On 04/06/2016 05:30 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
> It appears that the software package GUI installer, gpk-application,
> does not have what is needed for an install of MATE
> under SL.  (One evidently does not need MATE for SL 6 as Gnome 2 is part
> of the stock SL 6 distribution).  During the base install of SL 7,
> I always install both whatever Gnome and KDE GUIs are supplied; thus the
> comment below about X windows is not relevant for my use.
> I do this on servers as well as workstations so that graphical machine
> "workload" display and analysis tools are available in addition to the
> scrolling text tools.  (Sometimes a visualisation provides insight that
> a table or text does not.)
...

One workaround under SL7.2 is to switch your display manager from gdm to 
lightdm, which will allow you to select MATE at login (upper right 
corner). I think lightdm comes with the MATE desktop group. Otherwise, 
look in epel.

  # uname -r
  3.10.0-327.13.1.el7.x86_64

  # rpm -q system-switch-displaymanager lightdm

  system-switch-displaymanager-1.3-4.el7.nux.noarch
  lightdm-1.10.5-6.el7.x86_64

  # system-switch-displaymanager
  Please specify one of either GDM, KDM, XDM, WDM or LIGHTDM.

  # system-switch-displaymanager LIGHTDM
  Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service to
   /usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service.
  Your default graphical display manager has successfully been switched.

  # reboot

Alternately, you can systemctl disable gdm, systemctl enable lightdm and 
reboot.

Your Mileage May Vary.

BTW, a while back, MATE was installed locally on a SL7.1 system and it 
continues to launch MATE under SL7.2 without any problems. Go figure.

Steve