Jekyll2024-02-25T00:38:11+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/rss.xmlUbuntu MATEUbuntu MATE 23.10 Release Notes2023-09-25T00:00:00+00:002023-09-28T11:29:40+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-mantic-minotaur<p>Ubuntu MATE 23.10 is more of what you like, stable MATE Desktop on top of current Ubuntu.
This release rolls up a number of bugs fixes and updates that continues to build on recent releases, where the focus has been on improving stability 🪨</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/mantic/screenshot.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE 23.10" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 23.10</strong></p>
<h2 id="thank-you-">Thank you! 🙇</h2>
<p><strong>I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has played an active role in improving Ubuntu MATE for this release 👏 From reporting bugs, submitting translations, providing patches, contributing to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/ubuntu_mate">our crowd-funding</a>, developing new features, creating artwork, offering community support, actively
testing and providing QA feedback to writing documentation or creating this fabulous website. Thank you!</strong> 💚</p>
<h2 id="what-changed-since-the-ubuntu-mate-2304">What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 23.04?</h2>
<p>Here are the highlights of what’s changed since the <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-lunar-lobster-release-notes/">release of Ubuntu MATE 23.04</a></p>
<h3 id="mate-desktop">MATE Desktop</h3>
<p><a href="https://mate-desktop.org">MATE Desktop</a> has been updated to 1.26.2 with a selection of bugs fixes 🐛 and minor improvements 🩹 to associated components.</p>
<ul>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">caja-rename</code> 23.10.1-1 has been ported from Python to C.</li>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">libmatemixer</code> 1.26.0-2+deb12u1 resolves heap corruption and application crashes when removing USB audio devices.</li>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-desktop</code> 1.26.2-1 improves portals support.</li>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-notification-daemon</code> 1.26.1-1 fixes several memory leaks.</li>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-system-monitor</code> 1.26.0-5 now picks up libexec files from <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/libexec</code></li>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-session-manager</code> 1.26.1-2 set <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">LIBEXECDIR</code> to <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/libexec/</code> for correct interaction with <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-system-monitor</code> ☝️</li>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-user-guide</code> 1.26.2-1 is a new upstream release.</li>
<li><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-utils</code> 1.26.1-1 fixes several memory leaks.</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="yet-more-ai-generated-wallpaper">Yet more AI Generated wallpaper</h4>
<p>My friend <a href="https://twitter.com/simonjbutcher">Simon Butcher</a> 🇬🇧 is Head of Research Platforms at Queen Mary University of London managing the Apocrita HPC cluster service. <strong>Once again, Simon has created a stunning AI-generated 🤖🧠 wallpaper for Ubuntu MATE using bleeding edge diffusion models</strong> 🖌 <em>The sample below is 1920x1080 but the version included in Ubuntu MATE 23.10 are 3840x2160</em>.</p>
<div class="gallery">
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/mantic/minotaur-king.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
</div>
<p>Here’s what Simon has to say about the process of creating this new wallpaper for Mantic Minotaur:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since Minotaurs are imaginary creatures, interpretations tend to vary widely. I wanted to produce an image of a powerful creature in a graphic novel style, although not gruesome like many depictions. The latest open source Stable Diffusion XL base model was trained at a higher resolution and the difference in quality has been noticeable, particularly at better overall consistency and detail, while reducing anatomical irregularities in images. The image was produced locally using Linux and an NVIDIA A100 80GB GPU, starting from an initial text prompt and refined using img2img, inpainting and upscaling features.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.26.2</strong> 🧉 and <strong>Linux 6.5</strong> 🐧 are <strong>Firefox 118</strong> 🔥🦊,
<strong>Celluloid 0.25</strong> 🎥, <strong>Evolution 3.50</strong> 📧, <strong>LibreOffice 7.6.1</strong> 📚</p>
<p>See the <a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/mantic-minotaur-release-notes/35534">Ubuntu 23.10 Release Notes</a>
for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE 23.10</h2>
<p>This new release will be first available for PC/Mac users.</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-2304">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 23.04</h2>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 23.10 from Ubuntu MATE 23.04. Ensure that you
have all updates installed for your current version of Ubuntu MATE before you
upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” drop down menu to “For any new version”.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c -d</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘23.10’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<table class="known-issues">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Component</th>
<th class="column-problem">Problem</th>
<th class="column-links">Workarounds</th>
<th class="column-links">Upstream Links</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin WimpressUbuntu MATE 23.10 is more of what you like, stable MATE Desktop on top of current Ubuntu. This release rolls up a number of bugs fixes and updates that continues to build on recent releases, where the focus has been on improving stability 🪨Ubuntu MATE 23.04 Release Notes2023-04-20T00:00:00+00:002023-04-21T02:01:30+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-lunar-lobster<p>Ubuntu MATE 23.04 is the least exciting Ubuntu MATE release ever. The good news is, if you liked Ubuntu MATE 22.10 then it is more of the same; just with better artwork! 🖌️🖼️ I entered this development cycle full of energy and enthusiasm off the back of the <a href="https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-summit-2022-reflections">Ubuntu Summit in Prague</a>, but then I was seriously ill 🤒 and had a long stay in hospital. I’m recovering well and should be 100% in a couple of months. This setback and also changing jobs a couple of months ago has meant that I’ve not been able to invest the usual time and effort into Ubuntu MATE. I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to deliver another solid 🪨 release with the help of the Ubuntu community.</p>
<h2 id="thank-you-">Thank you! 🙇</h2>
<p>**I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has played an active role in improving Ubuntu MATE for this release 👏 From reporting bugs, submitting translations, providing patches, contributing to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/ubuntu_mate">our crowd-funding</a>, developing new features, creating artwork, offering community support, actively
testing and providing QA feedback to writing documentation or creating this fabulous website. Thank you! 💚</p>
<h2 id="what-changed-since-the-ubuntu-mate-2210">What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 22.10?</h2>
<p>Here are the highlights of what’s changed since the <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-kinetic-kudu-release-notes/">release of Ubuntu MATE 22.10</a></p>
<h3 id="mate-desktop">MATE Desktop</h3>
<p>Both <a href="https://mate-desktop.org">MATE Desktop</a> and
<a href="https://github.com/AyatanaIndicators">Ayatana Indicators</a> have seen some version bumps that fix 🩹 an assortment of minor bugs 🐛</p>
<h4 id="ai-generated-wallpapers-yet-again">AI Generated wallpapers (yet again!)</h4>
<p>My friend <a href="https://twitter.com/simonjbutcher">Simon Butcher</a> 🇬🇧 is Head of Research Platforms at Queen Mary University of London managing the Apocrita HPC cluster service. <strong>Once again, Simon has created **some stunning **AI-generated</strong> 🤖🧠 ** for Ubuntu MATE using bleeding edge diffusion models** 🖌 <em>The samples below are 1920x1080 but the versions included in Ubuntu MATE 23.04 are 3840x2160</em>.</p>
<div class="gallery">
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/lunar/Lunar-Lobster-Explorer.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/lunar/Lunar-Lobster-Landing.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/lunar/Lunar-Lobster-Steampunk.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/lunar/Lunar-Lobster.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
</div>
<p>Here’s what Simon has to say about the process of creating these new wallpapers for Lunar Lobster:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My usual workflow involves checking reddit, etc for the latest techniques, and then installing the latest open-source tools and checkpoints for unlimited experimentation (e.g. stable diffusion), plus some selective use of Dall-e and Midjourney, while trying not to exhaust my credits. I then experiment with lot of different prompts (including negative prompts to discourage certain features), settings, styles and ideas from each tool to see what sort of images I can get, then tweak and evolve my approach based on the results.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Lobsters are fascinating creatures, but in real life, I find them a bit ugly, with all those antennae and legs akimbo. For the theme of “Lunar Lobster”, rather precise anatomy, I explored ideas of stylised alien robotic space lobsters, lunar landers and other lobster-themed spacecraft. After a producing a shortlist of varied images, I then perform any necessary AI processing such as inpainting, outpainting (generating new parts of an image beyond the existing canvas - particularly useful for getting the correct aspect ratio) and AI upscaling to make them suitable for use as wallpaper.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="flatpak">Flatpak</h3>
<p><a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-flavor-packaging-defaults/34061">Flatpak is no longer installed by default</a>, but can still be installed should you want to use it.</p>
<h3 id="pipewire">PipeWire</h3>
