By default, Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish sports the GNOME desktop environment, or no GUI at all in the server edition. If you would like to change things up and install Mate instead, the GUI can be downloaded and installed directly from Ubuntu’s package repositories.
This can be done whether you are switching from GNOME to Mate, or you currently are running command line interface only and wish to install a graphical desktop environment. Mate is a great choice that comes with all the tools you will need to administrate your Ubuntu system.
In this tutorial, we will go through the step by step instructions to install the Mate GUI desktop environment on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to install
tasksel
- How to install MATE desktop
- How to switch to lightdm display manager
- How to login to MATE desktop

Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
---|---|
System | Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish |
Software | tasksel, MATE desktop |
Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Install MATE desktop on Ubuntu 22.04 step by step instructions
- We will be using the
tasksel
command to install MATE desktop GUI. In case thetasksel
command is not available on your system you can install it with these commands:$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install tasksel
- Execute the following command to begin the MATE desktop installation, depending on which package you wish to install. The
ubuntu-mate-desktop
package will come with more MATE apps installed by default and theubuntu-mate-core
is lighter with less software.$ sudo tasksel install ubuntu-mate-desktop OR $ sudo tasksel install ubuntu-mate-core
MATE desktop installation command on Ubuntu 22.04 - If you already have GNOME installed, you should receive a notification during MATE installation to let you know that you will now have multiple display managers installed. If you want Ubuntu 22.04 to boot into MATE desktop by default, then you will need to set your default display manager to
lightdm
when the prompt appears. Use TAB to selectlightdm`
and hit the ok button.Prompt asking us to switch over to sddm display manager - After installation, you can reboot your Ubuntu 22.04 system to load into the MATE desktop environment.
$ reboot
- At the login screen, select Desktop session as Mate. Then you can login and begin using your newly installed MATE desktop environment.
Open Desktop session selection menu and Select MATE session, enter your password and hit login button
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to install the MATE desktop environment GUI on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Linux. MATE is a speedy and responsive desktop environment, which comes loaded with a lot of its own applications to make your system administration that much easier. Ubuntu 22.04 and MATE desktop is a great combination that you are sure to enjoy – many will find they like it a lot better than the default GNOME environment on Ubuntu.