How to Add Mate Desktop Environment 1.8 to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

The MATE Desktop Environment is the continuation of GNOME 2. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

MATE 1.8 is the new version of mate desktop environment bringing several improvements and new features, like support for Metacity as the window manager, control center support for Metacity as window manager, Caja file manager have option to use IEC units instead of SI units and “Open parent location” option in the search view context menu, Marco (window manager): added side-by-side tiling (windows snapping), Panel: Added support to run dialog and main menu opening with Metacity keybindings, Screensaver: show date and time in lock dialog. more about changes and new feature of mate 1.8 you can read on MATE 1.8 release announcement

How To Install Mate 1.8 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Derivatives

This tutorial will describe in details on how you can install mate desktop environment version 1.8 in ubuntu 14.04 LTS. In order to install Mate desktop environemnt 1.8 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS you need to add the repository mate 1.8 by typing the following command or cut & past to avoid typographical errors.

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://repo.mate-desktop.org/archive/1.8/ubuntu trusty main"

Download and install mate-keyring

wget -q http://mirror1.mate-desktop.org/debian/mate-archive-keyring.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update the repository and install MATE desktop environemnt 1.8:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mate-core mate-desktop-environment mate-notification-daemon

When the installation is done, logout and click on the icon located in the upper-right of the Ubuntu login screen and corner will be a menu with all the options currently desktop environments installed.
Select the 'MATE' and then put your login details to enter and confirm the new desktop environment.