Ubuntu 16.10 Alpha 1 Is Now Available to Download

Alpha 1in the Ubuntu 16.10 ‘YakketyYak’ development cycle is now available todownload.

Just three Ubuntu flavours chose to participate in this alpha milestone.They are:Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE and China-orientated Ubuntu Kylin.

Ubuntu GNOME and Kubuntu are expected to participate in the alpha 2 release onJuly 28th.

Xubuntu and the regular Unity-using version of Ubuntu are only scheduled to participate inthe final beta, due late September 2016.

Alphas Aren’t For Everyone

This warning shouldn’t be necessary, but we’ll give it anyway. Alpha releases are NOT intended for use in “production environments”; i.e., don’t use them as your main OS on your work laptop, etc.

Alpha status means alpha status; expectbugs, breakages, and missing or incompletefeatures. Remember that these test snapshots serve asan early technology preview of the next release, not a [polished presentation of what you’ll expect.

Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak iscurrently set for release on October 20, 2016.It willreceive security, select app and critical bug updatesfor nine months.

Lubuntu 16.10 Alpha 1

Lubuntu 16.10 willnot come with the LxQt desktop environment ― shock, I know.

LxQt, a merger of the LXDE and Razor Qt desktop environments, is not yet considered polished enough for use as the default desktop.

In Yakkety, Lubuntu once again boasts thelightweight (if now overly familiar) GTK-based LXDEdesktop environment.

LXpanel 0.8.1 Abiword 3.0.1 LXDM 0.5.3 Chromium 49

There are also a few bug fixes and the linux 4.4 kernel ― plus a whole heap of known problems you’ll definitely want to read up on before taking the alpha for a test-drive.

Download Lubuntu 16.10 Alpha 1

Ubuntu MATE 16.10Alpha 1

Ubuntu MATE is (by clear margin) the most active flavour in the Ubuntu family. A set of release notes was not made available to me atthe time of writing, but from glancing at its recent development blog you can expect to find:

Support for Snap Packages Switch to GTK3+ only Search support on the Software Boutique MATE Desktop 1.14.1

Interested in taking it fora trial run?

Download Ubuntu MATE16.10 Alpha 1