We are preparing Ubuntu MATE 'Xenial Xerus' (16.04) for distribution on April 21st, 2016 With this alpha 1 pre-release, you can see what we are trying out in preparation for our next (stable) version. Here is what has changed in Ubuntu MATE 16.04 alpha 1 since Ubuntu MATE 15.10 : updated to Ubuntu MATE Welcome 16.04.0; complete overhaul of the user interface; context menu removed; detects if the Ubuntu repositories are available; fixes re-install of Minecraft....

Recent Related News and Releases

Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 20.04 Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 20.04. The new release, which will receive three years of support, ships with version 1.24 of the MATE desktop and introduces a firmware update tool called fwupd. " Those of you who follow the desktop Linux news will know that upstream MATE Desktop recently released version 1.24. Ubuntu MATE 20.04 is shipping with MATE Desktop 1.24. Thus, all of the improvements in MATE Desktop 1.24 are present in Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS. Since the last LTS we worked on the following: added multiple coloured theme variations as one-click installs for those of you who simply don't like Chelsea Cucumber; added experimental ZFS install option; added GameMode from Feral Interactive; fixed several crashers in Brisk Menu and added keyboard navigation; fixed panel layout switching which is now stable and reliable via MATE Tweak Tweak and Ubuntu MATE Welcome; fixed rendering window controls on HiDPI displays; fixed irregular icon sizes in MATE Control Center and made them render nicely on HiDPI displays. " Further details on the new version can be found in the release notes. Download: ubuntu-mate-20.04-desktop-amd64.iso (2,217MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 19.10 Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 19.10. The new version provides nine months of support and addresses a number of minor desktop bugs. " Upstream MATE Desktop recently released 1.22.2. All the updates are present in Ubuntu MATE 19.10 plus I've cherry picked a good deal of fixes from MATE Desktop development snapshots. In total, 67 additional patches have been applied to the MATE desktop packages in Ubuntu MATE 19.10 to fine tune this release prior to launch day. Included in those patches are fixes for locking the screen on resume from suspend, adding a Media Information extension to the file manager, performance improvements for the window manager and cycling external displays using Super + p. All this work has also been submitted to Debian. Since the final beta we worked on the following: added experimental ZFS install option; fixed rendering window controls on HiDPI displays; fixed irregular icon sizes in MATE Control Center and made them render nicely on HiDPI displays; fixed Caja extensions not loading. " In addition, Thunderbird has been replaced by Evolution as the default e-mail client and GNOME MPV has replaced VLC. Both of the replaced applications are still available in the distribution's repositories. Further details can be found in the release announcement and in the release notes. Download: ubuntu-mate-19.10-desktop-amd64.iso (2,155MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 19.04 Martin Wimpress has announced the launch of Ubuntu MATE 19.04 which ships with version 1.20 of the MATE desktop and updated video drivers. " Ubuntu MATE 19.04 is shipping with MATE Desktop 1.20. Albeit, the latest maintenance release of MATE Desktop 1.20 with some of the bug fixes and new features from MATE Desktop 1.22 included. In fact, the version of MATE Desktop being shipped in 19.04 is derived from the same MATE packages that will feature in the upcoming Debian 10 (Buster) release. You may be wondering why we're not shipping MATE Desktop 1.22? The answer: stability. MATE Desktop 1.22 introduces some underlying API changes in core components and while all first party MATE Desktop applications are compatible with the changes and completely stable, some third party applications are not. Some third party applications are big crashers now and we've not been able to fix them in time. So, we are playing it safe and sticking with MATE Desktop 1.20 and working with upstreams so we can land MATE Desktop 1.22 early in the Ubuntu MATE 19.10 development cycle. " Further information can be found in the project's release announcement and in the Ubuntu release notes. Download: ubuntu-mate-19.04-desktop-amd64.iso (1,988MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 18.10 Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 18.10. The new version ships with version 1.20.3 of the MATE desktop environment and will receive nine months of support. " Curiously, the work during this Ubuntu MATE 18.10 release has really been focused on what will become Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2. Let me explain. The upstream MATE Desktop team have been working