Install Latest MATE in Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint

The MATE desktop environment is a fork of GNOME 2, bringing back full experience of classic/traditional desktop metaphor found in GNOME 2.x.

MATE desktop probably is the best choice especially for Linux users who can't get used to the mobile-device-centric desktop environment like GNOME Shell or Ubuntu Unity, and want to keep using the classic, simple yet highly customizable, GNOME 2 look and feel instead.

Since its first release in late last year, now MATE has been consider stable enough for everyday use, with its latest release that has reached 1.4 version today.

Below is the screenshot of MATE 1.4 running on top of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin, with some customization.

As someone asked in the comment below, I used zonColor GTK theme on the screenshot.

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What's New in MATE 1.4

Install Latest Java in Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint

In previous versions, many Linux distributions including Debian-based systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint/LMDE) have official Java included in their official repository, before Oracle withdrew it and forbade it from being included in operating system or third-party repository.

The decision make users have to download Jave JRE binary from official Oracle Java website, and install it manually. Thankfully, some people have made installation script to make it easy to download and install it automatically. In this article, I use a repository of duinsoft.nl, owned by a member of Dutch Ubuntu community. Using this repository, you just do regular installation process by adding repository and then install it either via Synaptic or Terminal.

This repository contains installation script to automatically pull and download latest Oracle (Sun) Java JRE binary from official Java (Oracle) website, and install it to your system. After you have it installed, the script and the binary will be updated automatically next time when new updated package is available.

OK then, here you go.

Ambiance Fix: Gedit's "Highlight Current Line" (zonModAmbiance Update)

In previous post, I wrote an article about fixing Ambiance theme (Ubuntu default theme), and also created a new theme called zonModAmbiance (a modified version of Ambiance), containing some fix mainly for the GNOME Panel in Classic session in Ubuntu 12.04.

Later, I found that Ambiance theme is also has some problem with Gedit text editor. If you use Gedit with its default settings/preferences, you won't see any problem when using Ambiance them.

The problem will appear when you activate the "Display line numbers" and "Highlight current line" features in Gedit Preferences.

Like you can see in the screenshot above, the current line is not highlighted, just like other lines in the main text area. And also, the line numbers is displayed without any difference from the main text area.

FYI: This bug has been reported on Launchpad (see this page).

This won't be a big problem if you just use Gedit to open one or two text files. But if you use it a lot with many tabs opened, especially when working with long line of codes, this gives you a problem to quickly recognize the cursor position in current line from others.

So, to fix this issue, I made some other modifications to the original Ambiance theme. Here is a screenshot of the modification, displaying current line and line numbers:

O.K., without further bla bla bla, how to fix this issue? Here it is.