How can I make Ubuntu Mate look like Solus Mate?

**kwanbis** · August 29th, 2023

I want to move one of my machines to Ubuntu Mate, however, I find a problem with the way Mate is configured: you have a panel on the bottom and a panel on the top, which added to the program title bar, wastes a lot of space for my taste.

I was testing distros and I found out that what I want is how Solus has configured Mate, as it is closer to the way I work today. It looks very much like Windows, which is a configuration I find very logic to me: only one taskbar, star menu bellow, system tray etc.

By the way, I know KDE is closer, but the problem is the way it handles many open windows: Solus-Mate keeps making the icons smaller, and smaller, just like windows. KDE, as soon as you hit 5 or 6 open windows of the same program, it combines them into one, and I don't like that.

However, since I am more used to Ubuntu, I was wondering if anybody know how to replicate what they have done in Solus-Mate? Thanks.
https://imgur.com/34xX4wE.png

https://imgur.com/YeSG5Vn.png

https://imgur.com/qTuDe33.png

**guiverc** · August 29th, 2023

Have you tried looking at what the Solus system uses, what apps etc. are used.

I've no experience with Solus myself, but I've have moved Fedora, OpenSuSE, Linux Mint, Debian & CentOS systems to Ubuntu and kept the same configs so the operation remained the same (only OS underneath the desktop changed to a Ubuntu base).

Some distributions also alter some components, eg. I'm using Lubuntu currently; which means I'm using a LXQt desktop and using Openbox as my WM. If I was to install Debian with LXQt that system would not install with Openbox but xfwm4 as the default WM; ie. I'd also have to change the default WM to get the same operation between Ubuntu and Debian with LXQt. It's tiny differences like that, plus configs/themes etc that are all I'd expect. Comparison should show these rather easily I suspect. Have you looked

If you'd like to replace an existing Solus system with Ubuntu (inc. Ubuntu-MATE !) I've written an answer here that maybe useful - https://askubuntu.com/questions/4461...451533#1451533 being what I used to convert OpenSuSE/Fedora/Debian/CentOS/.. that I have switched to Ubuntu systems and having the same operation.

I reinstalled a system today; and whilst almost everything looked good.. it still looked slightly different.. until I realized I'd omitted a font (thus text looked slightly different). Those little details (what theme, what font, DM being used, etc) usually aren't difficult to spot; keep a Solus setup on another nearby box or VM until you've worked out the tiny differences.

MATE allows easy configuration of many default setups, and both do NOT use two panels. What you're after maybe just as easy as changing the theme. Note: theme options vary on release of MATE being used, thus release of Ubuntu/Ubuntu-MATE matters in contrast to version of MATE in Solus. Newer MATE has dropped two themes if I recall correctly.

https://guide.ubuntu-mate.org/

**kwanbis** · August 29th, 2023

Thanks.

I normally try to use the systems with the least changes as possible. Not because I don't know how to or I cannot learn to do it, but because the more things I need to change, the more work each time I have to install/reinstall.

But in this case, the way Solus' Mate works, is so so much how I like it, that is crazy.

I have no idea what the Solus system uses, what apps etc. I mean, I know I downloaded the MATE version (I tried the KDE version, but the way KDE handles the task bar is not how I like it).

If I was to compare, how should I? Is it about config files? Or is it about something else?

I would try the themes part and get back here if I can't fix it. Thanks for responding.

**simonsaysthis** · August 30th, 2023

Hello. This will be fairly easy to do. Step 1 is install Ubuntu Mate. Step 2 would be to use the same theme. I will have a look which themes they use and write back. You should be able to extract all the relevant info from the live session but I'll have a look for you now...

**simonsaysthis** · August 30th, 2023

You basically need these two themes 1) Qogir Dark GTK3 theme 2) Papirus Dark icon theme

**guiverc** · August 31st, 2023

Originally Posted by kwanbis

If I was to compare, how should I? Is it about config files? Or is it about something else?

I would try the themes part and get back here if I can't fix it. Thanks for responding.

You've already got an answer related to the themes, but you can gain a lot of knowledge about the system with some very simple (and common) tools.

eg.

Code:

guiverc@d7050-next:/lts/home/guiverc$   neofetch --off
guiverc@d7050-next 
------------------ 
OS: Lubuntu Mantic Minotaur (development branch) x86_64 
Host: OptiPlex 7050 
Kernel: 6.3.0-7-generic 
Uptime: 1 day, 50 mins 
Packages: 2935 (dpkg), 11 (snap) 
Shell: bash 5.2.15 
Resolution: 1920x1080, 1920x1080, 1920x1080, 1280x1024, 1280x1024 
DE: LXQt 1.3.0 
WM: Xfwm4 
WM Theme: Pills 
Theme: Greybird [GTK2/3] 
Icons: oxygen [GTK2/3] 
Terminal: qterminal 
Terminal Font: IBM Plex Mono Text 14 
CPU: Intel i5-6500 (4) @ 3.600GHz 
GPU: AMD ATI Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series 
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 530 
Memory: 5642MiB / 15842MiB

This shows my OS/release, desktop, my WM, themes detail etc. (I only used --off as the ascii logo doesn't help here)

By comparing that to a live system of Lubuntu mantic I'd expect to see differences in the WM, my themes, my terminal font etc.

Yes on occasion little differences may require me to go further, eg. if a specific app is different I'd likely compare versions of the app which may explain it.. or even dig down into .conf files for some apps; but most differences can be detected by info tools like `neofetch` I used above easily. Whilst `neofetch` won't show many font values (terminal is shown only), those fonts are usually pretty easy to detect & explore using the DEsktops own setting tools.

ps: when screenshots are posted; they often include `neofetch` in the screenshot as it saves people from asking what font/theme/wm etc was being used & thus saving replies...

**simonsaysthis** · August 31st, 2023

Originally Posted by

[I

ps: when screenshots are posted; they often include `neofetch` in the screenshot as it saves people from asking what font/theme/wm etc was being used & thus saving replies...[/I]

Haha how did I even forget about neofetch. Would have saved me lots of work with the screenshots. Anyways, I think OP is not too used to theming so I guess the screenshots will help.