Today, August 25, 2016, is not only the birthday of the Linux kernel, but also an important date in the release schedule of the upcoming Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system, as the first Beta was just launched.

Time flies when you have fun, and, whether you believe it or not, Ubuntu 16.10 is already in the Beta stages of development, but only for the opt-in flavors, namely Ubuntu MATE, Kubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Ubuntu Kylin. It appears that Xubuntu will be skipping this first Beta release.

Ubuntu itself no longer participates in the Beta 1 milestone, only the Final Beta, which is also the second Beta build for the opt-in flavors. And if you're wondering what's new since the Alpha 2 release, we can tell you that there isn't much, mostly software updates and a few minor, under-the-hood improvements.

As you might know, we've already told you that Canonical will try to replace Upstart with systemd for the startup session, and there should also the unification and cleanup of the networking configuration through the implementation of the "netplan" project in the final release of Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak).

Other than that, most of the software packages have been updated to their latest versions, and among the highlights we can mention the LibreOffice 5.2 office suite and GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 6.2.0 compiler, as well as the latest stable and long-anticipated GNOME 3.20 Stack.

Yes, that's right, most of the GNOME apps have been finally updated to version 3.20.x, including the Nautilus file manager, which was downgraded to version 3.14 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), upsetting many users. As for the kernel, Ubuntu 16.10 still uses Ubuntu 16.04 LTS' Linux 4.4 LTS kernel, but will soon be rebased on Linux 4.6.7.

Linux kernel 4.6.7 marked the end of life of the Linux 4.6 series, and it should land in the Ubuntu 16.10 stable repositories sometime next week, which means that you won't get it in this Beta 1 release. However, the final release of Ubuntu 16.10 will be powered by Linux kernel 4.8, which is currently based on Linux kernel 4.8 Release Candidate 3.

Ubuntu 16.10 Final Beta coming September 22

The Final Beta release of Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) will be available in approximately one month from the moment of writing this story, more precisely on September 22, when we will finally be able to get a good taste of what's coming to Ubuntu 16.10 this fall, on October 13, 2016. By then most of the features should be in place, including the optional Unity 8 session.

If you're a fan of the other Ubuntu flavors, we invite you to check out our seperate announcements for Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Beta 1, Kubuntu 16.10 Beta 1, Lubuntu 16.10 Beta 1, Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 Beta 1, Ubuntu Kylin 16.10 Beta 1, and Ubuntu Studio 16.10 Beta 1, where you'll aslo be able to download the Live ISO images for 64-bit and 32-bit hardware architectures. Happy testing!