Today, October 13, 2016, is a big day for Ubuntu users, as Canonical just launched the final release of the Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system for desktop, server, and cloud computing.

Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) has been in development for the past six months, like any other Ubuntu release, and it's now officially available for download (see links at the end of the article) for those who want to use the latest software releases and GNU/Linux technologies on their personal computers, or in the cloud.

Oppositely, Ubuntu 16.10 is not an exciting release for fans of the open source operating system. Probably the most important feature of Yakkety Yak is Linux kernel 4.8, which brings support for the latest hardware, but other than that, you'll get some updated components that are mostly based on the old GNOME 3.20 Stack.

A few of the pre-installed applications are based on the latest GNOME 3.22 Stack, but not the Nautilus file manager, which remains at version 3.20.3 for the Yakkety Yak release. The LibreOffice 5.2 office suite and Mozilla Firefox 49.0 web browser are also present, and they are using the GTK3 technologies by default.

Also new in Ubuntu 16.10, is an experimental Unity 8 session that's installed by default and accessible through the login manager. Canonical added Unity 8 mostly for testing purposes, and you should be aware of the fact that it won't work on all PCs. Also, Unity 8 will lock up when you press the PrtScr or media keys, and the Web Browser app has no sound.

"Ubuntu 16.10 previews Canonical’s device convergence vision. Unity 8 developer preview includes apps that scale from phone to desktop, from mouse to touch screen, setting a precedent for the next wave of Linux devices," says Canonical in today's announcement.

Ubuntu 16.10 is supported for 9 months

Among other interesting changes added in the Ubuntu 16.10 operating system, we can mention an updated Unity 7 desktop environment that should perform better on any system, GPG binary based on GnuPG 2, implementation of systemd for user sessions, as well as support for viewing changelog entries for PPAs (Personal Package Archives).

Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) will be supported for nine months, until July 2017 when the distro reaches end of life (EOL) and will no longer receive software and security updates, which means that most of you out there won't even bother upgrading from the long-term supported and very stable Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) release.

Hardcore Ubuntu users might use Ubuntu 16.10 for Linux kernel 4.8 and some up-to-date technologies, so you can download the Desktop, Server and Cloud editions right now via our website. You should also check out what's new in other Ubuntu 16.10 flavors released today in our dedicated Linux news section, and the video below submitted by one of our readers. (Thanks W00den D3sk!)