Ubuntu MATE 16.04 Beta 2 is released

Announcements
#1

Today marks the release of Ubuntu MATE 16.04 Xenial Xerus Final Beta. This release feature more bug fixes and refinements than any release we’ve put out before. You’ll also find full Client Side Decoration support, Synapse integration, new Plank, improvements to Welcome and the Software Boutique and better Compiz integration. Come and read the release notes to get the full details and the download.

The next LTS is due for release on April 21, 2016. We’re getting closer to the distro’s first official LTS!

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Thoughts on Ubuntu MATE 16.04 Beta 2
I wanna switch to Ubuntu MATE but Conky+Transparency and MATE are not friends
#2
#3

Woouuw !! YES !

To the people who had the vision, to those who provided their skills and those who supported this project in other ways - wonderful. It is a wonder to behold.

This is the distro I wish I’d had in 2003 when I first tried Suse and gave up due to the frustrations of a non-technical user.

:joy:

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#4

@Wimpy Congratulations for the Beta 2 ! The Welcome App gets better and better and integration of the Synapse launcher is most welcoming!

I do have 3 points that you may already have addressed with the Mate Desktop devs.

  1. When you use Marco - as the compositing manager - the top panel losses its shadow - this is a classic minor paper cut since the days of Ubuntu 10.10 and Gnome 2 era; my solution is to reactivate compositing and the shadows appears; not important but very old as you may also remember it since the old days of Ubuntu

  2. An option to lock all active panels; similar to what XFCE has; I installed Ubuntu Mate to new users coming from Windows and they manage to move unintentionally the panels by dragging them with mouse and even accidentally delete them.

  3. Panel applets, icons and the fun of having them moving freely despite using the option “lock to panel”; I am using a laptop with an external monitor so from time to time - usual after I login back, I am greeted with a change in the spacing of the applets on the top and bottom panels; this is a very old bug, again from the Gnome 2 era and it annoys me a lot; I even found a bug report from 2006 submitted with Ubuntu on this issue; they stop commenting in 2012 after 6 years with no resolution; in the end after I add my icons and applets I am using the “locked-down” state via dconf and so far so good. I do think this is related to the dual monitor setup I have and it can be annoying for users who don’t have the patience to digg for a solution. Did you encounter this?

The rest is excellent, speed, stable for a beta release and again the Welcome & the boutique apps are excellent both for new users and experienced users.

See you on April 21rst !

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#5

A big congrats! I’m looking forward to that first official LTS but after a great year with 14.04 that bar is gonna be high! :slight_smile:

I’m curious. I have a VM of Ubuntu-Mate 16.04 alpha from January and maintained the thousands of updates. Is it effectively at beta 2?

#6

Yes it will upgrade to beta2 and next month to will upgrade to the final release :slight_smile:

I have been with 16o4 from the beginning and like to start off with a fresh install of the final release. Ensuring I bring no bugs with me for the next two or four years.

#7

Fantastic and thanks for the confirm. I wasn’t sure if this is a given or depends on too many factors. An o/s has a LOT of parts! :slight_smile:

#8

Hi all,

When will Beta2 be in the regular updates (for upgrading from an existent Beta1 install to Beta2)? :slight_smile:

#9

I think it’s already there. I started at alpha 1 and “Welcome” already thanks me for testing beta 2. :joy: Synaptic history suggests that probably happened with a batch of Mate updates I did on 23 Mar.

I don’t think there will be a package identified as “beta 2”.

#10

Hi, all! :smiley:

I had a question regarding the upgrade to Beta2. I was bug testing Beta1 on one of the two PC's which it resides; and I do not know why I cannot get the Beta2 upgrade on the tester PC - via the normal channels. I am fine with Beta1 on both; but wanted to do my part. :slight_smile:

I started with Beta1 - and have maintained all updates.
Since the release of Beta2 though, a couple of days ago, there has only been tiny lib, icon, font updates, and the like, for my machine; no Beta2 (or any big packages).

Correspondingly, I ran: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
and
sudo do-release-upgrade

This my kernel, etc.:

Thanks! :laughing:

#11

Would enabling this box - pull it in? It hides way over here, now. :smirk:

Screenshot at 2016-03-26 23:43:08.png918×433 19.2 KB

#12

Xenial (16.04) is on a development branch until final release, having maintained all updates means you are already up-to-date! “Beta 2” is just like a label and snapshot, not an upgrade. :label:

I remember you were looking to keep “Beta 1” exactly the way it was. The only way to do that is to not update (too late now!)

Proposed updates are only for testing updates and providing development feedback. Enabling this may introduce instability.

Enabling this probably isn’t a good idea unless you were testing something for a developer.

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#13

Hi mated. I can suggest taking a look at: System - > Administration -> Welcome
…and confirm the version.

I just learned about the extensive nature of the “Welcome” app which can even add PPAs (using a “subscribe” feature) for, I think, a cleaner/quicker path to users than Ubuntu repos. I was looking for more on this. Someone correct me if I’m wrong?

#14

Actually, Welcome displays the “Thanks for using ######” based on the date, not the version. A 15.10 user would see it for instance. That should be changed one day.

Likewise, as 16.04 is in continuous development, there is no “Beta 1” or “Beta 2” state. It’s more of a snapshot label when downloading and installing.

To clarify, the “subscribe” feature only keeps Welcome itself up-to-date (latest Boutique listings, translations, documentation etc). Some applications in the Boutique will use PPAs (or source files) to obtain the latest versions from the developer.

#15

Hi lah7 and thanks for confirming my ASSumption isn’t so good. :blush:

I was looking for some marker getting updated, like “About MATE” screen or /etc/os-release.

#16

Yep, @lah7, I indeed wished to keep 16.04 Beta1 on my one production oriented personal rig.

Oh well, there is worse in life, than using a really great Beta1 turning into an even better Beta2. I would not even have a Beta on that machine; but I wanted to see if it behaved better than 15.10 with Compiz, etc., - and it did. :laughing:

These dumb questions prove that, even with my rapidly improving skills, I am still hopelessly a newbie! :scream:

Thanks!

P.S. Luke, 16.04 Beta2 Rocks!

#17

Hello everyone ! For the life of me I cannot get beta 2 to install :frowning: After choosing ‘instal mate’ I get to the point where I can select to download stuff in the background as the OS installs and that’s where it freezes. Any ideas anyone ?

#18

Hi I’m currently running beta 2 and I have a problem with Sound Converter it states MP3 Encoder not present. When installing 16.04 I selected to install the codecs.When I installed Sound Converter it also selected and installed gstreamer1.0-libav (from ubuntu software centre). I havn’t had this problem with other OS only since I installed 16.04. Is this fixable? I need to convert sound to aac and this is preventing that. I made sure it isn’t a Sound Converter issue and installed other programs and they all complain about mp3 encoder.

Cheers

#19

Well, I’ve tried a couple of methods to upgrade to Beta 2 from 15.10.

This last attempt appeared to be going okay until I ran

do-release-upgrade

That returns “Checking for a new release. No new release found”

During on of the many failures to upgrade I also noticed this:

This can be caused by:

  • Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu
  • Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu
  • Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu

So the third one interested me… Do I need to uninstall everything not directly supplied by Canonical? (Dropbox, Plex, etc)

If so this would be a HUGE pain!

Cheers for any suggestions

#20

You need to use the -d switch.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Upgrades#Upgrading_to_development_releases

And third party packages will still probably be a problem or two.