Ubuntu 16.10 will be released on October 13, 2016.

Codenamed the ‘Yakkety Yak’, Ubuntu 16.10 is the next short-term support release of the hugely popular open-source operating system.

What new features and technologies will ship in 16.10? That is currently unknown.

With 16.04 LTS out, supported for 5 years, and shipping the well-tested Unity 7 desktop, it is possible that developers will use Yakkety to test substantive changes to the desktop.

Could new technologies like Mir, Unity 8 and Snappy play a bigger role, or maybe even a root-and-all switch to Ubuntu Personal? (Update: No. See pull quote.)

After all, these technologies will need plenty of hands-on real-world usage to be ship-shape for use in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Heck we may even get a refreshed icon set! ;)

Planning for the 16.10 release take place at the Ubuntu Online Summit in May. It’s there we’ll learn more about Canonical’s plans for what it refers to as ‘Classic Ubuntu’.

Yakkety Yak is to be supported for 9 months with select app updates, bug fixes and critical security patches from its release date.

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, released on April 21st, 2016, is the current long-term support release. It is supported for 5 years.

We’ll keep this page updated with any changes to the release cycle as and when – or if – they happen.

Ubuntu 16.10 Release Date

The release date for Ubuntu 16.10 is posted on the Ubuntu Wiki, along with the dates of the development milestones required to get it there.

Prior to the final stable release on October 22, the regular version of Ubuntu (i.e. the one flavors are based on) will take part in a single beta release tentatively set for September 22, 2016.

Ubuntu’s family of flavours, which includes Xubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME, will take advantage of more testing opportunities, with two alpha, two betas and a release candidate up for use.

Alpha 1 – 30 June (for flavours)

– 30 June (for flavours) Alpha 2 – 28 July (for flavours)

– 28 July (for flavours) Feature Freeze — 18 August

Beta 1 – 25 August (for flavours)

– 25 August (for flavours) UI Freeze — 8 September

Final Beta – 22 September

– 22 September Kernel Freeze — 29 September

Release Candidate – 6 October

The (draft) final release date of Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak is set for: