MATE not showing up after install

Question

I just used Synaptic to install MATE Desktop Environment on my Ubuntu 14.04 computer. It installed successfully, but after rebooting, it's not showing up on the login screen. My only options are to choose from Ubuntu (Default) or XFCE. Does anyone know why and how do I get MATE to work?

Solution

Open a terminal and run:

sudo apt-get remove --purge mate-desktop

sudo apt-get autoremove

now add the MATE Official repo, press y when prompted.

sudo apt-add-repository "deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/archive/1.8/ubuntu trusty main"

sudo apt-get update

then install it:

sudo apt-get install mate-core

sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment-extra

sudo reboot

Done.

Now you should be able to see MATE at the login screen.

Comments

[JoKeR]

please add the output apt-cache policy mate-desktop and apt-cache policy mate-desktop-environment

[mc3mcintyre]

The output of apt-cache policy mate-desktop is the following: apt-cache policy mate-desktop mate-desktop: Installed: 1.6.2-1 Candidate: 1.6.2-1 Version table: *** 1.6.2-1 0 500 us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty/universe amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status And the output of apt-cache policy mate-desktop-environment is: Unable to locate package mate-desktop-environment

[mc3mcintyre]

Well, that worked, but my trackpad doesn't work in MATE. In Unity or in XFCE I can tap on it to click or tap with two fingers to right-click. Not even the mouse buttons work with it. Even more interesting, though, the touchscreen on my laptop works in MATE. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[JoKeR]

this I cannot tell, what I can tell you is every desktop is designed differently for its own features, maybe those features you use in Unity or XFCE can be activated in MATE too this is a question to MATE team developers, you can ask them here

[JoKeR]

if your OP question has been solved, don't forget to accept it, thank you. Cheers.

[Ray Woodcock]

The link is dead now. Archive: web.archive.org/web/20190312120626/https://… Current instructions: google.com/…