<p>As a <a href="https://linuxdowntime.com/">podcaster</a> and <a href="https://twitch.tv/WimpysWorld">streamer</a> I’m delighted to have PipeWire installed by default since Ubuntu MATE 22.10. The Ubuntu MATE meta packages have been updated to correctly install the revised pipewire packages in Ubuntu. Special thanks to Erich Eickmeyer, from the Ubuntu Studio project, for his work on this.</p>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.26.1</strong> 🧉 and <strong>Linux 6.20</strong> 🐧 are <strong>Firefox 111</strong> 🔥🦊,
<strong>Celluloid 0.20</strong> 🎥, <strong>Evolution 3.48</strong> 📧, <strong>LibreOffice 7.5.2</strong> 📚</p>
<p>See the <a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/lunar-lobster-release-notes/31910">Ubuntu 23.04 Release Notes</a>
for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE 23.04</h2>
<p>This new release will be first available for PC/Mac users.</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-2210">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 22.10</h2>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 23.04 from Ubuntu MATE 22.10. Ensure that you
have all updates installed for your current version of Ubuntu MATE before you
upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” drop down menu to “For any new version”.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c -d</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘23.04’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<table class="known-issues">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Component</th>
<th class="column-problem">Problem</th>
<th class="column-links">Workarounds</th>
<th class="column-links">Upstream Links</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin WimpressUbuntu MATE 23.04 is the least exciting Ubuntu MATE release ever. The good news is, if you liked Ubuntu MATE 22.10 then it is more of the same; just with better artwork! 🖌️🖼️ I entered this development cycle full of energy and enthusiasm off the back of the Ubuntu Summit in Prague, but then I was seriously ill 🤒 and had a long stay in hospital. I’m recovering well and should be 100% in a couple of months. This setback and also changing jobs a couple of months ago has meant that I’ve not been able to invest the usual time and effort into Ubuntu MATE. I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to deliver another solid 🪨 release with the help of the Ubuntu community.Ubuntu MATE 22.10 Release Notes2022-09-29T00:00:00+00:002022-10-20T17:46:53+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-kinetic<p>Ubuntu MATE 22.10 is a modest update by recent standards and focused on <em>“quality
of life improvements”</em>. And there is good reason why this release of Ubuntu MATE
doesn’t feature the usual bucket 🪣 list of changes you’d typically expect, and
that’s because I’ve been helping bring the full Ubuntu MATE experience to Debian
MATE 🧉</p>
<p>This may raise some questions for Ubuntu MATE users, so let’s try and address them:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>I’m not stepping away from Ubuntu or Ubuntu MATE</strong>. I will continue to use and develop Ubuntu MATE 👍</li>
<li>I’ve closely collaborated with the MATE packaging team for Debian for over 8 years 👴</li>
<li>Making the MATE experience in Debian and Ubuntu consistent <strong>makes maintenance easier for all involved</strong> 🛠</li>
<li>Ubuntu MATE offers some modernisation of MATE via home-grown apps such as MATE Tweak and Ayatana Indicators. <strong>We want Debian users to benefit from those improvements too</strong> 💖</li>
<li>We’re hopeful the MATE spin in Debian 12 will offer the same (or extremely similar) experience Ubuntu MATE users have enjoyed for some time 🎁</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="thank-you-">Thank you! 🙇</h2>
<p><strong>I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has played an active role
in improving Ubuntu MATE for this release 👏 From reporting bugs,
submitting translations, providing patches, contributing to
<a href="https://www.patreon.com/ubuntu_mate">our crowd funding</a>,
developing new features, creating artwork, offering community support, actively
testing and providing QA feedback to writing documentation or creating this
fabulous website. Thank you! Thank you all for getting out there and making a
difference!</strong> 💚</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/kinetic/kinetic-kudu-desktop.jpg" alt="Ubuntu MATE 22.10" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 22.10 using the Pantheon layout and new centered panel applets and HUD</strong></p>
<h2 id="what-changed-since-the-ubuntu-mate-2204">What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 22.04?</h2>
<p>Here are the highlights of what’s changed since the <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-jammy-jellyfish-release-notes/">release of Ubuntu MATE 22.04</a></p>
<h3 id="mate-desktop">MATE Desktop</h3>
<p>The usual point release updates to <a href="https://mate-desktop.org">MATE Desktop</a> and
<a href="https://github.com/AyatanaIndicators">Ayatana Indicators</a> have been included
that fix 🩹 an assortment on minor bugs 🐛 <strong>The main change in MATE Desktop
is to MATE Panel</strong>, where we’ve included an early snapshot release of <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-panel</code>
1.27.0 along with a patch set that <strong>adds centre alignment of panel applets</strong>.</p>
<p>This much requested feature comes from Ubuntu MATE community contributor
<a href="https://github.com/thesquash">Gordon N. Squash</a> 🇺🇸 and allows panel applets to
be centre aligned, as well as the usual left and right alignment. I’m sure
you’ll all join me in thanking 🙇 Gordon for working on this feature.</p>
<p><strong>Centre aligning of applet icons will ship with MATE Desktop 1.28, but we’re
including it early 🐓 for Ubuntu MATE users</strong>. We’ve updated MATE Tweak to
correctly save/restore custom layouts that use centre aligned applets and all
the panel layouts shipped with Ubuntu MATE 22.10 have been updated so they’re
compatible with center alignment of applets ✅</p>
<h4 id="ai-generated-wallpapers-again">AI Generated wallpapers (again!)</h4>
<p>My friend <a href="https://twitter.com/simonjbutcher">Simon Butcher</a> 🇬🇧 is Head of
Research Platforms at Queen Mary University of London managing the Apocrita HPC
cluster service. <strong>Once again, Simon has created some stunning AI generated 🤖🧠
wallpapers for Ubuntu MATE using bleeding edge diffusion models</strong> 🖌 <em>The samples
below are 1920x1080 but the versions include in Ubuntu MATE 22.10 are 3840x2160</em>.</p>
<div class="gallery">
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/kinetic/kudu-field.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/kinetic/kudu-foresty.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/kinetic/kudu-grass.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/kinetic/kudu-standalone.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/kinetic/kudu-verdant.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
</div>
<p>Here’s what Simon has to say about about some of the challenges he faced
creating these new wallpapers for Kinetic Kudu:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>AI image generation is continuing to improve at a mind-boggling rate. Yet, until recently, coherent human faces, hands and anatomically correct animals have proved rather tricky. Fortunately human faces are getting particular attention in the open source community after the release of Stable Diffusion. However, while an anthropomorphic portrait of a Kudu wearing a rather dapper suit will be stylishly rendered, getting consistent results for kudu in their natural habitat proved particularly tricky, exacerbated by their elegant horn structure. Often you will get rather wild interpretations of the horns, 5 legged creatures, or nightmarish output akin to the Pushmi-Pullyu from the Dr Doolittle stories.</p>
</blockquote>
<div align="center"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AI-generated kudu are hard. They are happy posing for their portrait in a suit, but as soon as you want them to act normal, you get abominations like this double-headed beastie <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/stablediffusion?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#stablediffusion</a> <a href="https://t.co/BgPR3QBqru">https://t.co/BgPR3QBqru</a> <a href="https://t.co/RVCbgMsOAh">pic.twitter.com/RVCbgMsOAh</a></p>— Simon Butcher (@simonjbutcher) <a href="https://twitter.com/simonjbutcher/status/1572574722612920322?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<blockquote>
<p>Jellyfish, on the other hand, are a mass of tentacles and perhaps benefit aesthetically from the randomness induced by AI-generated images, in the same way that forests, mountains and hobbit villages generated by AI can be produced en-masse to a very satisfying extent. So while 1000 stunning unique images of jellyfish can be produced in a few minutes with a powerful GPU, the kudu was quite a challenge, and I had to experiment a lot with various prompts and styles, and a lot of cherry-picking - throwing away about 99% of the results that weren’t quite right. For the next release, I’m hoping we’ll see further AI innovation in time for the next release, or…maybe the next code name will be a lionfish?</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="pipewire">PipeWire</h3>
<p><strong>PulseAudio has been replaced with PipeWire</strong> and Bluetooth audio codec support
has been expanded with the addition of AAC, LDAC, aptX and aptX HD.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://linuxdowntime.com/">podcaster</a> and <a href="https://twitch.tv/WimpysWorld">streamer</a>
I’m delighted to have PipeWire installed by default in Ubuntu MATE 22.10. The
migration to PipeWire has resolved some longstanding minor annoyances I’ve had
with audio in that past and all the tools 🧰 I use for audio and video
production continue to function correctly.</p>
<h4 id="pipewire-on-ubuntu-mate-2204">PipeWire on Ubuntu MATE 22.04</h4>
<p>If you like to ride the LTS train 🚆 but want to use PipeWire in Ubuntu MATE
22.04 (<em>as I have been doing for some months</em>) then this is how to make the
change:</p>
<div class="language-bash highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><span class="nb">sudo </span>apt-get <span class="nb">install </span>gstreamer1.0-pipewire pipewire-audio-client-libraries wireplumber
<span class="nb">sudo </span>apt-get remove pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
<span class="nb">sudo </span>apt-get <span class="nb">install </span>libfdk-aac2 libldacbt-abr2 libldacbt-enc2 libopenaptx0 libspa-0.2-bluetooth libspa-0.2-jack
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>Once the installs/removals are complete restart your computer.</p>
<h3 id="ubuntu-mate-stuff">Ubuntu MATE Stuff</h3>
<p>The <em>“MATE HUD”</em> has seen some significant work from community contributor
