Kwrite in my Panel, and am leaving Firefox open (might do that with LibreO too) when wanting to avoid the update’s tedious new launch. Where possible I might switch to other KDE apps for a while since those seem to be unaffected. Actually noticing that was one thing that got me thinking about Manj KDE Plasma, but I gather that version is affected by the update bug too.

Many thanks again to all for your helpful explanations, links and suggestions.

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Huh? How do you mean?
Which portal(s) do you have installed?

pacman -Qs desktop-portal
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Sorry about the terse topic title, but it really is the simple question.
Why sorry, a very easily understood question. The answer is obviously “No”.

My uninformed impression in recent years is that Gnome and MATE are considered by some to be outdated technology.

  • 98% of us are relatively uninformed unless we have real experience. To really KNOW any desktop takes months of use.

finding it beautifully easy to install (1hr.)

  • This is quite shocking.
  • I can install from a USB to my budget computer (Ryzen 5600G, no gfx, 16GiB RAM, 256GiB SSD - SATA, not NVME) and it is fully installed within about 6 minutes.

I’d say the first 70%-90% (importing stuff) within an hour - after that there’s tweaking for a week… but who is counting?

Today the latest Gnome update apparently caused my so far “minor” issue.

Why would a Gnome Update affect you, because you say you are using Manjaro Mate ?

I’m wondering if stats in the two other Forum subtopics here might reveal something about a Manjaro “mainstream” flavor.

Be careful here.

Perhaps KDE users like to break it more often - so everyone visits the forum, but we have 3 million happy Gnome users that just never bothered even to make an account… what then?

Is it time for a casual user like me to join that crowd and migrate to Manjaro KDE Plasma?

  • That’s an easy question to answer. But answers are perhaps too personal to be meaningful.

  • I use KDE, so I say YES. But this is MY ANSWER, not yours. I don’t like clicking things, so I use gestures (>MOUSE< not trackpad)

  • I love KDE with X11, with mouse gestures and all that jazz…

  • XFCE is super stable and top choice amongst many Manjaro developers… but it’s more ‘basic’.

  • Because XFCE is super stable, why would it’s users bother visiting the forum regularly? Sometimes LESS is MORE.

  • Because KDE is super complicated, I think more people PLAY with it and BREAK it by playing too much - so they visit the forums more often. I don’t think it’s unstable, when I have problems, they are usually my own fault. I don’t use vanilla KDE.

  • People who use Gnome will tell you to stop being silly, and just use Gnome because it’s the best.

So I hope that’s a good answer…

The best answer is, indeed, no answer at all. Only YOUR experience can lead you to make your own choices.

I need a solid everyday OS to look/feel identical for Firefox, Thunderbird and LibreOffice - on a Dell 12GB desktop with fast 1TB nvme, and two antique Apple MacBooks with limited RAM and hobbled internal SSDs.

I don’t know, but if I could afford a fast 1TiB nvme, I’d also afford two 8GiB or two 16GiB RAM sticks to throw in there. I’d also replace any ‘hobbled’ internal SSDs.

As to my Gnome update issue on the Dell, for me so far it’s only slow opening of some apps:
26 seconds for Firefox (<1 sec. before today’s Gnome update).
51 seconds for gnome-text-editor (Kate instantaneous), etc.

Why on earth do you have Kate on a Mate/Gnome environment? Kate pulls in many KDE dependencies.

I am beginning to think you have installed different desktop environments - which is a very tricky and problematic game to play. One of the worst offenders is when you ‘test out’ different file managers - that can really mess up stuff - install Nautilus on KDE and see what I mean.

I did this before, and once I was confident I knew what I wanted I made my backup and did a fresh (insert YOUR desktop choice here… ) with only one desktop environment.

  • So ANY desktop you choose will be infinitely better (and I’d suggest you get XFCE, KDE, and GNOME and put those ISO images onto a VENTOY USB disk.

