How to Remove Access to the Mate Desktop Environment from the GNOME Desktop Manager Login Screen

Introduction

Many businesses need to have multiple desktop environments set up and to tweak them accordingly as per their requirements.

CIQ delved deep into one such test case, in order to have the MATE desktop environment installed alongside the GNOME desktop environment and to remove the ability to login to MATE from the GNOME Display Manager (GDM) login screen.

This article will describe how to remove the option to login to MATE from GDM.

Problem

An administrator would like to disable the option to login to MATE or other alternative desktops from the GDM login window without uninstalling the desktop environment.

Resolution

Simply move the mate.desktop file to another location or rename it to mate.desktop.disabled:

mv /usr/share/xsessions/mate.desktop /usr/share/xsessions/mate.desktop.disabled

After a reboot, you should no longer see the option at the GDM login screen to login to MATE when clicking the cog icon after entering your username.

Conclusion

Following the steps listed in this article by renaming the mate.desktop file should help you better control the desktop environments (in this case with MATE) that users have access to from the GNOME Display Manager in your environment.

An example of where this is beneficial is with separating users into two groups: those needing an alternative desktop for specific applications and those that do not and can complete their assigned tasks using GNOME.

References & related articles

Rocky Linux Desktops: Link