Mate 16.04 not kicking in after install on ubuntu 16.04

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2016 11:11:26 +0200, Johan Scheepers wrote: 
>What would you suggest to do if you want ubuntu-gnome and mate on top
>of it to have a choice when logging in. I have no problem to
>re-install. Pensioner - lots of  time and data on fast-dsl.

Follow this advice from Colin:
>If you install standard Ubuntu then install mate-desktop then you
>should have the option of either window manager at boot time.  You say
>'it does not work'. That is not a useful thing to say, unless you tell
>us exactly what does not work.

And since the default DE is Unity, also install the GNOME meta-package.

Or install another flavour

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu-flavours

https://ubuntugnome.org/
https://ubuntu-mate.org/

and after that install the missing meta-package.

As already pointed you, you could use the package search

http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=mate&searchon=names&suite=xenial&section=all
http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suite=xenial&section=all&arch=any&keywords=ubuntu-mate&searchon=names

Perhaps you want to install mate-desktop-environment instead of
mate-desktop.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/mate-desktop-environment

One of it's dependencies is mate-desktop-environment-core which depends
on mate-desktop, IOW this package installs more related packages, then
just installing what Colin recommended.

I guess this is the package you want:

"Ubuntu MATE - full desktop" -
http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/ubuntu-mate-desktop

You should take a look what those packages install and what you need.

Regards,
Ralf