[brusch64]

I have no experience with Mate, but the feature I miss the most in the traditional desktops is starting programs by hitting the super (Windows) key and typing the programs.

I know that you can use Alt+F2 for this, but using super is much more ingrained for me since I've seen Windows Vista (I am using Linux at home and Windows systems at work)

[genpfault]

> I miss the most in the traditional desktops is starting programs by hitting the super (Windows) key and typing the programs.

Brisk Menu. It binds to the Windows key by default and still somehow allows shortcuts like Win+R to work.

https://github.com/solus-project/brisk-menu

[keyle]

Ah thank you, I was wondering if there was such thing :)

[diffeomorphism]

You can use https://github.com/alols/xcape or https://github.com/hanschen/ksuperkey for that.

The windows key is a modifier like shift, alt or ctrl and hence at first it seems like a really, really bad idea to use it a shortcut by itself. The above programs hence implement the same behind-the-scences workarounds other desktop environments and windows use: treat pressing and releasing win alone as special.

You can of course also use this for other keys, for example

caps alone-> Esc

caps+c -> ctrl+c

Alternatively, I win+space instead of just win also is quite natural shortcut.

[brusch64]

I know about all these problems, but if you are used to it is so convenient.

For me it became the most important feature of a window manager / desktop.

[laumars]

KDE works that way on my Arch install without any additional tweaking. And I'm pretty sure you could configure the launcher in any DE to work that way if you looked at its hotkey settings (they're usually re-definable in my experience)

[brusch64]

The last time I've really tried out KDE (many years ago, in the KDE4 era) it didn't work and I had to install an extension (that didn't quite work for me) to get that to work. But I've heard that they've changed it later. After some configuration I've installed XFCE on this PC and was much happier. I even found a menu and a configuration for XFCE that worked like I wanted it to work.

[Maken]

>hitting the super (Windows) key and typing the programs

That's how Unity (Ubuntu's default DE) worked, until they transitioned to GNOME.

[dreamer_]

Gnome also works like that

[andrewaylett]

It works in Gnome too!

[ricree]

Linux Mint with Mate does this fairly well by default.