<a href="https://github.com/twa022">twa022</a> 🌎. The <strong>HUD now supports MATE, XFCE
and Budgie</strong>, has improved accuracy for HUD placement (taking into account various
panel offsets/struts), <strong>is highly configurable and includes a new HUD settings app</strong> ✨</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/kinetic/hud-settings.png" alt="HUD Settings" />
<strong>HUD Settings</strong></p>
<h4 id="mate-user-manager">MATE User Manager</h4>
<p><strong>A new utility, User Manager, has been added to complement the suite of MATE
tools.</strong> User Manager replaces the aging <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">gnome-system-tools</code> which was
removed from Ubuntu MATE in the 22.04 release and allows you to add/modify/remove
user accounts. It also includes the ability to define which users are Administrators,
enable/disable auto-login, set profile images and manage group memberships.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/kinetic/mate-user-manager.png" alt="MATE User Manager" />
<strong>MATE User Manager</strong></p>
<h4 id="yaru">Yaru</h4>
<p>And last but not least, the Ubuntu MATE Artwork package has been updated to
<strong>include all the refinements and improvements in the suite of
<a href="https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru">Yaru</a> themes</strong> 🎨</p>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.26.1</strong> 🧉 and <strong>Linux 5.19</strong> 🐧 are <strong>Firefox 105</strong> 🔥🦊,
<strong>Celluloid 0.20</strong> 🎥, <strong>Evolution 3.46</strong> 📧, <strong>LibreOffice 7.4</strong> 📚</p>
<p>See the <a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/kinetic-kudu-release-notes/27976">Ubuntu 22.10 Release Notes</a>
for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE 22.10</h2>
<p>This new release will be first available for PC/Mac users.</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-2204">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 22.04</h2>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 22.10 from Ubuntu MATE 22.04. Ensure that you
have all updates installed for your current version of Ubuntu MATE before you
upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” drop down menu to “For any new version”.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c -d</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘22.10’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<table class="known-issues">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Component</th>
<th class="column-problem">Problem</th>
<th class="column-links">Workarounds</th>
<th class="column-links">Upstream Links</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<img class="component-icon" src="/images/brands/ubuntu.svg" alt="" />
Ubuntu
</td>
<td class="column-problem">Ubiquity slide shows are missing for OEM installs of Ubuntu MATE</td>
<td class="column-links">
<a class="issue-link" href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1713720/comments/4" rel="external" title="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1713720/comments/4">◾ Link</a>
<br />
</td>
<td class="column-links">
<a class="issue-link" href="https://pad.lv/1713720" rel="external" title="https://pad.lv/1713720">◾
Link
</a>
<br />
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin WimpressUbuntu MATE 22.10 is a modest update by recent standards and focused on “quality of life improvements”. And there is good reason why this release of Ubuntu MATE doesn’t feature the usual bucket 🪣 list of changes you’d typically expect, and that’s because I’ve been helping bring the full Ubuntu MATE experience to Debian MATE 🧉Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS Release Notes2022-03-29T00:00:00+00:002022-08-19T22:23:52+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-jammy<p>Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS is the culmination of 2 years of continual improvement 😅
to Ubuntu and MATE Desktop. As is tradition, the LTS development cycle has a
keen focus on eliminating paper 🧻 cuts 🔪 but we’ve <em>jammed</em> in some new
features and a fresh coat of paint too 🖌 The following is a summary of what’s
new <a href="/blog/ubuntu-mate-impish-indri-final-release/">since Ubuntu MATE 21.10</a> and
some reminders of how we got here from 20.04. Read on to learn more 🧑🎓</p>
<h2 id="thank-you-">Thank you! 🙇</h2>
<p><strong>I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has played an active role
in improving Ubuntu MATE for this LTS release 👏 From reporting bugs,
submitting translations, providing patches, contributing to our crowd funding,
developing new features, creating artwork, offering community support, actively
testing and providing QA feedback to writing documentation or creating this
fabulous website. Thank you! Thank you all for getting out there and making a
difference!</strong> 💚</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/ubuntu-mate-mutiny-dark.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) - Mutiny layout with Yark-MATE-dark</strong></p>
<h2 id="whats-changed">What’s changed?</h2>
<p>Here are the highlights of what’s changed recently.</p>
<h3 id="mate-desktop-1261-">MATE Desktop 1.26.1 🧉</h3>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 22.04 features MATE Desktop 1.26.1. MATE Desktop 1.26.0 was introduced
in 21.10 and benefits from <strong>significant effort 😅 in fixing bugs 🐛
in MATE Desktop, optimising performance ⚡ and plugging memory leaks</strong>. MATE
Desktop 1.26.1 addresses the bugs we discovered following the initial 1.26.0
release. Our community also fixed some bugs in Plank and Brisk Menu 👍 and also
fixed the screen reader during installs for visually impaired users 🥰 In all
over 500 bugs have been addressed in this release 🩹</p>
<h3 id="yaru-">Yaru 🎨</h3>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 21.04 was the first release to ship with a MATE variant of the
<a href="https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru">Yaru theme</a>. A year later and we’ve been working
hard with members of the Yaru and Ubuntu Desktop teams to bring <strong>full MATE
compatibility to upstream Yaru, including all the accent colour varieties.</strong>
All reported bugs 🐞 in the Yaru implementation for MATE have also been fixed 🛠</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/yaru-themes.png" alt="Yaru Themes" />
<strong>Yaru Themes in Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS</strong></p>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS ships with all the Yaru themes, including our own <em>“chelsea
cucumber”</em> version 🥒 The legacy Ambiant/Radiant themes are no longer
installed by default and neither are the stock MATE Desktop themes. We’ve added
an <strong>automatic settings migration</strong> to transition users who upgrade to an
appropriate Yaru MATE theme.</p>
<h4 id="cherries-on-top-">Cherries on top 🍒</h4>
<p>In collaboration with <a href="https://github.com/Jupi007">Paul Kepinski</a> 🇫🇷 (Yaru team)
and <a href="https://twitter.com/3v1n0">Marco Trevisan</a> 🇮🇹 (Ubuntu Desktop
team) <strong>we’ve added dark/light panels and panel icons to Yaru for MATE Desktop
and Unity</strong>. I’ve added a collection of new dark/light panel icons to Yaru for
popular apps with indicators such as Steam, Dropbox, <a href="https://ulauncher.io/">uLauncher</a>,
<a href="http://jonls.dk/redshift/">RedShift</a>, <a href="https://transmissionbt.com/">Transmission</a>,
Variety, etc.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/panel-light.png" alt="Light Panel" />
<img src="/images/blog/jammy/panel-dark.png" alt="Dark Panel" />
<strong>Light and Dark panels</strong></p>
<p>I’ve added patches 🩹 to the Appearance Control Center that <strong>applies theme
changes to Plank (the dock), Pluma (text editor) and correctly toggles the
colour scheme preference for GNOME 42 apps</strong>. When you choose a dark theme,
everything will go dark in unison 🥷 and vice versa.</p>
<p>So, <strong>Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS is now using everything Yaru/Suru has to offer.</strong> 🎉</p>
<h4 id="ai-generated-wallpapers">AI Generated wallpapers</h4>
<p>My friend <a href="https://twitter.com/simonjbutcher">Simon Butcher</a> 🇬🇧 is Head of
Research Platforms at Queen Mary University of London managing the Apocrita HPC
cluster service. He’s been creating AI 🤖 generated art using bleeding edge
CLIP guided diffusion models 🖌 The results are pretty incredible and we’ve
<a href="https://twitter.com/m_wimpress/status/1504030749451862026">included the 3 top voted “Jammy Jellyfish” in our wallpaper selection</a>
as their vivid and vibrant styles compliment the Yaru accent colour theme options
very nicely indeed 😎</p>
<div class="gallery">
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/jammy/jelly3.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/jammy/jelly4.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="gallery-item">
<img src="/images/blog/jammy/jelly6.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
</div>
<p>If you want the complete set, here’s a tarball of all 8 wallpapers at 3840x2160:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://people.ubuntu.com/~flexiondotorg/Jammy_Jellyfish_AI_Wallpapers.tar.xz">AI Generated <em>“Jammy Jelly”</em> by Simon Butcher</a> 🎁 (22MB)</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="ubuntu-mate-stuff-">Ubuntu MATE stuff 🧉</h3>
<p>Ubuntu MATE has a few distinctive apps and integrations of it’s own, here’s a
run down of what’s new and shiny ✨</p>
<h4 id="mate-tweak">MATE Tweak</h4>
<p>Switching layouts with MATE Tweak is its most celebrated feature. We’ve improved
the reliability of desktop layout switching and restoring custom layouts is now 100%
accurate 💯</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/panel-layouts.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE Desktop Layouts" />
<strong>Having your desktop your way in Ubuntu MATE</strong></p>
<p>We’ve removed <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-netbook</code> from the default installation of Ubuntu MATE and
as a result the Netbook layout is no longer available. We did this because
<code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-maximus</code>, a component of <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-netbook</code>, is the cause of some
compatibility issues with client side decorated (CSD) windows. There are still
several panel layouts that offer efficient resolution use 📐 for those who need
it.</p>
<p><strong>MATE Tweak has refreshed its supported for 3rd party compositors.</strong> Support for
Compton has been dropped, as it is no longer actively maintained and
<strong>comprehensive support for <a href="https://github.com/yshui/picom">picom</a> has been added</strong>.