For advanced users, the benefits of Manjaro vs Ubuntu are much more subtle - so I won’t join this debate.

I used Ubuntu, I used Linux Mint, and I moved over to Manjaro because I hated PPA problems I was having and love AUR, rolling updates, and NEW software.

This means I did not leave Ubuntu/Mint through instability, I left because my own shenanigans using PPA’s to install stuff outside repos was more unstable.

So my question again: Is Manjaro KDE Plasma more stable than Gnome as my family’s everyday OS now and in coming years?

Nope - they’re different.

Manjaro KDE is nice for me because I use MOUSE gestures on my X11 desktop.

Don’t misread that, I don’t use a touchpad. I draw an ‘L’ to close tabs and have at least a hundred GESTURES to do different things most folks do with keyboard/custom shortcuts.

Stability

I have SNAPSHOTS on a BTRFS system, so I keep 3 hourly snapshots, 2 daily, 2 weekly.

I can mess up my system, then reboot to restore it - takes about 40 seconds).

The worst issues with doing this:

  • recent documents are also reset if you weren’t careful to protect them (i.e. run a fresh back-in-time rsync backup to your external disk so you can copy stuff back)
  • ‘Watched items’ in Plex are no longer ‘watched’,
  • A bunch of RED torrents which were deleted since that snapshot and no longer have the files (deleted TV episodes etc).

Final comment:

It’s not so important what you do.

It is more important for you to adopt a workflow. Get OPTIONS on a 16 GiB or bigger USB stick with Ventoy.

  • Snapshots can help you do a quick rewind. Rsync snapshots are good, BTRFS are faster - but you have to learn a little about BTRFS.

  • Keep Notes (I use Obsidian - and can use my extension in Firefox to Download as Markdown any tutorial page I find relevant and edit it to suit my needs) can help you write down things you need to do (setting up your SearXNG, Overseerr, Radarr, Prowlarr etc servers and stuff)

  • RSYNC backups can help you navigate to your old KDE/Mate CONFIG folders and copy those configs straight back. If you do any extensive editing of your terminal .bashrc, .zshrc, or FISH configs - then you definitely don’t want to lose that stuff.

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This is utterly ridiculous!!! How dare you!!!

So more evidence that comparing desktops is a waste of time (except in the actual functionality fitting your habits).

@cscs is a ‘stable user’ and I am an ‘unstable user’ and we aren’t YOU, so we can’t tell you.

I keep hourly snapshots, and rsync backups and write to you on a Manjaro KDE (Stable) installed, reinstalled once messed up, restored when lazy to fix.

My son never had any problem watching his TV programmes from Plex, or getting any work done when required.

Does that count? :stuck_out_tongue:

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First of all… STOP mixing apps from multiple Desktop environments.

If you are going to use GNOME, then use GNOME DE apps.

If you are going to use KDE, use KDE DE apps

if you are going to use XFCE, use XFCE DE apps

if you are going to useMATE, use MATE DE apps

Etc, etc, etc.

What you are currently doing will cause you, and your family huge problems later on, especially you, as you will be called on multiple times to fix the damned problems YOU created, by mixing DE apps.

Running Dolphin or Kate (KDE) on GNOME or MATE or XFCE is plain stupid. Running Nemo on GNOME or KDE or MATE or XFCE is also stupid.

Second…For reasonably modern computers, both GNOME and KDE are good choices… I use KDE on the following.

Operating System: Manjaro Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.106.0
Qt Version: 5.15.9
Kernel Version: 6.1.31-2-MANJARO (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Pentium® CPU N3540 @ 2.16GHz
Memory: 7.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® HD Graphics
Manufacturer: Notebook
Product Name: W54_W94_W955TU,-T,-C
System Version: Not Applicable

for the older computer, and the repurposed Macs, I suggest MATE or XFCE, depending on the capabilities of the computers.

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GNOME isn’t considered outdated technology. It’s the most easy-to-use Linux DE there is.

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