Kubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1 is available now, final release will be ready on October 2017

The Kubuntu community has announced availability of Kubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1, first development release of upcoming stable Ubuntu based GNU/Linux distribution featuring modern plasma desktop. This release will be known by the code name Artful Aardvark, just like any other 17.10 release in Ubuntu family.

Kubuntu 17.10 ships an experimental preview of features that we can expect from final release. Since the development and feature freeze activity is going on, it is highly likely to find bugs in this release. So it is not recommended to use this development release on production machines.

Artful Aardvark (17.10) Alpha 1 images are now available for testing so we can release the alpha on Thursday. The Kubuntu team will be releasing 17.10 in October. This is the first spin in preparation for the Alpha 1 pre-release. Plasma 5, the new generation of KDE's desktop has been developed to make it smoother to use while retaining the familiar setup. The tenth set of updates to Plasma 5 is the default in this version of Kubuntu.

Kubuntu comes with KDE Applications 16.12.3 containing all your favorite apps from KDE. This is the 16.12.3 update with bugfixes and translation updates. Most applications have been ported to KDE Frameworks 5 but those which aren't should fit in seamlessly.

Non-KDE applications include LibreOffice 5.3.3 and Firefox 50.1.

For more details, see release announcement and release notes published by Kubuntu development team.

Download Kubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1

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Kubuntu 17.04 Beta 1 released with Plasma 5.9.0

Following the official announcement of Ubuntu Budgie, Kubuntu has also announced availability of Kubuntu 17.04 beta 1 for testing. This development release of Kubuntu will give an impression of planned features/changes for upcoming Kubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus stable release. However this release is not recommended for newbies and unexperienced users as it is likely to break at any moment.

Courtesy : Kubuntu Project

Kubuntu , an official community flavor of Ubuntu featuring modern KDE Plasma desktop brings a new yet stable release of Plasma Desktop (currently 5.9.0) by default in 17.04 release. While this can be upgraded to latest plasma release by enabling Kubuntu backports repository. Plasma 5 desktop in Kubuntu will deliver a smooth desktop experience. Other important updated packages included in this release is KDE Applications 16.12.1 which is a collection of KDE applications which will find use in daily life and most of these applications have been ported to KDE Frameworks 5. This release also brings LibreOffice 5.2 - a relatively new and stable version of productivity suite developed by the Document Foundation and Firefox 50.1.

Plasma 5, the new generation of KDE's desktop has been developed to make it smoother to use while retaining the familiar setup. The ninth set of updates to Plasma 5 is the default in this version of Kubuntu.

Kubuntu comes with KDE Applications 16.12.1 containing all your favourite apps from KDE, with the exception of okular and PIM and related products. This is the 16.12.1 update with bugfixes and translation updates. Most applications have been ported to KDE Frameworks 5 but those which aren't should fit in seamlessly. Non-KDE applications include LibreOffice 5.2 and Firefox 50.1.

Fore more information see release announcement and release notes published in Kubuntu blog and Ubuntu wiki respectively.

Comparing Ubuntu 16.10 flavors : Ubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu and Xubuntu

It is always interesting to see comparison between different operating systems. To cherish this interest, hecticgeek portal has published a comparison of different Ubuntu flavors, Ubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu and Xubuntu. This comparison mainly looks over performance, stability and hardware recognition of each flavor. The user is not focusing other aspects like new features, software availability, ..etc as it more likely to find in usual reviews.

Summarizing different factors considered during comparison, all flavors are taking almost comparable time to complete boot process. In terms of memory usage while loading desktop, Kubuntu is outperforming other flavors, even the s called lightweight desktop environment, Xfce. While Ubuntu is slightly doing better considering power usage at idle state.

CREDIT : hecticgeek

Except for Xubuntu 16.10, I also made sure not to make any tweaks or changes to the each operating system yet again to preserve the accuracy of the data (Boot-Up Times, Memory Usage, Power Usage, System Responsiveness and Shutdown Delay mainly), except that for measuring the memory usage I added a shortcut for System Monitor (of each desktop environment) to the taskbar, so that I can avoid opening it through the System Menu which could’ve otherwise increased the memory usage thus negatively effecting the accuracy of the memory usage reading. Whenever possible, I also made sure to disable the update manager from searching for updates for the same reason I just explained. And, except under the Power Usage and System Responsiveness tests, I took 5 samples of all the other tests for coming up with the average values as well.

