Installing Linux Mint With The MATE Desktop
As a 12 year veteran of Linux as my desktop OS, I’ve seen the landscape of operating systems evolve dramatically, but Linux Mint has consistently been my go-to OS. It’s no surprise that it ranks near near the top on Distrowatch as one of the most popular Linux distributions. While Red Hat may dominate servers, distributions within the Debian ecosystem (e.g., Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, etc.) are kings of the desktop.
Why Linux Mint? It’s more than just another distribution; it’s a polished, user-friendly operating system that meets the needs of both newcomers and seasoned Linux users alike. And for those who’ve grown up with the GNOME desktop, the MATE desktop offers a familiar, resource-efficient continuation of that experience. It’s lightweight without sacrificing functionality, making it an excellent choice for both modern and older hardware.
## Step 1: Creating a Bootable USB Drive
Before we dive into the installation process, let’s talk about getting the installation media ready. You’ll need a USB thumb drive with the Linux Mint 21.3 MATE ISO file. If you’re unsure how to create a bootable USB drive, here’s an excellent guide to help you out: https://itsfoss.com/linux-mint-live-usb/
With your USB thumb drive plugged in, you might need to access your BIOS during bootup to change the boot order and first select the USB drive. This usually involves pressing a key like F2 during startup that’s specific to your computer. Once done, you’ll boot directly into the Linux Mint installation process.
## Step 2: Installing Linux Mint
In my previous article, I discussed reserving most of your hard drive for Linux while setting up a dual boot option. If you missed it, here’s a quick link: https://medium.com/@rthomas_40287/setting-up-a-new-frameworks-laptop-99b557d0c8b7. During installation, you’ll be asked where to install Linux. If you’re setting up a dual-boot system, I recommend choosing the “Something Else” for the Installation Type question for more control over the partitioning.
**Pro Tip:** If your computer is going to use Network File Service (NFS) to connect to a home file server, don’t use your desired login identity during installation. NFS relies on User ID numbers for permissions and ownerships, so you’ll want to match the User ID on your server with the user account you create post-installation.
You are also given the option to manage the groups for this login. Linux Mint creates a separate group for each new login created. This defeats the purpose of why groups exist. I recommend setting all created logins to have the “users” group and to delete any created user-specific groups. Most probably, the Group ID number that exists for users of 100 will be the same number on your NFS server. Lastly, add the sudo group to the user account you create post-installation that you’ll be using regularly.
## Step 3: Post-Installation Setup
Once the installation is complete, it’s time to configure your new system. Here’s how I set up my environment:
- Appearance: By default, Linux Mint comes with a dark theme:
If, like me, you find this unappealing, switch to a brighter theme. I recommend the Clearlooks-Phénix theme, which replicates the classic GNOME 2 colors and treatment of windows. Download it here: https://github.com/jpfleury/clearlooks-phenix. Linux 21.3 has GTK version 3.24 so you will want to download the zip file for GTK 3.20 which is v7. Once extracted, place the extracted file contents into the ~/.themes directory. This is normally hidden but in your file manager, View > Show Hidden Files, you will be able to view the directory. If this directory does not yet exist, create it and place the extracted zip contents in it.
Once done, you can go to your Control Center > Look and Feel > Appearance to change the theme to Clearlooks. Along with this, choose a brighter desktop background. You’ll then feel at home with the desktop in no time.
2. Desktop Arrangement: I prefer to arrange the desktop differently than what comes from the stock distribution. Here are the steps that I do:
Move the bottom panel to the top by right clicking on it to change the properties. Then add a new panel to the bottom by again right clicking on the top panel and choosing New Panel. We’ll come back to this top panel later.
Set the bottom panel to autohide in properties. Then setup this new panel via the “Add to panel..” option, to add a Show Desktop button to minimize everything at once; move this button to the panel’s far left. Next, I add the Window List to see what programs are running. Thanks to the Clearlooks theme, the Window List that is added to the middle of the panel has its left border marked by three vertical dots. This enables you to move it to the left just right of the Show Desktop button. You may also wish to add a vertical line Separator between the Show Desktop and Window List items on the panel. Once situated, I recommend checking the Lock to Panel option for these items to prevent accidental movement. Lastly, add to this panel the Workspace Switcher to enable you to move between multiple workspaces. Move this to the far right and lock it to the panel. If you’re doing multiple things at once, this will allow you to have your office apps on one screen and a different activity’s screen such as a programming IDE or a VirtualBox session of Windows on another.
