Lubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark Alpha 1 released, an experimental LXQt image is also available

Lubuntu team has announced availability of Lubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1 for testing. This pre-release of Lubuntu will give a glimpse of upcoming stable release scheduled to release on October 2017.

Lubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1 ships LXDE as default desktop environment. Also, there is one experimental version of Lubuntu featuring LXQt desktop. It is not recommended to LXQt variation as it is highly possible to break.

Being a development release, Lubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1 is not free from bugs and a list of known bugs are available in official release notes. If you find any bugs other that listed in release notes, you can help Lubuntu by reporting it through proper channels.

Lubuntu Artful Aardvark Alpha 1 (soon to be 17.10) has been released! Also in this release (in addition to the usual LXDE ISO) is an experimental image with LXQt instead of LXDE.

We recommend that if you install Lubuntu Artful Aardvark Alpha 1, that you download the LXDE edition rather than the experimental LXQt ISO. The LXQt ISO will most likely break your system.

For more details see release announcement and separate release notes for LXDE and LXQt variations.

Download Lubuntu 17.10 Alpha 1

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Download Lubuntu Next (LXQt)

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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.

Lubuntu 16.04.1 - A good distribution with a few drawbacks

Lubuntu is a lightweight, official community flavor of Ubuntu for people who are looking for a less resource hungry and efficient operating system. It can give power to low resource notebooks and old computers with less amount of resources.

The DarkDuck blog has published a review of Lubuntu 16.04.1, first minor update release in 16.04.x series. This review remarks that, Lubuntu is a good distribution with less resource usage. It is very compact and fast. However, there are some down sides such as crash of guvcview utility and lack of choices.

It is difficult to believe, but Linux notes from DarkDuck blog has never published a review of Lubuntu.

The reason? I am not so fond of an LXDE desktop environment that isn't an integrated desktop environment per se, but rather a collection of different small tools under the same roof.

But anyway I thought there should be a review for this distribution, especially because it is in the Top-20 of Distrowatch rating.

As happened multiple times before, the trigger was a request from my customers. One of them ordered a disk with Lubuntu 16.04 operating system. You can order your personal copy of Lubuntu operating system too!

You can read complete review in DarkDuck's blog.

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.

Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak Alpha 2 released

The Ubuntu development team has announced availability of Ubuntu 16.10 Yaketty Yak for testing. This release announcement is also applicable for  other official community flavors of Ubuntu like Lubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin,and Ubuntu MATE.

Ubuntu 16.10, second development version of upcoming stable Ubuntu release includes fixes for several bugs reported in previous development release and it includes updated packages for testing. Since this a development release at early stage of development, it is likely to find some issues with this release and hence it is not recommended for people who are looking for a stable operating system.

Pre-releases of the Yakkety Yak are *not* encouraged for anyone needing  stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into ccasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for buntu flavor developers and those who want to help in testing, eporting and fixing bugs as we work towards getting this release ready.

Alpha 2 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider esting. This is still an early set of images, so you should expect some ugs.

While these Alpha 2 images have been tested and work, except as noted in he release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the akkety Yak. In particular, once newer daily images are available, ystem installation bugs identified in the Alpha 2 installer should be erified against the current daily image before being reported in aunchpad. Using an obsolete image to re-report bugs that have already een fixed wastes your time and the time of developers who are busy rying to make 16.10 the best Ubuntu release yet. Always ensure your ystem is up to date before reporting bugs.

You can find official release announcement in Ubuntu developer mailing list.

Download Lubuntu 16.10 Alpha 2

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Download Ubuntu Kylin 16.10 Alpha 2

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Download Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Alpha 2

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