I recently learned that Garuda Linux once offered a MATE edition, but it no longer appears on the official download list. Does anyone know why it was removed? Was the decision related to a lack of maintainers, limited demand, or another change in the project? Is there any possibility of an official MATE edition returning, or should users install MATE manually on another Garuda edition?
3 Answers
An official return is possible if someone takes responsibility for maintaining the edition, but there does not seem to be any indication that it is currently planned. For now, installing MATE manually is the practical alternative.
The MATE edition appears to have been dropped around 2021 when Garuda reduced the number of editions it maintained. The main reason given was the lack of someone actively responsible for maintaining it, rather than MATE itself being abandoned or unsupported.
Garuda’s editions are mostly curated package sets and configuration choices, not completely separate operating systems. If the required MATE packages are available in the repositories, you can install MATE on an existing Garuda setup, though it is worth checking the package selections carefully so the desktop environments do not conflict.
That explanation can seem inconsistent since MATE still has an active upstream project and plenty of users, but maintaining a distribution-specific edition involves more work than simply having the desktop available.