MATE desktop environment was forked from of GNOME 2 and initial release was in 2011. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. MATE has carried number of Gnome Core Applications with it, and developers also have written several other apps from scratch to make MATE better desktop. Now MATE desktop fully support GTK 3, which means all Gtk 2 & Gtk 3 applications works without any issue. MATE is gaining popularity from quite sometime now among those users who like Gnome 2 desktop interface, and it took all hype from Linux Mint Mate version.