<code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">picom</code> has three compositor options: Xrender, GLX and Hybrid. All three are
can be selected via MATE Tweak as the performance and compatibility of each
varies depending on your hardware. <strong>Some people choose to use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">picom</code> because
they get better gaming performance or screen tearing is reduced. Some just
like subtle animation effects <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">picom</code> adds</strong> 💖</p>
<h4 id="mate-hud">MATE HUD</h4>
<p>Recent versions of <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">rofi</code>, the tool used by MATE HUD to visualise menu
searches, has a new theme system. <strong>MATE HUD has been updated to support this
new theme engine and comes with two MATE specific themes (<code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-hud</code> and
<code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-hud-rounded</code>) that automatically adapt to match the currently selected
GTK theme</strong>.</p>
<p>You can add your own <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">rofi</code> themes to <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">~/.local/share/rofi/themes</code>. Should you
want to, you can use any <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">rofi</code> theme in MATE HUD. Use <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>F2</kbd>
to run <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">rofi-theme-selector</code> to try out the different themes, and if there is
one you prefer you can set it as default by using running the following in a terminal:</p>
<div class="language-bash highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>gsettings <span class="nb">set </span>org.mate.hud rofi-theme <theme name>
</code></pre></div></div>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/mate-hud.png" alt="MATE HUD" />
<strong>MATE HUD uses the new rofi theme engine</strong></p>
<h4 id="windows--shadows">Windows & Shadows</h4>
<p>I’ve updated the Metacity/Marco (the MATE Window Manager) themes in Yaru to make
sure they match GNOME/CSD/Handy windows for a consistent look and feel across
all window types 🪟 and 3rd party compositors like <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">picom</code>. I even patched how
Marco and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">picom</code> render shadows so windows they look cohesive regardless of
toolkit or compositor being used.</p>
<h4 id="ubuntu-mate-welcome--boutique">Ubuntu MATE Welcome & Boutique</h4>
<p>The Software Boutique has been restocked with software for 22.04 and
<strong>Firefox 🔥🦊 ESR (<code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">.deb</code>) has been added to the Browser Ballot in Ubuntu MATE Welcome.</strong></p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/firefox-esr.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE Welcome Browser Ballot" />
<strong>Comprehensive browser options just a click away</strong></p>
<h3 id="41-less-fat-">41% less fat 🍩</h3>
<p>Ubuntu MATE, like it’s lead developer, was starting to get a bit large
around the mid section 😊 <strong>During the development of 22.04, the image 📀 got
to 4.1GB 😮</strong></p>
<p>So, we put Ubuntu MATE on a strict diet 🥗 We’ve removed the proprietary NVIDIA
drivers from the local apt pool on the install media and thanks to migrating
fully to Yaru (which now features excellent de-duplication of icons) and also
removing our legacy themes/icons. And now the Yaru-MATE themes/icons are
completely in upstream Yaru, we were able to remove 3 snaps from the default
install and <strong>the image is now a much more reasonable 2.7GB; 41% smaller.</strong> 🗜</p>
<p>This is important to us, because <strong>the majority of our users are in countries
where Internet bandwidth is not always plentiful</strong>. Those of you with NVIDIA GPUs,
don’t worry. If you tick the 3rd party software and drivers during the install
the appropriate driver for your GPU will be downloaded and installed 👍</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/install-3rd-party.png" alt="Install 3rd party drivers" />
<strong>NVIDIA GPU owners should tick <em>Install 3rd party software and drivers</em> during install</strong></p>
<p>While investigating 🕵 <a href="https://pad.lv/1959995">a bug in Xorg Server that caused Marco (the MATE window manager)
to crash</a> <strong>we discovered that Marco has lower frame time
latency ⏱ when using Xrender with the NVIDIA proprietary drivers</strong>. <strong>We’ve
published a PPA where NVIDIA GPU users can install a version of Marco that uses
Xpresent for optimal performance</strong> ⚡</p>
<div class="language-bash highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><span class="nb">sudo </span>apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/marco
<span class="nb">sudo </span>apt upgrade
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>Should you want to revert this change you install <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">ppa-purge</code> and run the
following from a terminal: <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">sudo ppa-purge -o ubuntu-mate-dev -p marco</code>.</p>
<h4 id="but-wait-theres-more-">But wait! There’s more! 😲</h4>
<p>These reductions in size are after <strong>we added three new applications to the default
install on Ubuntu MATE: GNOME Clocks, Maps and Weather</strong> My family and I 👨👩👧 have
found these applications particularly useful and use them regularly on our
laptops without having to reach for a phone or tablet.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/gnome-clocks-maps-weather.png" alt="GNOME Clocks, Maps & Weather" />
<strong>New additions to the default desktop application in Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS</strong></p>
<p>For those of you who like a minimal base platform, then <strong>the minimal install
option is still available which delivers just the essential Ubuntu MATE Desktop
and Firefox browser.</strong> You can then build up from there 👷</p>
<h4 id="packages-packages-packages-">Packages, packages, packages 📦</h4>
<p>It doesn’t matter how you like to consume your Linux 🐧 packages, Ubuntu MATE
has got you covered with <strong>PPA, Snap, AppImage and FlatPak support baked in
by default.</strong> You’ll find <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flatpak</code>, <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">snapd</code> and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">xdg-desktop-portal-gtk</code> to
support Snap and FlatPak and the (ageing) <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">libfuse2</code> to support AppImage are all
pre-installed.</p>
<p>Although <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flatpak</code> is installed, <a href="https://flathub.org/home">FlatHub</a> is not
enabled by default. To enable FlatHub run the following in a terminal:</p>
<div class="language-bash highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>flatpak remote-add <span class="nt">--if-not-exists</span> flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
</code></pre></div></div>
<p><strong>We’ve also included <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">snapd-desktop-integration</code> which provides a bridge
between the user’s session and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">snapd</code> to integrate theme preferences 🎨 with
snapped apps</strong> and can also automatically install snapped themes 👔
<strong>All the Yaru themes shipped in Ubuntu MATE are fully snap aware</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="ayatana-indicators">Ayatana Indicators</h3>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 20.10 transitioned to <a href="https://github.com/AyatanaIndicators">Ayatana Indicators</a> 🚥
As a quick refresher, Ayatana Indicators are a fork of Ubuntu Indicators that
aim to be cross-distro compatible and re-usable for any desktop environment 👌</p>
<p><strong>Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS comes with Ayatana Indicators 22.2.0 and sees the
return of Messages Indicator 📬 to the default install</strong>. Ayatana Indicators now
provide improved backwards compatibility to Ubuntu Indicators and no longer
requires the installation of two sets of libraries, saving RAM, CPU cycles and
improving battery endurance 🔋</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/jammy/ayatana-settings.png" alt="Ayatana Indicator Settings" />
<strong>Ayatana Indicators Settings</strong></p>
<p>To compliment the BlueZ 5.64 protocol stack in Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE ships
<strong>Blueman 2.2.4 which offers comprehensive management of Bluetooth devices and
much improved pairing compatibility</strong> 💙🦷</p>
<p>I also patched <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-power-manager</code>, <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">ayatana-indicator-power</code> and Yaru to <strong>add
support for battery powered gaming input devices, such as controllers 🎮 and joysticks 🕹</strong></p>
<h3 id="active-directory">Active Directory</h3>
<p>And in case you missed it, the Ubuntu Desktop team added the option to enroll
your computer into an Active Directory domain 🔑 during install. Ubuntu MATE
has supported the same capability since it was first made available in the
20.10 release.</p>
<h3 id="raspberry-pi-image-">Raspberry Pi image 🥧</h3>
<ul>
<li>Should be available very shortly after the release of 22.04.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h3>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.26.1</strong> and <strong>Linux 5.15</strong> are <strong>Firefox 99.0</strong>,
<strong>Celluloid 0.20</strong>, <strong>Evolution 3.44</strong> & <strong>LibreOffice 7.3.2.1</strong></p>
<p>See the <a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/jammy-jellyfish-release-notes/24668">Ubuntu 22.04 Release Notes</a>
for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS</h2>
<p>This new release will be first available for PC/Mac users.</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-2004-lts-and-2110">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS and 21.10</h2>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 22.04 LTS from Ubuntu MATE either 20.04 LTS or
21.10. Ensure that you have all updates installed for your current version of
Ubuntu MATE before you upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” drop down menu to “For long-term support versions” if you are using 20.04 LTS; set it to “For any new version” if you are using 21.10.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c -d</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘XX.XX’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<table class="known-issues">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Component</th>
<th class="column-problem">Problem</th>
<th class="column-links">Workarounds</th>
<th class="column-links">Upstream Links</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<img class="component-icon" src="/images/brands/ubuntu.svg" alt="" />
Ubuntu
</td>
<td class="column-problem">Ubiquity slide shows are missing for OEM installs of Ubuntu MATE</td>
<td class="column-links">
<a class="issue-link" href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1713720/comments/4" rel="external" title="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1713720/comments/4">◾ Link</a>
<br />
</td>
<td class="column-links">
<a class="issue-link" href="https://pad.lv/1713720" rel="external" title="https://pad.lv/1713720">◾
Link
</a>
<br />
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin WimpressUbuntu MATE 22.04 LTS is the culmination of 2 years of continual improvement 😅 to Ubuntu and MATE Desktop. As is tradition, the LTS development cycle has a keen focus on eliminating paper 🧻 cuts 🔪 but we’ve jammed in some new features and a fresh coat of paint too 🖌 The following is a summary of what’s new since Ubuntu MATE 21.10 and some reminders of how we got here from 20.04. Read on to learn more 🧑🎓Ubuntu MATE 21.10 for GPD Pocket 32022-01-21T00:00:00+00:002022-01-21T15:04:26+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-for-gpd-pocket3<p>In what has become something of a tradition, the Ubuntu MATE team have released
images for the <a href="https://www.gpd.hk/gpdpocket3">GPD Pocket 3</a> modular handheld PC.
