Q100470: Supported Linux desktop managers for Mari

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SUMMARY

This article explains what a desktop manager is and which desktop managers Mari supports and is tested against. We recommend investigating the potential risks of using a certain desktop manager before committing to one, and moving machines to a supported desktop manager to use with Mari.
 

MORE INFORMATION

When choosing a Linux-based operating system, additional options may arise in regards to which desktop manager to use. A desktop manager is a collection of software on top of the operating system that defines the Graphic User Interface (GUI). This includes the style and look of icons, windows, folders, mouse pointer etc.

Mari supports and is tested against GNOME and KDE desktop managers, and we are aware that the Qt5 developments in Mari 4 have highlighted some issues across other desktop managers.

Unfortunately, at this time, we do not plan to provide support for alternative desktop managers with Mari, as this introduces a high risk of destabilising the Linux support of the desktop managers commonly used by most of our users.


KNOWN ISSUES FOR UNSUPPORTED DESKTOP MANAGERS

We are aware of two issues that are caused by using unsupported desktop managers.

These are as follows:

  • MATE desktop manager - Changes/customisations of the UI may not register or UI interactions may be delayed. The result is that palettes may not be visible in Mari once they have faded. The following bug report provides more details regarding this problem:

TP 240957 - Fading dialogs in Mari don't properly make themselves visible again

  • XCFE desktop manager - It has been reported that painting on floating palettes does not display properly until the palette is moved. This may result in unexpected UI updates and unwanted visual traces. Further information regarding this issue can be found here:

TP 352388 - Palettes are not automatically repainted on launch with XCFE


FURTHER HELP

If you are using a supported desktop manager and are seeing any Mari issues, then please open a Support ticket and provide us the information requested in this article: Q100090: Reporting a Mari issue.

For more details on how to open a Support ticket, please refer to the Q100064: How to raise a support ticket article.