Mate as default desktop manager in debian?

After installing Mate, when I turn on my netbook, Debian doesn't load any windows manager (not even Gnome), after doing some research I understand I have to change the default desktop manager by editing /etc/X11/default-display-manager but what do I have to write to run Mate? Also, how do I start Mate manually?

Tada Banri

Posted 2014-01-02T10:40:34.203

Reputation: 41

Which packages did you install? The important package, mate-desktop, is still in the NEW queue.

– Jan Hudec – 2014-01-02T11:09:23.303

I followed this guide and installed mate-desktop-environment-extra

– Tada Banri – 2014-01-02T11:35:29.783

What login manager do you use? – barti_ddu – 2014-01-02T11:56:44.543

Actually I don't know, I think the default one that comes with Debian since I installed only Mate after formatting. – Tada Banri – 2014-01-02T12:04:48.307

Does Mate provide display manager actually? Anyway, it's better to use alternatives system than hand-editting files like that. To select mate as default window manager you'd execute update-alternatives --config x-window-manager. Then you can just startx (as user). – barti_ddu – 2014-01-02T16:35:02.977

1I did update-alternatives --config x-window-manager this is the output: There is only one alternative in link group x-window-manager (providing /usr/bin/x-window-manager): /usr/bin/metacity Nothing to configure. Mate is installed, no doubt about it, I used it when I installed it. startx runs Gnome, I tried to log-out to change to Mate in the login screen but it goes back to text mode. – Tada Banri – 2014-01-02T17:16:10.130

Did you follow the instructions here? http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download

– MariusMatutiae – 2014-01-02T19:12:05.043

Yes, I followed that guide. – Tada Banri – 2014-01-02T19:36:49.347

Yes, meatcity is Gnome's wm; you could try to add mate manually, but in general it looks like not configured/broken install. – barti_ddu – 2014-01-03T10:18:28.910

Have you tried setting mdm in your /etc/X11/default-display-manager? – YoMismo – 2014-06-11T10:57:37.947

Answers

I've installed lightdm with

apt-get install lightdm

which works well and required fewer additional packages and disk space than gdm3.

(I could install gdm3 now but it would still install 130 new packages and would use 230 MB more disk space on my system.)

palacsint

Posted 2014-01-02T10:40:34.203

Reputation: 589

Firstly try install a display manager. Since you mentioned Gnome, try installing gdm3

apt get install gdm3

Once installed, on the login screen you should be a drop down list which you can choose which desktop environment

The contents of my /etc/X11/default-display-manager file is

/usr/sbin/gdm3

Deleting the contents of the file will cause Debian to start up as text only login. So show the graphic display manager, either

restore the contents of the file
or login as root and run /usr/sbin/gdm3 (or whatever display manager you are running) to show the login window as shown above which you can select MATE as your desktop environment

thewheat

Posted 2014-01-02T10:40:34.203

Reputation: 121

I just had to install gdm3, now everything works, thanks a lot man. – Tada Banri – 2014-01-03T17:44:26.187

@TadaBanri if the suggestion worked, you should mark the answer as accepted. You should see an empty tick mark near the answer. Accepting the answer makes thewheat gain additional reputation, + other users finding this on the net will know this answer does solve the problem without looking for your comment. – p91paul – 2014-05-17T10:24:45.857