3. Top Panel and Menu Customization: Back to the top panel, remove the now duplicate Window List item. I prefer the Linux classic menu instead of having everything crammed into one control button. So, on the top panel, I move the Mint Menu to the center of the panel and add the Classic Menu to the panel on the far left. A few other items that I add are the Inhibit applet for when I am watching a movie to inhibit the screensaver, the Force Quit tool to kill any misbehaving app, and the Volume control. I’ve also found the Eyes applet handy for showing me where the mouse pointer is on the desktop. Once the items have been arranged, lock them to the panel to prevent them being moved by accident.
4. Switch to a newer kernel: Linux Mint 21.3 conservatively chooses to use an old kernel version of 5.15 by default in the installation. This leads to various issues such as the graphics drivers not being installed and benign but irritating error messages when booting up and shutting down. A less benign error in my case was the operating system’s inability to go into suspend/hibernation mode and more error messages — leading to a dead battery if not careful.
If you go into your System Monitor application and look on your leftmost System tab, if your see the “Graphics:” displayed as “llvmpipe….” then your graphics drivers have not been loaded and you’re working with default Linux drivers. This will prevent you from changing your screen resolution. Here is an excellent link with more detail on this: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=424779
To change to a newer kernel, go to your Update Manager in your panel (looks like a shield) and then View > Linux Kernels. After the warning page, you will be brought to the area to change to a newer kernel. BTW, write down how to undo any unsuccessful kernel change that’s shown on the warning page just in case there’s any issue when rebooting.
Once you change from the older kernel to a newer one and then reboot, your graphics drivers will be allowed to install. You will then be able to adjust your screen resolution in Control Center > Displays. Additionally, any error messages on bootup, shutdown, and suspend should go away and the OS will hibernate without an issue.
## Step 4: Configuring NFS Client (Optional)
If you have a Network File Server (NFS) at home, you’ll want to configure your Linux system to be a client. Here’s how:
- First install NFS with “sudo apt install nfs-common” in a terminal.
- If you encounter nfs-common as a “masked” service that doesn’t work, follow these steps to unmask and enable it:
- Remove the following symlink that’s causing it to be masked:
“sudo rm /lib/systemd/system/nfs-common.service”
2. Unmask the service: “sudo systemctl unmask nfs-common”
3. Check if nfs-common is enabled:
“sudo systemctl is-enabled nfs-common”
4. If it’s still masked, you’ll want to force it to be enabled by making the following file as follows:
“sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/nfs-common.service.d/override.conf”
…and type in the following for the file’s contents:
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/etc/init.d/nfs-common start
5. After saving it, you can reload systemd: “sudo systemctl daemon-reload”
6. Then you can restart the nfs-common service:
“sudo systemctl restart nfs-common”
7. NFS should be running fine now. You can check the status here:
“sudo systemctl status nfs-common”
- hosts File: After getting NFS running, you will want to make an entry in the hosts file pointing to your server’s IP address. In /etc/hosts immediately under the line for localhost, you will add the IP address of the server and whatever name that you use for it such as NAS02. This will save you time and effort in the next step.
- fstab File: Also within your /etc directory is a file called fstab that maps in the drive resources for the operating system. Be very careful not to alter anything in existing lines as it could brick your computer and force either a reinstall or a painful afternoon fixing your mistake. Instead, add below the mappings from the NFS server to the chosen mount points on the computer. In the following example, I created on the hard drive the NAS02 mount point and NFS created the resulting mount points of common, media, and finapps. Here is the text added to fstab to enable this:
# NAS NFS Shares
NAS02:/common /home/{username}/NAS02/common nfs nofail,rw, soft,bg, intr 0 0
NAS02:/media /home/{username}/NAS02/media nfs nofail,rw,soft,bg,intr 0 0
NAS02:/finapps /home/{username}/NAS02/finapps nfs nofail,rw,soft,bg,intr 0 0
## Conclusion
With Linux Mint installed and customized to your liking, you’re ready to dive into a world of open-source software and endless possibilities.
This next article explores the must-have applications that make Linux a productivity powerhouse. https://medium.com/@rthomas_40287/the-key-applications-for-a-fully-functional-desktop-linux-df201348aa01