<strong>Many thanks to the team at GPD for providing sample hardware for us to work with!</strong></p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/gpd-pocket3-laptop.jpg" alt="Ubuntu MATE 21.10 running on the GPD Pocket 3" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 21.10 running on the GPD Pocket 3</strong></p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>GPD Pocket 3 Download</h2>
<p>The Ubuntu MATE 21.10 image for GPD Pocket 3 is available for download now</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Downloads</a>
</div>
<h2 id="tweaks-for-the-gpd-pocket-3">Tweaks for the GPD Pocket 3:</h2>
<p>All the hardware in the GPD Pocket 3 works with a modern Linux OS, but some
configuration tweaking is required to deliver an optimised <em>“out of box”</em>
experience. Here’s what we did:</p>
<ul>
<li>Enable frame buffer and Xorg display rotation.</li>
<li><strong>Accelerometer support for automatic screen rotation.</strong>
<ul>
<li>Also automatically rotates touch screen and stylus (draw and erase)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Enable <strong>fractional scaling by default</strong>
<ul>
<li>Results in an effective resolution of ~1280x800 to make the display panels easily readable.</li>
<li>Simple to toggle on/off via the <em>Display Scaler</em> app if you want to restore full resolution.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Enable audio via the HDaudio legacy driver.</li>
<li>Suspend is implemented via <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">s2idle</code>
<ul>
<li>A temporary workaround until S3 sleep state is supported.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Enable scroll wheel emulation while holding down the centre trackpad button.</li>
<li>Enable Tear-Free rendering by default.</li>
<li>Enable double size console (tty) font resolution.</li>
</ul>
<p>Sadly, no support for the fingerprint reader. AFAIK only USB fingerprint readers
are supported in Linux.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/gpd-pocket3-tablet.jpg" alt="Ubuntu MATE 21.10 running on the GPD Pocket 3 in Tablet mode" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 21.10 running on the GPD Pocket 3 in Tablet mode</strong></p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>More Details & Downloads</h2>
<p>Find out more about Ubuntu MATE for the GPD Pocket 3. Get the downloads!</p>
<a href="/ports/umpcs/" class="btn">Details & Downloads</a>
</div>Martin WimpressIn what has become something of a tradition, the Ubuntu MATE team have released images for the GPD Pocket 3 modular handheld PC. Many thanks to the team at GPD for providing sample hardware for us to work with!Ubuntu MATE 21.10 Release Notes2021-10-14T00:00:00+00:002021-10-14T14:41:34+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-impish<p>The significant change in Ubuntu MATE 21.10 is the introduction of <a href="https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2021-08-08-mate-1-26-released/">MATE Desktop
1.26.0</a> ✨ which was
18 months in the making. Thanks to the optimisations in MATE Desktop 1.26, Ubuntu
MATE 21.10 is faster and leaner 💪</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/impish/impish-indri-desktop.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE 21.10" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 21.10 (Impish Indri).</strong></p>
<h2 id="what-changed-since-the-ubuntu-mate-2104">What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 21.04?</h2>
<p>Here are the highlights of what’s changed since the <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-hirsute-hippo-release-notes/">release of Hirsute
Hippo 🦛</a></p>
<h3 id="mate-desktop-">MATE Desktop 🧉</h3>
<p>A <strong>significant effort 😅 has been invested in fixing bugs 🐛 in MATE Desktop 1.26.0,
optimising performance ⚡ and plugging memory leaks</strong>. MATE Desktop is faster and
leaner as a result and it’s <strong>underpinnings have been modernised and updated</strong>. This
last point mostly benefits developers working on MATE, but is important to
highlight to users at it demonstrates <strong>MATE Desktop is being maintained to ensure it’s longevity</strong>.</p>
<p>Here are some of the other <strong>quality of life 💌 improvements in MATE Desktop 1.26</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Control Center features:
<ul>
<li>Improved Window Preferences dialog with a more <strong>comprehensive window behaviour and placement options</strong> presented.</li>
<li>Display preferences now has an option for <strong>discrete display scaling</strong>.</li>
<li>Power Manager has a new option to enable keyboard dimming.</li>
<li>Notifications now support for hyperlinks.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Caja can <strong>format drives and has a new Bookmarks sidebar</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Caja Actions</strong>, which allows you to add arbitrary programs to be launched through the context menu, is now part of the Desktop.</li>
<li>Calculator now uses GNU MPFR/MPC for <strong>high precision, faster computation and additional functions</strong>.</li>
<li>Pluma has a <strong>new mini map instant overview</strong>, a grid background to turn Pluma into a writing pad and the preferences have been redesigned.</li>
<li>Atril is much <strong>faster scrolling through large documents and the memory footprint has been reduced</strong>.</li>
<li>Engrampa, the archive manager, now <strong>supports EPUB, ARC and encrypted RAR files</strong>.</li>
<li>Marco, the windows manager:
<ul>
<li>Correctly restores minimised windows to their original position.</li>
<li>Thumbnail <strong>window previews support HiDPI</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Netspeed applet shows <strong>more information about your network interfaces</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<p>While MATE Desktop is not completely ready for Wayland just yet, 1.26.0
represents a significant stepping stone towards that objective with <strong>most of the
MATE Desktop being able to run on a Wayland compositor</strong>. 👍</p>
<h3 id="ubuntu-mate-enhancements">Ubuntu MATE Enhancements</h3>
<p>Ubuntu MATE has tweaked 🔧 the default desktop configuration slighty:</p>
<ul>
<li>Image Extrapolation and Interpolation is disabled by default in Eye of MATE to make <strong>image viewing faster and image quality sharper</strong>.</li>
<li>The <strong>Alt-Tab pop-up is now expanded</strong> to fit long window titles.</li>
<li>If you use the <strong>Mutiny layout, session loading is now faster</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="guest-session">Guest Session</h3>
<p>Once in a while a friend, family member, or colleague may want to borrow your
computer 😱 The <strong>Guest Session provides a convenient way, with a high level of
security, to lend your computer to someone else</strong>. A guest session can be launched
either from the login screen or from within a regular session. If you are
currently logged in, click the icon at the far right of the menu bar and select
Guest Session. This will lock the screen for your own session and start the
guest session.</p>
<p>A <strong>guest cannot view the home folders of other users, and by default any saved
data or changed settings will be removed/reset at logout</strong>. It means that each
session starts with a fresh environment, unaffected by what previous guests did.</p>
<h3 id="redshift">RedShift</h3>
<p>RedShift makes a return, after being temporarily removed in Ubuntu MATE 21.04.</p>
<h2 id="raspberry-pi-images">Raspberry Pi images</h2>
<p>We will be refreshing our Ubuntu MATE images for Raspberry Pi in the coming
weeks.</p>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.26.0</strong> and <strong>Linux 5.13</strong> are <strong>Firefox 93.0</strong>,
<strong>Celluloid 0.20</strong>, <strong>LibreOffice 7.2.1.2</strong></p>
<p>See the <a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/impish-indri-release-notes/21951">Ubuntu 21.10 Release Notes</a>
for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE 21.10</h2>
<p>This new release will be first available for PC/Mac users.</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-2104">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 21.04</h2>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 21.10 from Ubuntu MATE 21.04. Ensure that you
have all updates installed for your current version of Ubuntu MATE before you
upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” drop down menu to “For any new version”.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c -d</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘XX.XX’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<table class="known-issues">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Component</th>
<th class="column-problem">Problem</th>
<th class="column-links">Workarounds</th>
<th class="column-links">Upstream Links</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Plank
</td>
<td class="column-problem">When snaps update, they disappear from Plank.</td>
<td class="column-links">
<span class="issue-no-link">n/a</span>
</td>
<td class="column-links">
<a class="issue-link" href="https://pad.lv/1828030" rel="external" title="https://pad.lv/1828030">◾
Link
</a>
<br />
<a class="issue-link" href="https://pad.lv/1760433" rel="external" title="https://pad.lv/1760433">◾
Link
</a>
<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<img class="component-icon" src="/images/brands/ubuntu.svg" alt="" />
Ubuntu
</td>
<td class="column-problem">Ubiquity slide shows are missing for OEM installs of Ubuntu MATE</td>
<td class="column-links">
<a class="issue-link" href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1713720/comments/4" rel="external" title="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1713720/comments/4">◾ Link</a>
<br />
</td>
<td class="column-links">
<a class="issue-link" href="https://pad.lv/1713720" rel="external" title="https://pad.lv/1713720">◾
Link
</a>
<br />
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin WimpressThe significant change in Ubuntu MATE 21.10 is the introduction of MATE Desktop 1.26.0 ✨ which was 18 months in the making. Thanks to the optimisations in MATE Desktop 1.26, Ubuntu MATE 21.10 is faster and leaner 💪Ubuntu MATE 21.04 Release Notes2021-04-22T00:00:00+00:002021-04-29T22:51:20+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-hirsute<p><strong>Can you smell 👃 that? That’s the smell of fresh paint 🖌 with just a hint of
cucumber 🥒</strong></p>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 21.04 is here and it has a new look thanks to the collaboration with
the <a href="https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru">Yaru team</a>. This release marks the start of a new visual direction for Ubuntu MATE, while
retaining the features you’ve come to love 💚 Read on to learn 🎓 what we’ve
been working on over the last 6 months and get some insight to what we’ll be
working on next.</p>
<p>We would like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks 🙏 to everyone who
contributed to this release, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Yaru team for welcoming us so warmly 🤗 into the Yaru project and for all their hard work during this development cycle</li>
