Mate running well

[alexham36]

Mikkh,
Thank you for your advice in connection with Mate. I downloaded it late last night. I burned a live DVD today and I have it running in a separate 40GB HD. I prefer it to PCLinuxOS in every respect, especially the graphics, which are sharper and with better contrast on my machine. It will not suspend or hibernate unless I dab the power button immediately "no connection" message disappears from the monitor, but that must be something to do with my setup rather than the programme. So far, so good. Thank you again.
Best,
Alex

[mikkh]

It's still PClinuxOS, just with a different desktop, that's the beauty of Linux - the underlying OS is non graphical and you choose the skin (as it were) to suit.
You can even have several DE's (desktop environment) installed if you wish, but I wouldn't install KDE or a heavier desktop on top of a lighter one like Mate as it can lead to complications and a pretty hefty download as well.

Trying some of the even lighter ones is interesting though. XFCE is nice and full featured. LXDE is good for machines struggling to cope with a full fat desktop. Enlightenment is pretty cool, but it's full glory takes some heavy duty tinkering with configuration files if you don't like the default bare bones desktop often supplied. The PClinuxOS variant is better than most though

Scroll down to 'tasks' in Synaptic to find a one click install for alternative desktops