Just a few days ago, we reported on the fact that the official Ubuntu flavors were having their first Beta release as part of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) cycle this Thursday, February 25, 2016.
Ubuntu MATE will be, as usual, one of the participants in the forthcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Beta 1 release, and its maintainer, Martin Wimpress, has just teased users on Twitter with a very intriguing screenshot of the upcoming OS.
We’ve attached the tweet at the end of the article and the full-size screenshot on the right because you need to see this: Ubuntu MATE’s interface looking like Ubuntu’s Unity one.
“There’s a Mutiny coming! Yes, that is a top menu. Yes, this is Ubuntu MATE. See you Thursday for the Beta 1 release,” says Martin Wimpress, lead developer and maintainer of the Ubuntu MATE Linux operating system.
We have contacted Mr. Wimpress in regards to the screenshot, to share with us a few details about what we see in the respective screenshot, so we will update the article with more information as soon as he responds.
From the looks of it, it’s yet another special configuration implemented in the MATE Tweak tool, under the Interface section, which lets users transform the standard Ubuntu MATE look into one that is very similar to the Unity interface of Ubuntu.
Update: We’ve talked with Martin Wimpress, and he informs Softpedia that what you see in the screenshot is called Mutiny, which is a new panel layout that can be activated via the MATE Tweak tool and consists of various new components the Debian MATE team has taken on maintenance, such as the libwnck library, mate-dock-applet, and topmenu-gtk.
“What you see in the screenshot is Mutiny, a new panel layout for Ubuntu MATE that can be optionally activated via MATE Tweak, which uses all those components I just described. Mutiny itself I originally created in November last year (actually in a pub during a podcaster meetup in London) as a bit of fun. It roughly mimics the Ubuntu Unity user interface, but has no dash or Hud,” said Martin Wimpress for Softpedia.
Another important thing to mention here is that the mate-dock-applet and topmenu-gtk components are nothing but applets for the panel, which means that anyone can use them to make their own customized interfaces. For example, you can add topmenu-gtk to the Cupertino layout and create a Mac OS X lookalike interface for Ubuntu MATE.
There’s a Mutiny coming! Yes, that is a top menu. Yes, this is Ubuntu MATE. See you Thursday for the Beta 1 release! pic.twitter.com/PVmvkHj8fc — Ubuntu MATE (@ubuntu_mate) February 22, 2016
Via Softpedia