<li>The Ayatana Indicator team who helped add new features and fix bugs that improved the indicator experience</li>
<li>Everyone who participated in the QA/testing and bug filing 🐛</li>
<li>Those of you who have been contributing to documentation and translations</li>
</ul>
<p>Thank you! Thank you all very much indeed 🥰</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/hirsute/hirsute-hippo-desktop.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE 21.04" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 21.04 (Hirsute Hippo)</strong></p>
<h1 id="what-changed-since-the-ubuntu-mate-2010">What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 20.10?</h1>
<p>Here are the highlights of what’s changed since the <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-groovy-gorilla-release-notes/">release of Groovy 🕶
Gorilla 🦍</a></p>
<h2 id="mate-desktop-">MATE Desktop 🧉</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://mate-desktop.org">MATE Desktop</a> team released <strong>maintenance 🔧
updates for the current stable 1.24 release of MATE</strong>. We’ve updated the
<a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian-mate-team">MATE packaging in Debian</a> to
incorporate all these <strong>bug 🐛 fixes and translation updates</strong> and synced those
packages to Ubuntu so they all feature in this 21.04 release. <strong>There are no new
features, just fixes</strong> 🩹</p>
<h2 id="ayatana-indicators-">Ayatana Indicators 🚥</h2>
<p>A highlight of the <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-groovy-gorilla-release-notes/">Ubuntu MATE 20.10 release</a>
was the transition to Ayatana Indicators. You can read 👓 the <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-groovy-gorilla-release-notes/">20.10 release
notes</a> to
learn what Ayatana Indicators are and why this transition will be beneficial in the
long term.</p>
<p>We’ve added new versions of Ayatana Indicators including <strong>‘Indicators’ settings
to the Control Center</strong>, which can be used to configure the installed
indicators.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/hirsute/ayatana-settings.png" alt="Ayatana Indicator Settings" />
<strong>Ayatana Indicators Settings</strong></p>
<p>Other indicator changes include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Added Printer Indicator</strong> 🖨 which replaces the legacy printer applet</li>
<li><strong>Removed <a href="http://jonls.dk/redshift/">RedShift</a></strong>
<ul>
<li>We ran into a show stopper 🛑 bug 🐞 that prevented it’s inclusion in 21.04</li>
<li>We’ll either re-introduce RedShift in a future release or adopt <a href="https://github.com/AyatanaIndicators/ayatana-indicator-display/issues/14">a potential alternative solution from the Ayatana Indicator project</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Expect to see more Ayatana Indicators included in future releases of Ubuntu
MATE. Top candidates are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Display Indicator - <em>needs uploading to Debian and Ubuntu</em></li>
<li>Messages Indicator - <em>needs uploading to Debian and Ubuntu</em>
<ul>
<li><strong><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">ayatana-webmail</code> is available for install in Ubuntu MATE 21.04</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Keyboard Indicator - <em>requires feature parity with MATE keyboard applet</em></li>
<li>Bluetooth Indicator - <em>requires integration work with Blueman</em></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="yaru-mate-">Yaru MATE 🎨</h2>
<p>This is where most of the work was invested 💦</p>
<p><strong>A new derivative of the Yaru theme, called Yaru MATE, has been created in
collaboration with the Yaru team.</strong> During our discussions with the Yaru team we
decided to make one significant departure from how Yaru MATE is delivered;
<strong>Yaru MATE is only providing a light and dark theme</strong>, with the light theme
being default. This differs from Yaru in Ubuntu which features a mixed
light/dark by default.</p>
<p><strong>We’ve decided to offer only light and dark variants of Yaru MATE as it makes
maintaining the themes much easier</strong>, the mixed light/dark Yaru theme does
require extra work to maintain due to the edge cases it surfaces. <strong>Offering just
light and dark variants also ensures better application compatibility.</strong></p>
<p>This work touched on a number of projects, here’s what Ubuntu MATE now enjoys as
a result of Yaru MATE:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>GTK 2.x, 3.x and 4.x Yaru MATE light and dark themes</strong></li>
<li><strong>Suru icons</strong> along with a number of <strong>new icons specifically made for MATE Desktop and Ubuntu MATE</strong></li>
<li><strong>LibreOffice Yaru MATE icon theme, which are enabled by default</strong> on new installs</li>
<li><strong>Font contrast is much improved</strong> throughout the desktop and applications</li>
<li><strong>Websites honour dark mode at the operating system level</strong>
<ul>
<li>If you enable the Yaru MATE Dark theme, websites that provide a dark mode will automatically use their dark theme to match your preferences.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>In return for the excellent theme and icons from the Yaru team, the Ubuntu MATE
team worked on the following which are now features of Yaru and Yaru MATE:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Pixel perfect Marco/Metacity/Compiz window manager theme</strong> that matches Yaru GNOME Shell window rendering
<ul>
<li>All icons in these themes are <strong>SVG for improved HiDPI support</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru/pull/2546">GTKSourceView 2.x, 3.x and 4.x style</a></strong>
<ul>
<li>Based on <a href="https://vanillaframework.io/docs/settings/color-settings">Vanilla colour palette</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>As a result of our window manager and GTKSourceView contributions it is now
possible to use all three upstream Yaru themes from Ubuntu in Ubuntu MATE 💪</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/hirsute/yaru-mate-gtksourceview.png" alt="Yaru MATE GTKSourceView" />
<strong>Yaru MATE GTKSourceView, Tiled Windows and Plank theme</strong></p>
<h3 id="going-the-extra-mile-">Going the extra mile 🎽</h3>
<p>In order to make Yaru MATE shine we’ve also created:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Plank themes that match Yaru MATE for side and bottom docks</strong></li>
<li><strong>Patched Marco window manager disable shadows on side-tiled windows</strong>
<ul>
<li>The Yaru and Yaru MATE window manager themes feature clean edge styling for side tiled windows</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Multiple colour variants of Yaru MATE are available via Ubuntu MATE Welcome</strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://snapcraft.io/gtk-theme-yaru-mate">Published a Yaru MATE GTK theme snap in the Snap Store</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://snapcraft.io/icon-theme-yaru-mate">Published a Yaru MATE icon theme snap in the Snap Store</a></strong></li>
<li><strong><a href="https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/04/install-yaru-mate-theme-20-04">Published a Yaru MATE PPA for users of Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS</a></strong></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="yaru-mate-snaps">Yaru MATE Snaps</h4>
<p><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">snapd</code> will soon be able to automatically install snaps of themes that match
your currently active theme. The snaps we’ve created are ready to integrate
with that capability when it is available.</p>
<p>The <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">gtk-theme-yaru-mate</code> and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">icon-theme-yaru-mate</code> snaps are pre-installed in
Ubuntu MATE, but are not automatically connected to snapped applications.
Running the following commands in a terminal periodically, or after you install
a snapped GUI application, will connect the themes to compatible snaps until
such time <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">snapd</code> supports doing this automatically.</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>for PLUG in $(snap connections | grep gtk-common-themes:gtk-3-themes | awk '{print $2}'); do sudo snap connect ${PLUG} gtk-theme-yaru-mate:gtk-3-themes; done
for PLUG in $(snap connections | grep gtk-common-themes:gtk-2-themes | awk '{print $2}'); do sudo snap connect ${PLUG} gtk-theme-yaru-mate:gtk-2-themes; done
for PLUG in $(snap connections | grep gtk-common-themes:icon-themes | awk '{print $2}'); do sudo snap connect ${PLUG} icon-theme-yaru-mate:icon-themes; done
</code></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="whats-next-">What’s next? 🔮</h3>
<p>While we made lots of progress with Yaru MATE for 21.04, the work is on going.
Here’s what we’ll be working on next:</p>
<ul>
<li>Some symbolic icons are being provided by a fallback to the Ambiant MATE and Radiant MATE icon themes, something we are keen to address for Ubuntu MATE 21.10.</li>
<li>Ubuntu MATE doesn’t have a full compliment of Suru icons for MATE Desktop, yet.</li>
<li>Plymouth boot theme will be aligned with the EFI respecting theme shipped in Ubuntu.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="mutiny-️">Mutiny 🏴☠️</h2>
<p>The Mutiny layout, which provides a desktop layout that somewhat mimics Unity,
has been a source of bug reports and user frustration 😤 for sometime now.
Switching to/from Mutiny has often crashed resulting in a broken desktop
session 😭</p>
<p>We have <strong>removed MATE Dock Applet from Ubuntu MATE</strong> and <strong>refactored the
Mutiny layout to use Plank</strong> instead.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/hirsute/yaru-mate-mutiny-dark.png" alt="Mutiny layout with Yaru MATE Dark" />
<strong>Mutiny layout with Yaru MATE Dark</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Switching to the Mutiny layout via MATE Tweak will automatically theme Plank</strong>
<ul>
<li>Light and dark Yaru themes for Plank are included</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Mutiny <strong>no longer enables Global Menus and also doesn’t undecorate maximised
windows by default</strong>
<ul>
<li>If you like those features you can <strong>enable them via MATE Tweak</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Window Buttons Applet is no longer integrated</strong> in the Mutiny top panel by default.
<ul>
<li>You can manually add it to your custom panel configuration should you want it.</li>
<li><strong>Window Buttons Applet has been updated to automatically use window control buttons from the active theme</strong>. HiDPI support is also improved.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>As a result of these changes Mutiny is more reliable and retains much of the
Unity look and feel that many people like.</p>
<h2 id="command-line-love-">Command line love 🧑💻</h2>
<p>We’ve included a few popular utilities requested by command line warriors.
