Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS is out!

Announcements
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In case you've missed the news, Ubuntu MATE 20.04 Focal Fossa has been released!

Take a look at what's new:

Upgrading from 18.04 LTS

This release is still officially supported for another year (April 2021).

You'll see this notification to upgrade in a couple of months when the first point release is available (20.04.1). This is like a stability safety net, to allow for early 20.04 issues to be ironed out.

18-04-to-20-04

Upgrading from 19.10

Being a short-term release, you must upgrade within 2 months (June 2020).

Notifications in :update: Software Updater should start to appear soon.

19-10-to-20-04

Upgrade before the prompt

If your system hasn't been invited to upgrade, press Alt + F2 and type:

update-manager -c -d

Disregard the "development release" message, as you can be assured that 20.04 has been released and this won't jump onto a newly opened 20.10 branch (unless you try to do this from 20.04, of course!)

Alternately, upgrades can be performed via the :terminal: Terminal:

sudo do-release-upgrade -d

As always, it is a good practice to backup your computer.

Fresh Installs

Downloads are right here:

:star: We've also recently updated the website to provide more details on how you can get involved and get a feel of what makes up the MATE desktop experience.

What about 20.04 for the Raspberry Pi and GPD?

These are now available!

18 Likes
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Congratulations on a great release!

Small note, as I think the text was a victim of aggressive autocorrect: Under the section " New Key-bindings", in the listing of the key bindings for tiling the windows, the captions say "Title Window ..." where it should read "Tile Window ..."

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You make Ubuntu great again! Thank You!

8 Likes
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I would love a ten year supported LTS.

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So I'm trying to upgrade to 20.04 from 18.04 but it is saying I'm up to date. I think it might have something to do with this...
The following packages have been kept back:
*** libsdl2-2.0-0 libsdl2-dev***
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Is this why I can't upgrade to 20.04 if so how can I fix this. Thanks

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So what about the desktop sharing service? Is that back? Something always seems to be missing in any distribution I test, and I can't get an ISO installed that has everything needed out of the box. Frustrating.

1 Like
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Thank-you for another solid release! Ever since Ubuntu dropped GNOME 2, I went to XFCE. Then I heard about this desktop, and gave it a try but the papercut issues were very real for me, and never could make the switch fully. These last 2 updates have been fantastic and I for one am happy to see GNOME2 back and better than ever. Especially in an LTS! :slight_smile:

2 Likes
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Thank you so much for your huge effort to get this version finished.
When I donated the first time in 2018, I thought I have with Ubuntu Mate the equivalent of a Windows Home version. But soon, I discovered Virtualbox and this changed my computer life tremendously. So, I was happy to donate this time the price of a Windows 10 Pro version. It's worth each single penny. What a pleasure to have that marvellous operating system. I :heart: it.

Thanks, team! Much appreciated. I don't take your effort for granted.

Stay safe!

4 Likes
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Now I wonder what will 18.04 users feel like when they upgrade to 20.04 and lost their Compiz config?
A plus for the coloring feature though, because now I can have the classic Ubuntu
10.04/10.10 look without messing with the theme files. Sure, it's not exact, but I think it is good enough.
Now I just need the Ubuntu backgrounds. Oh, and the terminal color scheme. But not the icons, because I'm using Papirus icons on all of my VMs, including this Ubuntu MATE VM.

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I want to note that the recommended upgrade method "upgrade-manager -c" did not give an option for distribution upgrade on my machine (ubuntu-mate 18.04). Instead I needed to use "-cd" instead of "-c". The alternative method using /usr/lib/ubuntu-release/..." also fails with "timeout reached".

1 Like
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So far I like 20.04 quite a bit more than the previous LTS. A lot of gripes with the previous release were fixed (love the invisible borders for resizing) - also MAME is finally stable again and does not crash on every other game launch. :slight_smile:

What still needs some work is the MATE dock applet, which now starts up more slowly (though a workaround exists, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1875170) and it does not show grsync at all now (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1875208).

Also the release notes proudly proclaiming an end to screen tearing in Marco were a bit of an overstatement: on NVidia and Intel graphics this still requires the same driver-side config tweaks as before.

But overall I'm quite happy with the "Fluffy Fossa" (at least that's the name it should have had :wink: ) and I hope we get some of the remaining issues ironed out soon as well.

1 Like
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Hmm.. for me screen tearing not fixable for optimus laptops (intel+ nvidia)
Especially for nvidia
options nvidia-drm modeset=1

in /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-drm-nomodeset.conf doesn't fix screen tearing.

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Thank you! None of the update instructions worked for me either, but -cd did the trick!

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Thank you for the shiny new version.
Upgrade was flawless.
Everything is green. (One way and other :wink: )

1 Like
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Neat! Can't wait to try it.

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Sorry dear friend , never , never I install ubuntu-mate... For to be
honest , many changing by the or they kids ? too much no recognize for
they new one user see you soon

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As things stand right now - I'm extremely happy with 20.04. Definitely will be leaving this on my main box for a while (although, I'll be honest and probably upgrade to 20.10 in November!)

Big Thumbs up :+1: to everyone involved with Ubuntu-Mate for a great edition!

1 Like
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Just read the release notes, excited to upgrade in the next few days!

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You might want to follow this: Ubuntu Mate LTS with 5 year support?

It looks like a 5-year support is not tenable, in current circumstances (that is, for free). But my suggestion is to have that possibility against a fee, as it is for classical Ubuntu beyond 5 years.

To those who will download Mate 20.04, I suggest to make a donation when offered to do so (https://ubuntu-mate.org/download/amd64/focal/thanks/). Think of what you would pay for an iOS or Windows installation !!

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Sorry, but so far this is my worst Linux experience to date :frowning:

Had issues installing where "Try without installing" locked up. Finally got it installed by booting directly into the "Install with safe graphics"

Seemed to work fine had my 4K monitor working, got some stuff installed with software boutique, did a bit of surfing with Chrome and Firefox and it looked like I was on my way. Turned off the monitor and went to bed.

Turned the monitor back on this morning and the display was all screwed up -- some how it decided it as 50 dpi. Put it back to my preferred 112 dpi for this 43" display, I could now read it but things just didn't look right, some windows I couldn't scroll to the bottom (control center). Saw some updates were available, installed them and now right after it boots the mouse quits working a few seconds later and the system is dead screen frozen. Total disaster.

This system has been running Mate 16.04 for over a year with only one very annoying minor issue -- it won't shut down unless the laptop lid is open! Good thing I used a fresh SSH instead of wiping my old drive, at least I can go back to 16.04 on the old drive.