Ubuntu MATE 19.10 Beta Testing

[vkareh]

maybe this distribution is really in [lack] of developers, the developers that exist can only do small patches to existing bad coding as no one have time for a code rework

And you'd be correct! Ubuntu MATE (and MATE upstream, they're very much related) is a very small team of volunteers. Some contribute in the evenings, some in the weekends, and others sneak in some code in between meetings at their day job. Bugs, issues, and feature requests pile up much higher than there is time to take care of them. There's also testing, documentation, managing the releases themselves, reviewing all the patches, etc.

Even then, the team still manages to rewrite parts as needed when time allows, and each new release is better than the last, so there's that!

Also keep in mind that developers rarely follow the forum to determine what needs to be fixed. So if you find an issue filed for this already, make sure you add to it as much information as you can to help the developers. If there's no issue filed, then make sure you do it, so that developers are aware.

Lastly, some bugs, even if they seem small from the outside, are incredibly hard to figure out and fix. This might be one of those, for all we know

[Bernie]

Hey I had few small issues at first but they went away, though I don't switch layouts often, it often seems to help if you switch to several built in layouts before switching to a custom layout(or a built in layout that is giving you trouble

edit: I just tried switching and mostly it worked flawlessly, until I moved back to my custom layout, then it repeated the brisk menu, besides that it was fine.(I also tried it several more times and while I got it to do it once, after I modified it correctly and saved it under a new name, it worked perfectly even switching from layouts that had the brisk menu) so it seems to be more a problem with custom layouts than built in ones, also in all my testing the panel applets I have had the most trouble with in 19.10 are the brisk menu and mate dock applet, however over all it seems far more solid than previous releases

[mircea]

I know @vkareh that software programing is not easy, I am not a programmer, but I have dome some programing lets say in more common languages like PHP/html and I know what you mean, when app became complex you fix something and broke something else, or if after sometime I have to modify it I am struggling my head to understand what I have coded there. Fortunately I have done this just for myself couple of years ago making an web app for my inventory list.

[mircea]

As I need a small mobile server for my car/caravan and intended some raspberry 4 for it I just found something interesting on flow market .. an "HP ProDesk 600 G2 Desktop Mini" that looks like in this picture:

As it can also be seen in the picture, this MiniPC has two Display Ports and one VGA.

The issue with it, is the video outputs on current Ubuntu Mate.

1. First issue, if I boot using VGA connection, boot process stall immediately after grub menu.
2. Second issue, If I use simultaneously both display ports, I get inconsistent Mate desktop detecting of monitors. Sometime are detected both, and Mate load correctly on both. Sometime either the one or the other monitor are not detected, so it load on that monitor corresponding low resolution, or sometime either the one or the other monitor are not detected, and both monitor are loaded with same low resolution or even same content. If i disconnect the corresponding cable and reconnect it, the monitor is correctly detected. Sometime I just have to go to mate tweak and change resolution back higher.

I don't know why, I feel that this is exclusive related to latest kernel, as it work Ok on previous kernel of a live image of Lubuntu 19.04 used for testing this.

So when I will have time I will download a previous Mate Image and see how it deals, or even try to use an old kernel on current Mate,, I will investigate more also this issue.

[arQon]

There's already a thread (and at least one launchpad bug) about issues with loading custom panels. This looks like it might provide another hint, though the "Panels don't work 100%" is certainly true, even if you start with a "clean" built-in layout and customise that, rather than loading an old one.

If one of the mods could split off this last post (only, as it's the only "diagnostic" one) and merge it into the existing thread so it's all in one place, that would be helpful. Thanks.

[mdooley]

Moving as requested but keeping micea's explanatory post with his diagnostic one. Good catch arQon.

[lah7]

Beta testing over! Thank you everyone for providing feedback for the QA team.

Ubuntu MATE 19.10 has now hit final release - see the announcement:

Ubuntu MATE 19.10 Final Release is out!

Ubuntu MATE 19.10 is a significant improvement over Ubuntu MATE 18.04 and 19.04. The theme of this release is to address as many “paper-cut” issues as possible. Every new feature in Ubuntu MATE 19.10 has been added to address bugs or poor user experience. Many long standing paper-cuts are finally resolved. [image]