<strong><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">neofetch</code>, <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">htop</code> and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">inxi</code> are all included in the default Ubuntu MATE
install.</strong> <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">neofetch</code> also features an Ubuntu MATE ASCII logo.</p>
<h2 id="raspberry-pi-images">Raspberry Pi images</h2>
<p>We will release Ubuntu MATE 21.04 images for the Raspberry Pi in the days
following the release for PC 🙂</p>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.24.1</strong> and <strong>Linux 5.11</strong> are <strong>Firefox 87</strong>, <strong>LibreOffice 7.1.2.2</strong>, <strong>Evolution 3.40</strong> & <strong>Celluloid 0.20</strong>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/hirsute/versions.png" alt="Major Applications" /></p>
<p>See the <a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/hirsute-hippo-release-notes/19221">Ubuntu 21.04 Release Notes</a>
for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE 21.04</h2>
<p>This new release will be first available for PC/Mac users.</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h1 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-2010">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 20.10</h1>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 21.04 from Ubuntu MATE 20.10. Ensure that you
have all updates installed for your current version of Ubuntu MATE before you
upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” dropdown menu to “For any new version”.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘21.04’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h1 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h1>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<table class="known-issues">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Component</th>
<th class="column-problem">Problem</th>
<th class="column-links">Workarounds</th>
<th class="column-links">Upstream Links</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
</tbody>
</table>
<h1 id="feedback">Feedback</h1>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin Wimpress & Monica Ayhens-MadonCan you smell 👃 that? That’s the smell of fresh paint 🖌 with just a hint of cucumber 🥒Ubuntu MATE 20.10 Release Notes2020-10-22T00:00:00+00:002020-12-11T19:46:20+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-groovy<p>The releases following an LTS are always a good time ⌚ to make changes the set
the future direction 🗺️ of the distribution with an eye on where we want to be for
the next LTS release. Therefore, Ubuntu MATE 20.10 ships with that latest MATE
Desktop 1.24.1, keeps paces with other developments within Ubuntu (such as
Active Directory authentication) and migrated to the Ayatana Indicators project.</p>
<p>If you want bug fixes :bug:, kernel updates :corn:, a new web camera control :movie_camera:,
and a new indicator :point_right: experience, then 20.10 is for you :tada:. Ubuntu MATE 20.10
will be supported for 9 months until July 2021. If you need Long Term
Support, we recommend you use Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS.</p>
<p>Read on to learn more… :point_down:</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/groovy/groovy-gorilla-desktop.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla)" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla)</strong></p>
<h2 id="whats-changed-since-ubuntu-mate-2004">What’s changed since Ubuntu MATE 20.04?</h2>
<h3 id="mate-desktop">MATE Desktop</h3>
<p>If you follow the <a href="https://twitter.com/ubuntu_mate">Ubuntu MATE twitter account</a> 🐦
you’ll know that MATE Desktop 1.24.1 was recently released. Naturally Ubuntu
MATE 20.10 features that maintenance release of MATE Desktop. In addition, <a href="https://pad.lv/1891891">we
have prepared updated MATE Desktop 1.24.1 packages for Ubuntu MATE 20.04</a>
that are currently in the SRU process. Given the number of MATE packages being
updated in 20.04, it might take some time ⏳ for all the updates to land, but
we’re hopeful that the fixes and improvements from MATE Desktop 1.24.1 will
soon be available for those of you running 20.04 LTS 👍</p>
<h3 id="active-directory">Active Directory</h3>
<p>The Ubuntu Desktop team added the option to enroll your computer into an
Active Directory domain 🔑 during install. We’ve been tracking that work and the
same capability is available in Ubuntu MATE too.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/groovy/active-directory.png" alt="Active Directory Enrollment" />
<strong>Enroll your computer into an Active Directory domain</strong></p>
<h3 id="ayatana-indicators">Ayatana Indicators</h3>
<p>There is a significant under the hood change 🔧 in Ubuntu MATE 20.10 that you
might not even notice 👀 at a surface level; we’ve replaced Ubuntu Indicators
with <a href="https://github.com/AyatanaIndicators">Ayatana Indicators</a>.</p>
<p>We’ll explain some of the background, why we’ve made this change, the short
term impact and the long term benefits.</p>
<h4 id="what-are-ayatana-indicators">What are Ayatana Indicators?</h4>
<p>In short, Ayatana Indicators is a fork of Ubuntu Indicators that aims to be
cross-distro compatible and re-usable for any desktop environment 👌 Indicators
were developed by Canonical some years ago, initially for the GNOME2
implementation in Ubuntu and then refined for use in the Unity desktop. Ubuntu
MATE has supported the Ubuntu Indicators for some years now and we’ve contributed
patches to integrate MATE support into the suite of Ubuntu Indicators. Existing
indicators are compatible with Ayatana Indicators.</p>
<p>We have migrated Ubuntu MATE 20.10 to Ayatana Indicators and Arctica Greeter. I
live streamed 📡 the development work to switch from Ubuntu Indicators to
Ayatana Indicators which you can find below if you’re interested in some of the
technical details 🤓</p>
<p class="center">
<iframe class="youtube-embed" width="600" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ICRjjjMbEE?html5=1&rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</p>
<h4 id="the-benefits-of-ayatana-indicators">The benefits of Ayatana Indicators</h4>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 20.10 is our first release to feature Ayatana Indicators and as
such there are a couple of drawbacks; there is no messages indicator and no
graphical tool to configure the display manager greeter (login window) 😞</p>
<p>Both will return in a future release and the greeter can be configured
using <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">dconf-editor</code> in the meantime.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/groovy/arctica-greeter-dconf.png" alt="Arctica Greeter dconf configuration" />
<strong>Configuring Arctica Greeter with <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">dconf-editor</code></strong></p>
<p>That said, there are significant benefits that result from migrating to Ayatana
Indicators:</p>
<ul>
<li>Debian and Ubuntu MATE are now aligned with regards to Indicator support; patches are no longer required in Ubuntu MATE which reduces the maintenance overhead.</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/mate-tweak">MATE Tweak</a> is now a cross-distro application, without the need for distro specific patches.</li>
<li>We’ve switched from <a href="https://github.com/linuxmint/slick-greeter">Slick Greeter</a> to <a href="https://github.com/ArcticaProject/arctica-greeter">Arctica Greeter</a> (both forks of Unity Greeter)
<ul>
<li>Arctica Greeter integrates completely with Ayatana Indicators; so there is now a consistent Indicator experience in the greeter and desktop environment.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Multiple projects are now using Ayatana Indicators, including desktop environments, distros and even mobile phone projects such as <a href="https://ubports.com/">UBports</a>. With more developers collaborating in one place we are seeing the collection of available indicators grow 📈</li>
<li>Through UBports contributions to Ayatana Indicators we will soon have a Bluetooth indicator that can replace Blueman, providing a much simpler way to connect and manage Bluetooth devices. UBports have also been working on a network indicator and we hope to consolidate that to provide improved network management as well.</li>
<li>Other indicators that are being worked on include printers, accessibility, keyboard (long absent from Ubuntu MATE), webmail and display.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, that is the backstory about how developers from different projects come together to collaborate on a shared interest and improve software for their users 💪</p>
<h3 id="webcamoid">Webcamoid</h3>
<p>We’ve replaced Cheese :cheese: with Webcamoid :movie_camera: as the default webcam tool for
several reasons.</p>
<ul>
<li>Webcamoid is a full webcam/capture configuration tool with recording, overlays and more, unlike Cheese. While there were initial concerns :pensive:, since
Webcamoid is a Qt5 app, nearly all the requirements in the image are pulled in via YouTube-DL :tada:.</li>
<li>We’ve disabled notifications :bell: for Webcamoid updates if installed from universe pocket as a deb-version, since this would cause errors in the user’s system and force them to download a non-deb version. This only affects users who don’t have an existing Webcamoid configuration.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="linux-kernel">Linux Kernel</h3>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 20.10 includes the 5.8 Linux kernel. This includes numerous
updates and added support since the 5.4 Linux kernel released in
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Some notable examples include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Airtime Queue limits for better WiFi connection quality</li>
<li>Btrfs RAID1 with 3 and 4 copies and more checksum alternatives</li>
<li>USB 4 (Thunderbolt 3 protocol) support added</li>
<li>X86 Enable 5-level paging support by default</li>
<li>Intel Gen11 (Ice Lake) and Gen12 (Tiger Lake) graphics support</li>
<li>Initial support for AMD Family 19h (Zen 3)</li>
<li>Thermal pressure tracking for systems for better task placement wrt CPU core</li>
<li>XFS online repair</li>
<li>OverlayFS pairing with VirtIO-FS</li>
<li>General Notification Queue for key/keyring notification, mount changes, etc.</li>
<li>Active State Power Management (ASPM) for improved power savings of PCIe-to-PCI devices</li>
<li>Initial support for POWER10</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="raspberry-pi-images">Raspberry Pi images</h2>
<p>We have been preparing Ubuntu MATE 20.04 images for the Raspberry Pi and
we will be release final image for 20.04 and 20.10 in the coming days 🙂</p>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.24.1</strong> and <strong>Linux 5.8</strong> are <strong>Firefox
81</strong>, <strong>LibreOffice 7.0.2</strong>, <strong>Evolution 3.38</strong> & <strong>Celluloid 0.18</strong>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/groovy/versions.png" alt="Major Applications" /></p>
<p>See the <a href="https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/groovy-gorilla-release-notes/15533">Ubuntu 20.10 Release Notes</a>
for details of all the changes and improvements that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE Today</h2>
<p>This new release will be first available for PC/Mac users.</p>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-2004-lts">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS</h2>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 20.10 from Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS. Ensure that you
have all updates installed for your current version of Ubuntu MATE before you
upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” drop down menu to “For any new version”.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c -d</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘XX.XX’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<table class="known-issues">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Component</th>
<th class="column-problem">Problem</th>
<th class="column-links">Workarounds</th>
<th class="column-links">Upstream Links</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Monica Madon & Martin WimpressThe releases following an LTS are always a good time ⌚ to make changes the set the future direction 🗺️ of the distribution with an eye on where we want to be for the next LTS release. Therefore, Ubuntu MATE 20.10 ships with that latest MATE Desktop 1.24.1, keeps paces with other developments within Ubuntu (such as Active Directory authentication) and migrated to the Ayatana Indicators project.Ubuntu MATE 20.04 Release Notes2020-04-02T00:00:00+00:002020-12-11T19:46:20+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-focal<p>Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS represents 2 years :sweat_drops: of continued improvement
to <a href="https://mate-desktop.org">MATE Desktop</a> and Ubuntu MATE itself. For Ubuntu
MATE 19.10 we <a href="/blog/ubuntu-mate-19-10-eoan-ermine-release/">focused on addressing as many <em>“paper-cut”</em> issues as possible</a>.