You can read complete comparative review in hecticgeek portal.

Ubuntu Kylin, Lubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu 16.10 releases are available now

In association with release of Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak, various Ubuntu community developers has announced availability of Ubuntu Kylin, Lubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu. New releases are also available for other community flavors like Ubuntu GNOME and Ubuntu Studio, however, no explicit release announcement is available for these releases. Ubuntu MATE 16.10 release was announced prior to announcement of mainstream release.


The Lubuntu 16.10, community flavor of Ubuntu featuring lightweight LXDE brings various bug fixes related to LXDE components and also includes some general fixes to accommodate upcoming LXQt desktop. Also, the Lubuntu artwork is updated to provide a refreshing user experience.

Kubuntu 16.10, official community flavor of Ubuntu offering KDE Plasma experience ships Plasma 5.5.5 along with KDE Applications 16.04.3 and KDE framework 5.26.0. Most of the applications in KDE Application suite is ported to Qt 5.x. Those applications which are not ported yet also works with this release.

The Xubuntu 16.10, community flavor of Ubuntu featuring lightweight, full featured Xfce desktop does not ship much visible improvements over Xubuntu 16.04, however a lot of ground work is done to ensure seamless porting of Xfce applications to GTK 3.x framework. This includes porting of many Xfce plugins and Xfce terminal.

For more information on these releases, you can read release announcement and release notes published by respective community developers.

Ubuntu Kylin 16.10

Release announcement

Lubuntu 16.10

Release announcement | Release notes

Kubuntu 16.10

Release announcement | Release notes

Xubuntu 16.10

Release announcement

Final beta release is available for Ubuntu 16.10 and 6 community flavors

The Ubuntu team has proudly announced availability of Ubuntu 16.10 beta 2, second and final development beta release of upcoming stable Ubuntu 16.10 Yakety Yak. This release also includes Ubuntu cloud and server editions and also 6 other community flavors namely, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu GNOME and Ubuntu Kylin.

Following the tradition of ubuntu releases, this release also ships greatest and latest open source technologies to provide an easy to use, highly configurable and powerful computer operating system. The team was/is working hard to fix bugs in previous development releases and to integrate new features, so that users can be offered with top class experience.

Though beta releases are expected to be almost free from severe bugs, it is not recommended to use it in production servers. This development release can be seen as a feature freeze-release prior to Ubuntu 16.10 final, which is expected to be released on 13th October 2016. Meanwhile, you may experiment with release and report bugs in launchpad to support the project in it's cause to ship a reasonably stable operating system. Before reporting the bug, you may have to ensure that, your installation is completely updated and the bug is not fixed by recent updates.

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of Ubuntu6.10 Desktop, Server, and Cloud products.

Codenamed "Yakkety Yak", 16.10 continues Ubuntu's proud traditionf integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into aigh-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.  The team has been hard atork through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

This beta release includes images from not only the Ubuntu Desktop,erver, and Cloud products, but also the Kubuntu, Lubuntu,buntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, and Ubuntu Studiolavours.

The beta images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD buildr installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of 16.10hat should be representative of the features intended to ship with theinal release expected on October 13th, 2016.

For more information, you can read release announcement published in Ubuntu mailing list.

First beta releases are available for 6 Ubuntu 16.10 community flavors

Ubuntu 16.10 is gradually approaching it's expected delivery date. As a part of development cycle, 6 Ubuntu community flavors has announced availability of first beta release prior to upcoming 16.10 stable release. These community flavors includes Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Studio.

The beta 1 release includes several updates those are ready for wider testing. However, being a development release, it is highly likely to find some bugs in this release. In release announcement, Ubuntu developers also encourages to use latest daily images before reporting any bug as it possible that the bug may be fixed in a newer daily image.

Beta 1 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider testing. These images are still under development, so you should expect some bugs.  While these Beta 1 images have been tested and work, except as noted in the release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the Yakkety Yak. In particular, once newer daily images are available, system installation bugs identified in the Beta 1 installer should be verified against the current daily image before being reported in Launchpad. Using an obsolete image to re-report bugs that have already been fixed wastes your time and the time of developers who are busy trying to make 16.10 the best Ubuntu release yet. Always ensure your system is up to date before reporting bugs.

For more information and download links, you can see official release announcement and release announcement published by Ubuntu MATE project.