Ubuntu 16.10 BETA 1 'Yakkety Yak' is Available For Download Now - Ubuntu Maniac

The development of the Lubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) distribution continues and today we can get an early taste of what’s coming in the final release of the lightweight GNU/Linux operating system, which should launch along with the rest of the Ubuntu flavors on October 13, 2016.

“Yakkety Yak” is the code name for Ubuntu 16.10, scheduled for release October 2016. Yes, we’re talking about Ubuntu 16.10, which has been dubbed “Yakkety Yak” by Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth on the day the company launched their sixth LTS (Long Term Support) release, Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus).

We’ve covered the entire development cycle of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS operating system, and we’re planning on covering the one of the upcoming Ubuntu 16.10 OS too, keeping you guys informed of the new features that are about to be implemented as they’re revealed.

We took a quick look under the hood of the first 64-bit daily build Live ISO image of Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) to tell you what’s new, but there’s nothing new to report because it includes the same components that are available in the Ubuntu 16.04 ISOs.

Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Beta 1

Ubuntu MATE is an open source, community-derived operating system based on Ubuntu and features MATE, a fork of the GNOME Classic desktop environment, as its default and only graphical interface.

The most beautiful MATE setup ever made!
Ubuntu MATE is not just another Linux kernel-based operating system built around the MATE desktop environment, as it beautifully integrates this GNOME Classic fork, making it look very attractive, while at the same time being very lightweight. It uses a classic two-panel layout.

How to use it? Simple, use the Applications menu item to browser and open apps, the Places menu item to access the local filesystem or network shares and the System menu item to configure and tweak the OS. From the bottom panel you can easily interact with opened programs, as well as to cycle between the four virtual workspaces.

This is what has been changed since Ubuntu 16.04 LTS:

GNOME Main Menu (as used in the openSUSE layout) has been dropped. * No one in the MATE team believes this applet is good enough to port to GTK3+. As it is GTK2+ only and has nobody to port or maintain it, this applet will be dropped for good.
The openSUSE layout is currently missing, but will be re-instated in MATE Desktop 1.16. * This will feature a different menu applet.
The Mutiny layout is currently missing but will be re-instated when the topmenu-gtk MATE applet has been rebuilt for GTK3+
Pidgin will no longer be installed by default
Pidgin is now available in the Software Boutique.
Cheese is not currently installed by default but will be re-instated as a default application when merge proposal 298171 is merged and released.
Cheese is available in the Software Boutique.
Indicator Session is not currently available in Ubiquity while installing Ubuntu MATE but will be re-instated when merge proposal 297183 is merged and released.

This is what have been updated or added:

All the Ubuntu MATE seeds and meta-packages have been completely overhauled:
Basically we’ve started over, and completely rebuilt Ubuntu MATE 16.10 from the ground up.
It is now possible to safely uninstall all the default applications without the ubuntu-mate-desktop package also being removed.
Memory consumption of Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Alpha 1 is lower than that of Ubuntu MATE 16.04.

New community contributed wallpapers from:

Ghost Sixtyseven
Jordyn
Okinawa
Per Andersson
Upgraded to MATE Desktop 1.14, which is now built entirely against GTK 3.18:
Indicator support for MATE Desktop, when built against GTK3+, has been significantly improved.
Ambiant-MATE and Radiant-MATE themes have been completely reworked to support GTK 3.18.
We have initial HiDPI support (almost) working. Don’t get too excited, this is an all or nothing implementation. When enabled all GTK3+ applications (not just MATE) will be rendered using high quality pixel doubling. If you have a 2160p display, it looks ace
You can find out what changed in MATE Desktop 1.14 from the upstream release announcement.

Upgraded Ubuntu MATE Welcome to 16.10.4:

Ported to WebKit2 4.0. The transitions and animations are now hardware accelerated (where supported) and it looks very smooth indeed.
Sports a new look and many visual and usability enhancements.
Getting Started section offers much more assistance for a post install setup and configuration. (Some elements back ported to 16.04)
Adds driver installer for Logitech’s Unifying Receiver peripherals.
New builds are automatically tested.
Testers can check out this daily PPA, including packages for Xenial users wanting to test new versions of Welcome.
Detailed system specifications can now be copied to the clipboard.
Assorted performance optimisations.

