Hi all,
I was very happy to be able to take a first look at Ubuntu MATE 25.04 "Plucky Puffin" on my spare Asus Vivobook laptop. I haven't played around with it much but I have installed it and checked out some of the basics.
My first thoughts:
- I was very happy to see that the installer was MUCH improved compared to Ubuntu MATE 24.10 "Oracular Oriole" as, in that release, it had a really rough go on the same laptop, to the point where I had to start the flutter installer from terminal in order for it to work. Great job on getting that fixed for this release!
- I appreciate the additional options in the installer - one for encrypting your computer with LUKS and the other for a more detailed review of the changes made by the installer when installing UM 25.04 when you have multiple hard drives on a machine.
- The Yaru theme looks somewhat cleaner on 25.04. Maybe it's just me, but it looks great (Ubuntu MATE always does
-- even though I still prefer Ambiant MATE to Yaru but that's a personal preference!).
Unfortunately, I did run into a couple things:
- Ubuntu MATE 25.04 still ships the Oracular Oriole backgrounds - there is nothing new for Plucky Puffin unfortunately.
- There is a phantom game in the "Games" section of the Brisk menu that does not open (called "Fortune").
- The installer still includes screenshots of the old "Welcome" application (definitely not a bug, but it was a bit tongue-in-cheek for me as I still am of the opinion the old Welcome and Software Boutique applications were much better than the modern counterparts).
Anyway, this was a quick first look and I look forward to playing around with it more on my spare laptop. Ubuntu MATE is always awesome -- great job team and developers!
Jaymo