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I found these instructions but I am a little bit reluctant to follow them blindly because the last modification date was in 2014.

To add context to the question:

A week ago I upgraded from 16.10 to 17.04. Today I read that future versions of Ubuntu will come with Gnome and abandon Unity. I want to take this as an opportunity to move not to Gnome but Mate. However, I do not want to do a fresh installation but keep my existing system.

alaminio
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orschiro
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  • HOWTO : sudo apt install --install-suggests mate-desktop – Knud Larsen Apr 05 '17 at 19:49
  • @KnudLarsen that only gets you mate desktop environment. Ubuntu Mate comes with whole lot more - it's a set of default applications AND desktop that matters. See my answer. Sure, it's effectivelly the same command, but you need the right package – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Apr 05 '17 at 19:52
  • @ElderGeek: The OP added a link. Personally I wonder, though, if MS really meant to say that they plan to abandon Unity7. Does "back to GNOME" possibly mean that focus is moved back to Unity7? – Gunnar Hjalmarsson Apr 05 '17 at 19:58
  • Related: http://askubuntu.com/questions/590627/how-to-transform-an-ubuntu-unity-to-ubuntu-mate?rq=1 – Elder Geek Apr 05 '17 at 20:31
  • @ElderGeek: Time will tell. I still hope that he just expressed himself in a sloppy manner. Otherwise he would reasonably have elaborated on that part of the post. – Gunnar Hjalmarsson Apr 05 '17 at 20:37

1 Answers1

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Moving to Mate can be done easily with 

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-mate-desktop

It's a meta-package that allows you installing full Ubuntu Mate environment.

Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
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