Most of the official Ubuntu flavors received their first Beta release for the upcoming Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) operating system, including Lubuntu, which is still using the LXDE desktop environment.

Last year when Lubuntu 16.10 got its Beta 1 milestone, the developers noted in the release announcement that "LXQt images are postponed until 17.04." So everyone was hoping to get a taste of the Lubuntu ISO images with the Qt-based LXQt desktop environment during the release cycle for Ubuntu 17.04, but it didn't happen.

And the even worst news is that there won't be any LXQt images of Lubuntu 17.04 when Zesty Zapus is released in April, as the Lubuntu developers announced a few moments ago on Twitter that things didn't go as initially planned, "We're behind schedule on LXQt images for 17.04, therefore we will not release LXQt images for 17.04."

LXQt desktop can be installed from the Ubuntu repositories

We know it's not the real thing and that many of you have had big plans to reinstall their Lubuntu systems with the LXQt desktop environment, but it's not the end of the world as you'll still be able to install the latest LXQt version from the Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) software repositories.

At the moment of writing, Ubuntu 17.04 comes with LXQt 0.11.1, and installing it is as easy as opening a terminal emulator and running the "sudo apt install lxqt -y" (without quotes, of course). Once all the packages have been installed, log out of your current LXDE session, or whatever desktop you're using, and choose LXQt from the login screen.

Simon Quigley, the Lubuntu Release Manager, informed us that you should not install the "lubuntu-qt-desktop" package just yet as it's being debugged. However, Lubuntu 17.04 Beta is considered a development release, so you should be aware what you're getting into when testing these unstable builds.

As you can see from the tweet attached below, the Lubuntu developers promise to bring more light into what happened with the LXQt images and when they will be released. In the meantime, check out the screenshot gallery to see the LXQt desktop running on Ubuntu 17.04, and download the Lubuntu 17.04 Beta 1 ISOs if you want to take them for a test drive.

We're behind schedule on LXQt images for 17.04, therefore we will not release LXQt images for 17.04. More details coming soon. — Lubuntu Official (@LubuntuOfficial) February 24, 2017