After I sat on this forum and said "But Mate can't be installed with Gnome 3!" everyone just let me say this and now I come to find out is not true! That 14.04 was ticking me when it comes to this new 3.12 Gnome and its BS. So, I thought maybe I could just add Mate in let is dump Gnome 3.12 and be good to go! First off, not working with Trusty yet as Mates repo is not set for it yet. So, I went back to my 13.10 image of which one I could spare to mess with.
I figured if Gnome got tossed, what the hell! Just an image running in vbox! Another one of my many experiments as to learn things! To my surprise Gnome did not get tossed! It stayed there so, I figured lets put that image together and see what we have? Booted to the regular crap Gnome desktop, logged out fast and boom right to Mate! Now my first impression on Mate is very high and can see why TheeMahn likes it as much as he does!
You know, it's nice to have a good looking desktop, but when it comes to the point everything revolves around that desktop it becomes a problem! This is what I finally see with Gnome. Has taken me over a year to figure that out, guess I am a slow learner!!!! Mate to me is a hell of a lot prettier than I remember back in the days of using Mint 13. Now probably everyone is going to say, "Dinosaurs roamed the earth back then!" Sure I know it has been some time, but when it comes to Mate has taken a hell of a turn for the better!
Another impression on Mate is it does not carry a semi-trailer behind it! Is simple enough but complicated enough to handle the job! Only thing right now find ugly is the calendar but am sure, I can spend a bit of time to fix that! TheeMahn, am kicking myself severely on this as I sure wish I would have stuck to your directions the first time around with "Build with Me!" You had the right idea, and I went south with my stupid belief in Gnome 3! Well, that is coming to an end!
I am wore out with this bottom panel in Gnome! That lousy thing can not hold its transparency for more than 5 minutes! Just a way over rated desktop with nothing but bloat, all show no go! GDM is fine, but after that is dust! Right now on current, Mate is close to installed! Will do a follow up post shortly on that desktop and post a few pics!