on many bug fixes for MATE desktop 1.20.3, that has resulted in a lot of maintenance updates in the upstream releases of MATE desktop. The Debian packaging team for MATE Desktop, of which I am member, has been updating all the MATE packages to track these upstream bug fixes and new releases. Just about all MATE desktop packages and associated components, such as AppMenu and MATE Dock Applet have been updated. Now that all these fixes exist in the 18.10 release, we will start the process of SRU'ing (backporting) them to 18.04 so that they will feature in the Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2 release due in February 2019. The fixes should start landing in Ubuntu MATE 18.04 very soon, well before the February deadline. Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2 will include a hardware enablement stack (HWE) based on what is shipped in Ubuntu 18.10.... " Additional information can be found in the distribution's release announcement. Download: ubuntu-mate-18.10-desktop-amd64.iso (2,006MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 18.04 Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 18.04, the latest version of the popular Ubuntu variant featuring the MATE desktop environment. This new version comes with the new MATE 1.20.1: " The MATE Desktop has transitioned from the GTK+ 2.24-based MATE 1.12 to the very latest MATE 1.20.1 based on GTK+ 3.22. This migration has been several years in the making, and most of 2016 and 2017 was spent refining the GTK+ 3 implementation. The move to GTK+ 3 has made it possible to introduce many of the new features you'll read about below. Support for libinput has been added and is now the default input handler for mouse and touchpad, which has resulted in much improved responsiveness and support for multi-finger touch gestures. Thanks to our friends at Hypra.fr, accessibility support (particularly for visually impaired users) has seen continued development and improvement. MATE Desktop is proud to provide visually impaired users the most accessible open-source desktop environment. MATE Desktop 1.20 supports HiDPI displays and if you have one then Ubuntu MATE will automatically enable pixel scaling, presenting you with a super crisp desktop and applications. " See the detailed release announcement for further information and screenshots. Download: ubuntu-mate-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso (1,909MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 17.10 Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 17.10. The new version features a number of desktop changes, including a global menu bar placed at the top of the screen. The 17.10 release also features an improved Heads-Up Display (HUD) which makes it possible to search through application menus using only the keyboard. " This is something we started during Ubuntu MATE 16.10 and never perfected, but is now ready for prime time. A favourite of Unity 7 users is the Heads-Up Display (HUD) which provides a way to search for and run menu-bar commands without your fingers ever leaving the keyboard. So if you're trying to find that single filter in GIMP but can't remember which filter category it fits into or if you can't recall if preferences sits under File, Edit or Tools on your favourite browser, you can just search for it rather than hunting through the menus. Just like Global Menus the HUD is currently only available via the Contemporary, Cupertino and Mutiny [layouts]. " Further information on this release, along with screen shots, can be found in the project's release announcement. Download: ubuntu-mate-17.10-desktop-amd64.iso (1,706MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Distribution Release: Ubuntu MATE 17.04 Martin Wimpress has announced the launch of Ubuntu MATE 17.04. The new release, which features nine months of support, ships with MATE 1.18 as the default desktop environment. With this release, the distribution's MATE desktop has completed the transition from using GTK+ 2 libraries to GTK+ 3. " This is our favourite release of Ubuntu MATE so far and, we believe, a real return to form. Ubuntu MATE 16.10 was a transitional release, in every sense, and 17.04 concludes the upheaval of migrating to GTK+ 3. We’ve put a great deal of effort into refining Ubuntu MATE 17.04 in the following ways: the MATE team did an amazing job releasing MATE 1.18.0 which completes the transition to GTK+ 3, fixes countless bugs and introduces some much-needed new features and modernisations; Daniel Foré from elementary contributed new icons which deliver style and panache; Ikey Doherty from Solus created Brisk menu in collaboration with Ubuntu MATE; Dave from Linux & Other Stuff contributed a new dark theme called Ambiant-MATE Dark.... " Further information and a list of changes can be found in the project's release announcement. Download: ubuntu-mate-17.04-desktop-amd64.iso (1,614MB, SHA256, signature, torrent, pkglist).