The first Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS Alpha has been released, and it looks like the developers are preparing for a massive upgrade to the operating system.
The Alpha release for new Ubuntu operating systems and its flavors is not usually all that interesting. Most of the cool stuff happens later in the development cycle, but the Ubuntu MATE developers want to show that they are way beyond that.
The next Ubuntu release is an LTS one, which means that it’s going to be supported for the next five years. Ubuntu MATE follows the main distribution and also provides five years of support. It did so for the 14.04 LTS branch, and it’s very likely that it will happen for 16.04 as well.
What’s coming in Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS
It’s very likely that more details will surface about the upcoming Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS in the coming months, more than it has revealed until now. Still, it’s quite a bit of information so we’ll get right to it.
According to the changelog, the Ubuntu MATE Welcome tool will be completely overhauled, the context menu for Welcome has been removed, the reinstallation of Minecraft has been fixed, a number of new packages have been added to Welcome (Variety, Gnote, Planner, gnome-schedule, Redshift), and the Terminator, VirtualBox, Simple Screen Recorder, Minecraft apps have been updated for Welcome.
Also, the Keyboard LED Indicator has been added for Ubuntu Tweak, users are now able to enable and disable animations, GTK styling is now ready for QT applications, animations have been enabled for the Marco, window manager, Program List is now available in the Launched with the Alt + F2 shortcut, default application handlers have been updated, MATE colourised icons for devices and places have been added, and a few new wallpapers have been implemented.
Some of you might notice that Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS Alpha 1 doesn’t ship with MATE 1.12.1, but that should be available in the next couple of days. You can download the Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS Alpha 1 from the official website and please remember that it’s not meant for productions machines.
