Should you have issues relating to MATE installation, you may inquire within the appropriate installation section of our forums or in our #mate IRC channel on the freenode network.

There are some prominent Linux distributions that include MATE in their official repositories:

Arch Linux

Debian

Fedora

Gentoo

Linux Mint

openSUSE

Ubuntu

And also many others: ALT Linux, Mageia, PCLinuxOS, PLD Linux, Point Linux, Sabayon, Salix, Frugalware, FreeBSD, DragonflyBSD, NetBSD

To install MATE in these distributions, you should use their package manager.

MATE 1.8.1 is currently packaged for Debian 8 (jessie). MATE 1.12 is also available on Debian testing (“Stretch”) and unstable (“Sid”).

_{(If sudo is unavailable on your system, simply omit it and use a root shell)}
First make sure your package list is up-to-date by running:

sudo apt-get update

To install MATE, choose one of the apt-get options below.

• This will install the base packages required for a minimal MATE desktop

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

• This will install the complete MATE desktop

  sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

• This will install the complete MATE desktop including a few extras

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

• Replace Unity by MATE

The following are legacy MATE 1.6 repositories. They are available for:
 • 13.10 (Saucy Salamander)
 • 13.04 (Raring Ringtail)
 • 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal)
 • 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)
The example below is formatted for the LTS Release, 12.04 (Precise Pangolin). If you use any of the previously mentioned Ubuntu Releases, replace “precise” with the respective code name of your release. (_e.g. “quantal”, “raring”, “saucy”)

You may add this repo to your apt sources via the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/ubuntu precise main"

First make sure your package list, keyring, and packages are up-to-date by running:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install mate-archive-keyring
sudo apt-get update

You need only choose one of the apt-get options below.

• This will install the base packages required for a minimal MATE desktop

  sudo apt-get install mate-core

• This will install the complete MATE desktop

  sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

The Ubuntu MATE Developers utilize a MATE 1.8.1 PPA Repo ported from Debian for use with the Trusty (14.04) Ubuntu MATE Remix.

You may add this repo to your apt sources via the following commands:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/ppa
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/trusty-mate

First make sure your package list and packages are up-to-date by running:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

You can choose to install Vanilla MATE by picking one of the apt-get options below.

• This will install the base packages required for a minimal MATE desktop

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

• This will install the complete MATE desktop

  sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

• This will install the complete MATE desktop including a few extras ^{(Most Users Will Want This)}

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

Alternatively you may choose to install Ubuntu MATE Remix.

Ubuntu MATE is a more comprehensive option that offers a slightly tweaked layout, configuration, and themes to integrate into Ubuntu in a more seamless fashion. This will install the complete MATE Desktop Environment as well as LightDM and numerous other applications to provide a full and well rounded desktop.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-mate-core ubuntu-mate-desktop

MATE 1.8 is available in official repositories.

• Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” has MATE 1.0
• Linux Mint 13 “Maya” has MATE 1.2
• Linux Mint 14 “Nadia” has MATE 1.4
• Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” has MATE 1.6
• Linux Mint 16 “Petra” has MATE 1.6
• Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” has MATE 1.8
• Linux Mint LMDE has MATE 1.6

For Mint version without MATE, you have to install it separately.

In Mint versions 15 and earlier, you can install mate-desktop-environment and mate-core.

# This will install the base packages required for a minimal MATE desktop
apt-get install mate-core
# This will install the complete MATE desktop including extras
apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

In Mint Petra the package that installs mate is mate-meta

# Only one and installs all of Mate
apt-get install mate-meta

In Mint Rebecca the package that installs mate is mint-meta-mate

# Only one and installs all of Mate
apt-get install mint-meta-mate

Salix 13.37 users only need to run:

slapt-get --install-set mate

There are two options in which you can install MATE on Slackware:

• MATE SlackBuilds (MSB) Project
• Salix Repository

Please visit the project page at http://mateslackbuilds.github.io/ for more information about this project.

Binary packages for Slackware 14.0, 14.1, and future release (x86/x86_64) are located in

• http://www.slackware.uk/msb/ (primary mirror)
• http://repo.ukdw.ac.id/msb/ (backup mirror)

People using Slackware-Current are advised to build the sources from http://github.com/mateslackbuilds/msb and read CURRENT.TXT prior building.

Slackware users can install Mate using the packages in the Salix repositories.

Slackware 14.0 users can manually grab the packages (MATE 1.4) from the following locations:

i486 mirrors

• ftp://ftp.slackware.org.uk/salix/i486/14.0/salix/mate
• http://salix.enialis.net/i486/14.0/salix/mate/
• http://download.salixos.org/i486/14.0/salix/mate/
• http://mirrors.nix.org.ua/linux/salixos/i486/14.0/salix/mate

x86_64 mirrors

• ftp://ftp.slackware.org.uk/salix/x86_64/14.0/salix/mate
• http://salix.enialis.net/x86_64/14.0/salix/mate/
• http://download.salixos.org/x86_64/14.0/salix/mate/
• http://mirrors.nix.org.ua/linux/salixos/x86_64/14.0/salix/mate

Slackware users using Salix repository should also install the following packages that are needed and which are not included in a full Slackware installation:

cairomm glibmm gtkmm libcanberra libgtop libsigc++ libsoup libunique pangomm upower

All of these packages are also available from the Salix repositories.