Upgraded Software Boutique:

Adds News to inform you of additions/removals to the Software Boutique. (Back ported to 16.04)
Adds Search facility so you can quickly find software by name, keyword and description. (Back ported to 16.04)
Adds Bulk queue installs so you can queue up multiple applications to install at once.
Adds a responsive design** so you can see more software listings when resizing or maximising the Software Boutique window.
Software Boutique now stocks ~160 applications. (Back ported to 16.04)
Introduces a new feature to display a complete list of all applications and the repositories they are sourced from.
Support added for installing software for arm64 and ppc64el architectures.
Software install and removal notifications now use the associated application icon.

Upgraded MATE Tweak:

Splits up the UI and introduces a new Panel section.
Can now change icon sizes and menu item icon sizes in the panel, exposing a new MATE Desktop 1.14 capability. This has two benefits, bigger icons for high resolution displays and, if you are so inclined, large panels suitable for touch input but without changing the desktop metaphor.
Supports enabling new style GTK3+ indicators.
Supports xcompmgr compositor, the preferred compositor to use along side the Raspberry Pi hardware accelerated VC4 drivers.
Tilda is no longer enabled by default. Tilda is still installed by default, but can now be optionally enabled via MATE Tweak.
Upgraded MATE Dock Applet which now supports GTK3+
Upgraded MATE Menu which now support GTK3+

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Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 Beta 1

Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 Beta 1 was released earlier as part of the Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) launch, and it looks like the development team worked very hard to migrate the GNOME desktop environment, which is used by default in this official Ubuntu flavor, as well as most of the related applications to the GNOME 3.20 Stack.

Best of all, it appears that certain GNOME apps have been updated to the GNOME 3.22 Beta Stack, which sounds quite promising for the upcoming distribution. We’ve always loved to see the newest GNOME desktop environment release in a new Ubuntu GNOME release as soon as it was out.

Empathy IM has been removed from the ISOs

Among other interesting changes implemented in the Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 Beta release, we can mention that the Empathy IM client was removed from the ISO images, the new GNOME Characters tool is now installed by default, along with GNOME’s Initial Setup utility, which lets users configure their installations more easily.

You’ll also find an experimental Wayland session (accessible from the login screen), and the recently released LibreOffice 5.2 office suite, which uses the latest GTK3 version by default. Other than that, Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 Beta is still powered by the Linux 4.4 LTS kernel from Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 LTS.

“If your computer supports open source graphics drivers, choose GNOME on Wayland from the gear menu below the password entry from on the login screen,” reads the announcement. “Many other bugs have been fixed. Where possible, many bug fixes have been backported to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.”

Software Updates

Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 proudly includes GNOME 3.20. Read the official 3.20 release notes to see what’s new.
Select apps have been updated to their GNOME 3.22 Beta 1 (3.21.90) versions.
Virtually everything GNOME is at least 3.20. See the manifest for specific version numbers of included software.
LibreOffice 5.2 is included. Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 now uses the GTK3 version by default (other Ubuntu flavors still use GTK2 or the Qt versions).
GNOME’s Initial Setup utility is included and enabled. It offers an easy way to configure language and online accounts integration on first login.
The instant messaging app Empathy is no longer installed by default for new installs but it is still available for install.
The new Characters character map utility is installed by default. If you prefer the older version, install gucharmap.
The experimental wayland session is included. If your computer supports open source graphics drivers, choose GNOME on Wayland from the gear menu below the password entry from on the login screen.
Many other bugs have been fixed. Where possible, many bug fixes have been backported to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Volunteers are requested to identify other bug fixes that can also be provided to 16.04 as Stable Release Updates.

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Ubuntu Kylin 16.10 Beta 1

And Ubuntu Kylin 16.10 has fixed many internationalization and localization bugs in Ubuntu itself and bugs in software written by the Ubuntu Kylin team.

Download]

Lubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) Beta 1

Although the Lubuntu team announced a few weeks ago that they are planning and working hard on migrating the desktop environment of Lubuntu 16.10 to the modern, next-generation LXQt graphical interface, this first Beta build still ships with LXDE. Additonally, Lubuntu 16.10 Beta 1 is powered by the same Linux 4.4 LTS kernel from Lubuntu 16.04 LTS.

“LXQt is still in development, because of this, Lubuntu still uses LXDE. (Although we are getting closer and closer, progress is made every day). This Yakkety Yak snapshot still includes the v4.4 kernel,” reads today’s announcement, where you’ll also find the known issues present in the Lubuntu 16.10 Beta 1 release.

If you feel adventurous and you want to test drive the Beta 1 ISO images of Lubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak), we recommend to download the 64-bit (amd64) and 32-bit (i386) builds right now via ubuntu website, where you’ll find the regular Desktop and Alternate variants. Please be aware that this is a pre-release version and it shouldn’t be installed in production systems.