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Comment by probably_wrong | Hacker News Reader

Long time Mate user here.

The "problem" with Mate is that it just works. I interact with Windows and OSX daily, and I have yet to find a feature that makes me thing "I wish my desktop environment could do this". Mate gets out of my way and lets me work.

In other words, it's boring. There's nothing new and shiny to be excited about, because it's as good as it gets. I left Gnome 3 because I was tired of visual effects getting on my way, but those visual effects were what attracted me to Gnome 3 to begin with. I think Mate lacks that "wow!" factor and, as grateful as I am for that, I think this might stop it from being more popular.

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I have no experience with Mate, but the feature I miss the most in the traditional desktops is starting programs by hitting the super (Windows) key and typing the programs.

I know that you can use Alt+F2 for this, but using super is much more ingrained for me since I've seen Windows Vista (I am using Linux at home and Windows systems at work)

KDE works that way on my Arch install without any additional tweaking. And I'm pretty sure you could configure the launcher in any DE to work that way if you looked at its hotkey settings (they're usually re-definable in my experience)

The last time I've really tried out KDE (many years ago, in the KDE4 era) it didn't work and I had to install an extension (that didn't quite work for me) to get that to work. But I've heard that they've changed it later. After some configuration I've installed XFCE on this PC and was much happier. I even found a menu and a configuration for XFCE that worked like I wanted it to work.

I specifically remember that the input handling code in KDE was adjusted a few years ago to handle single-key shortcuts where the single key is a modifier, esp. the Windows key.

> I miss the most in the traditional desktops is starting programs by hitting the super (Windows) key and typing the programs.

Brisk Menu. It binds to the Windows key by default and still somehow allows shortcuts like Win+R to work.

https://github.com/solus-project/brisk-menu

Ah thank you, I was wondering if there was such thing :)

You can use https://github.com/alols/xcape or https://github.com/hanschen/ksuperkey for that.

The windows key is a modifier like shift, alt or ctrl and hence at first it seems like a really, really bad idea to use it a shortcut by itself. The above programs hence implement the same behind-the-scences workarounds other desktop environments and windows use: treat pressing and releasing win alone as special.

You can of course also use this for other keys, for example

caps alone-> Esc

caps+c -> ctrl+c

Alternatively, I win+space instead of just win also is quite natural shortcut.

I know about all these problems, but if you are used to it is so convenient.

For me it became the most important feature of a window manager / desktop.

Linux Mint with Mate does this fairly well by default.

>hitting the super (Windows) key and typing the programs

That's how Unity (Ubuntu's default DE) worked, until they transitioned to GNOME.

Gnome also works like that

Yes but it has to replace your desktop with a checkerboard of launchers, which might be a thing whose effect ranges from unnecessary but harmless to annoying and confusing, especially when it lags.

In this case you can install https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/6/applications-menu/ to get something similar in gnome (but I have to admit that I've never used unity)

It works in Gnome too!

Exactly, so I'm puzzled why the OP said it missed that behaviour (and I suppose others miss that too as someone downvoted you ^__^;).

I'm not familiar with recent Windos but pressing the "Super" key on Gnome opens the "overview" screen (or what's called) with a big "Type to search..." text box that can be used to search files to open or programs to launch.

P.S. I prefer to use shortcuts to launch the common programs, using an extension that mimics Ubuntu Unity style Super + number_key, according to the order in the "Favorites".

I'm a huge fan of MATE and use it with several different Linux distributions.

I found Cinammon to feel slightly laggier than MATE. So MATE it is

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