MATE is available through the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository, maintained by the Fedora Project. This should work on CentOS 7 as well, and any other compatible derivatives.

After you install the epel-release-7*.rpm package to add the EPEL repository to Yum, you can install MATE with the following command:

yum groupinstall mate-desktop

If you install this on a minimal system without an existing GUI configured (such as a GNOME or KDE desktop), you might want to install the X Window System group as well for local graphical logins:

yum groupinstall "X Window System"

you may also want to change the default systemd target to graphical:

systemctl set-default graphical.target

MATE desktop is included in Fedora and available for all current releases. There are multiple ways to get MATE with Fedora.

1. If you have Fedora already installed, use the following command:

   yum groupinstall mate-desktop

New with fedora 21

1. scroll down to the buttom of fedora's new webpage https://getfedora.org/
2. For a netiso image choose Fedora-Server product https://getfedora.org/de_CH/server/download/
3. Under Fedora-Spins you will find the mate-compiz livecd image https://spins.fedoraproject.org/

Older releases (f20) you can dowload via torrent. http://torrents.fedoraproject.org/

The Fedora MATE maintainer, also maintains http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/fedora_additional_repository.

Note: Don't choose fedora workstation, this is nothing more than a gnome livecd ;)

MATE is available from the official repositories. See http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/MATE.

emerge -av mate

For x86, MATE is ~arch keyworded so if you run a stable system make sure to add the necessary entries to package.keywords.

See the Arch Linux Package Repository page.

To install the base MATE components simply install the mate group.

pacman -Syy mate

To install all of MATE install the mate and mate-extra groups.

pacman -Syy mate mate-extra

openSUSE users can install the MATE Desktop through YaST2 META Installer, we strongly suggest this method. Please visit the MATE Desktop Portal page in openSUSE wiki for further information.

• openSUSE MATE Desktop Portal

Besides installation instructions the MATE Desktop Portal on openSUSE wiki also provides other useful information!

MATE has been merged into current. Now, you just have to use this command :

# pacman-g2 -Syy mate-extra

When installation is done, restart the display-manager and you'll be able to choose MATE as window manager.

Mageia 4 provides and officially supports MATE. Use rpmdrake or Mageia Control Center > Install & Remove Software and install task-mate for full MATE Desktop or install task-mate-minimal for minimal MATE Desktop installation. You can also install MATE Desktop from command-line: urpmi task-mate

Due to dependencies of some other applications to deprecated MATE packages, MATE 1.8 will not be provided as an update or backport to avoid possible crashes/problems. However, there is an unsupported, unofficial repository providing MATE 1.8 version. Please read below section and use same commands to add the repository.

Mageia packager and Mageia MATE packages maintainer Atilla ÖNTAŞ <a.k.a tarakbumba> provides an unofficial Mageia 3 repository. This repository includes backported MATE packages from Cauldron and a few packages not available in official Mageia repositories.

To install MATE Desktop for your Mageia 3 system,

• Add unofficial repositories from commandline as root:

 urpmi.addmedia --distrib 'http://tarakbumba.mageia.org.pl/$RELEASE/$ARCH'

• Use the code exactly seen as above. See about this post for urpmi variables

• Then install either task-mate-minimal for a minimal installation or task-mate for full MATE Desktop via rpmdrake or urpmi.

MATE 1.6 packages are available in official stable repository; use apt-get or synaptic to install mate-default for reasonable set of packages, there's also mate-minimal metapackage for those picky enough.

Centaurus the flagship ALT Linux distribution is MATE based in its 7.0 version; there's a somewhat minimalistic starterkit too.

MATE packages are also available within development repository; installation instructions are the same and there are weekly Regular LiveCD builds (these are 32- and 64-bit x86 bootable/installable images supporting CD/Flash and BIOS/UEFI).

ARMv7 (hardfloat) builds are available as well.

MATE is present in PLD Th, currently version is 1.8

You can install MATE desktop using metapackage-mate package:

poldek --up -u metapackage-mate

and to install with some more extras:

poldek -u metapackage-mate-extras

MATE Desktop is available in the FreeBSD Ports tree, and can be installed via the mate meta-port available on FreshPorts.

Installation is supported via the ports tree directly or the binary package repositories.

Using Ports:

cd /usr/ports/x11/mate && make install clean

Using Binary Packages:

pkg install mate

MATE Desktop is available in the DragonFlyBSD Dports.

Installation is supported, via the DPorts tree directly or the binary package repositories.

Using DPorts:

cd /usr/dports/x11/mate-desktop/

/usr/dports/x11/mate-desktop/make install

Using Binary Packages:

pkg update

pkg install mate-desktop

Mate 1.8 is avaible only in pkgsrc-wip “mate” is a Meta-package

cd /usr/pkgsrc/wip/mate/

make install clean clean-depends

MATE is available in the official Cygwin distribution; install the mate-session-manager package and its dependencies with Cygwin setup.

You can download MATE source code tarballs on pub.mate-desktop.org: http://pub.mate-desktop.org/releases/

Get from https://github.com/mate-desktop/. See Building for more information.