That was a hugely successful :tada: initiative, the community feedback was
overwhelmingly positive :chart_with_upwards_trend: and that is reflected in
adoption; <strong>the Ubuntu MATE 19.10 interim release is our most actively used
interim release to date!</strong> :champagne: This was only possible thanks to
dedicated group of QA testers <a href="/about/team/">joining the Ubuntu MATE team</a>
and coordinating with developers to highlight :flashlight: where attention was
needed.</p>
<p>Recognising that we’re on to a good thing, :thumbsup: we’ve repeated this
trick for Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS by once again by focusing :eyes:
on the pain points our community is most vocal :loudspeaker: about. You’ll
find details of everything we’ve improved or fixed since 19.10 plus a summary
of what’s changed since 18.04 below :point_down:</p>
<p><strong>I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone who has played an active role
in improving Ubuntu MATE for this LTS release :clap: From reporting bugs,
submitting translations, providing patches, contributing to our crowd funding,
developing new features, creating artwork, offering community support, actively
testing and providing QA feedback to writing documentation or creating this
fabulous website. Thank you! Thank you all for getting out there and making a
difference!</strong> :green_heart:</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/focal/focal-fossa-desktop.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE 20.04 Desktop" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 20.04 - Welcome now offers a few buckets of paint!</strong></p>
<h2 id="what-changed-since-the-ubuntu-mate-1804-lts">What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS?</h2>
<p>Those of you who follow the desktop Linux news will know that
upstream <a href="https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2020-02-10-mate-1-24-released/">MATE Desktop recently released version 1.24</a>.
Ubuntu MATE 20.04 is shipping with MATE Desktop 1.24. Thus, all of the
improvements in MATE Desktop 1.24 are present in Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS.</p>
<p><strong>Since the last LTS we worked on the following</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Added multiple coloured theme variations :art: as one-click installs for those of you who simply don’t like Chelsea Cucumber :cucumber:</li>
<li>Added <em>experimental</em> ZFS :file_folder: install option.</li>
<li>Added GameMode :video_game: from <a href="https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode">Feral Interactive</a>.</li>
<li>Fixed several crashers :bomb: in Brisk Menu and added keyboard :keyboard: navigation.</li>
<li>Fixed panel layout switching :hammer_and_wrench: which is now stable and reliable via MATE Tweak Tweak and Ubuntu MATE Welcome.</li>
<li>Fixed rendering window controls on HiDPI :mag: displays.</li>
<li>Fixed irregular icon sizes :straight_ruler: in MATE Control Center and made them render nicely on HiDPI displays.</li>
<li>Fixed unresponsive Caja :file_folder: extensions.</li>
<li>Fixed <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-power-manager</code> :electric_plug: to use upower-glib <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">get_devices2()</code>.</li>
<li>Fixed unresponsive Pluma :notebook: plugins.</li>
<li>Fixed a crasher :bomb: in MATE Dock Applet due to an Attribute error in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">adjust_minimise_pos()</code>.</li>
<li>Fixed auto-start errors in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-session-manager</code>.</li>
<li>Fixed saving/restoring custom panel layouts via MATE Tweak.</li>
<li>Gave Ubuntu MATE Welcome a fresh coat of :paintbrush:.</li>
<li>Updated the Ubuntu MATE Guide :question:</li>
<li>Updated the Ubiquity Slideshow :performing_arts:</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="firmware-updater">Firmware updater</h2>
<p>We’ve add a GTK front end for <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">fwupd</code>; this application can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Upgrade, Downgrade, & Reinstall firmware on devices supported by <a href="https://fwupd.org/">Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS)</a>.</li>
<li>Unlock locked <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">fwupd</code> devices.</li>
<li>Verify firmware on supported devices.</li>
<li>Display all releases for a <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">fwupd</code> device.</li>
</ul>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/focal/firmware.png" alt="Firmware" />
<strong>Ubuntu MATE 20.04 - Features an LVFS compatible Firmware management utility</strong></p>
<h3 id="window-manager-improvements">Window Manager improvements</h3>
<p>Marco is the Window Manager for MATE Desktop and in Ubuntu MATE 20.04
it brings a number of new features and fixes.</p>
<p><strong>XPresent support is properly fixed</strong>, which means that <strong>screen tearing is now
a thing of the past</strong> and <strong>invisible window corners are finally here!</strong> Invisible
window corners mean that windows can be easily resized :straight_ruler: without having to
precisely grab the window corners. <strong>HiDPI rendering improvements</strong> fix a number
of rendering problems that were present in various themes and components.
<strong>Most notably, windows controls are now HIDPI aware</strong>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Magnus (see below) provides screen magnification</li>
<li>Marco supports invisible windows borders</li>
<li>Marco has improved <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Tab</kbd> behaviour</li>
<li>Marco is free from screen tearing</li>
<li>Marco frame performance when gaming is further improved</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Minimized Application Preview</strong></p>
<p>Minimized applications in the window list now present a thumbnail preview.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/focal/taskbar-preview.png" alt="Minimized Preview" /></p>
<p><strong>Alt+Tab navigation</strong> makes it possible to
traverse the application switcher via keyboard and mouse.
<kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Tab</kbd>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/focal/alt-tab.png" alt="Alt-Tab Switcher" /></p>
<p><strong>Workspace Switcher</strong> allows you to switch between workspaces using a the keyboard and mouse.
<kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Tab</kbd> + <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/focal/workspace-switcher.png" alt="Workspace Switcher" /></p>
<p><strong>Compiz and Compton have been removed from the default Ubuntu MATE install</strong>.
The fundamental reasons for including them no longer exist.Only having one
window manager to target means we can promptly deliver new features and minimise
development effort. Which brings us to…</p>
<h3 id="new-key-bindings">New Key-bindings</h3>
<p>The key-bindings for window tiling have only worked on full keyboards
:keyboard: with a 10-key pad. Few laptops :computer: have a 10-key pad and not
all keyboards have a 10-key either. There are some well known key-bindings from
other platforms that were not recognised in Ubuntu MATE. So, we’ve had a think
:think: and have come up with this:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Maximise Window:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Up</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Restore Window:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Down</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Title Window right:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Right</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Title Window left:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Left</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Center Window:</strong> <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>c</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Title Window to upper right corner:</strong> <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Right</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Title Window to upper left corner:</strong> <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Left</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Title Window to lower right corner:</strong> <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Right</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Title Window to lower left Corner:</strong> <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Left</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Shade Window:</strong> <kbd>Control</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>s</kbd></li>
</ul>
<p>It is now possible to tile a window to all screen quadrants :triangular_ruler:
using any keyboard form factor. We updated the application launcher
key-bindings, some of these have existed in Ubuntu MATE for a while:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Cycle external displays:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>P</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Lock Screen:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>L</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Screenshot a rectangle:</strong> <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>PrintScr</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Open File Manager:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>e</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Open Terminal:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>T</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Open Control Center:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>I</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Open Search:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>S</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Open Task Manager:</strong> <kbd>Control</kbd> + <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Escape</kbd></li>
<li><strong>Open System Information:</strong> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Pause</kbd></li>
</ul>
<p>The key-bindings compliment existing well established alternatives. So if
<kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>T</kbd> (Terminal) and
<kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>L</kbd> (Lock Screen) are ingrained in
your muscle :muscle: memory 🧠 they are still available too. You can find all
the keyboard shortcuts documented in the <strong>Getting Started section of Ubuntu
MATE Welcome</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="brisk-menu">Brisk Menu</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/getsolus/brisk-menu">Brisk Menu</a> is under the Solus GitHub
organisation, but it’s been a couple of years since it had a new release. The
Solus Project gave me administrative access :trident: to the Brisk Menu repo and I’ve
made a new release. Thanks to the efforts of a couple of Ubuntu MATE
contributors, several bug :bug: fixes have landed too, which includes
<strong>resolving frequent crashers :bomb: in Brisk Menu, preventing a scrollbar always
appearing in the category column</strong> of the menu, <strong>silencing sounds firing as you
rollover menu entries</strong> and <strong>adding keyboard :keyboard: navigation</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="mate-panel">MATE Panel</h3>
<p>MATE Panel has had a long-standing bug fixed that caused it to crash :boom: when
the panel was reset or replaced. This was most noticeable when switching panel
layouts via MATE Tweak and could result in the panel layout being left
incomplete or entirely absent. This bug is now fixed! MATE Tweak has been
updated to neatly integrate with with fixed MATE Panel behaviour so that
<strong>layout switching is now 100% reliable</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="indicators">Indicators</h3>
<p>A bug which resulted in <strong>oversized icons in indicators is finally resolved</strong>.</p>
<table class="center transparent">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="/images/blog/eoan/indicators-before.png" alt="Before" /></td>
<td><img src="/images/blog/eoan/indicators-after.png" alt="After" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Before</strong> :poop:</td>
<td><strong>After</strong> :heart_eyes:</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>However, it turned out some of the bugs were due to the icons :art: themselves.
Over :100: icons have been refactored :paintbrush:️ to correct their resolutions or aspect
ratio; as a result the panel and indicators both scale correctly.</p>
<p>A race condition that could result in <strong>two network status icons being
displayed is fixed</strong>, and <strong>when connected via VPN, lock icons are now
overlayed on the Network Indicator</strong>. The battery :battery: indicator is improved
and now has a larger <strong>charging symbol while charging</strong>.</p>
<p>We’ve <strong>added the Date/Time Indicator and integrated it with MATE Desktop
and it now replaces the MATE clock applet</strong> which corrects the placement of
the clock and session indicators.</p>
<p>We’ve finally addressed a long standing issue which has been around since
Ubuntu MATE 14.10 🕸️: some of the monochrome symbolic icons used in the
indicators were also used in applications. The presented a couple of issues:</p>
<ul>
<li>In certain cases, you couldn’t easily see the icons against the window base colour.</li>
<li>The mix of monochrome and full colour icons in applications looked inconsistent.</li>
</ul>
<p>This issue is now resolved; <strong>monochrome symbolic icons are only used for
indicators and full colour icons are used in the Control Center, Sound
Preferences, Bluetooth, OSD, etc</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="mate-window-applets">MATE Window Applets</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/mate-window-applets">MATE Window Applets</a>
have received a number of bug fixes and new features from a community
contributor. Window control icons now dynamically load from the currently
selected theme, rather than requiring manual user configuration.
<strong>A number of bugs (including significant memory leaks) have also been
resolved</strong>.</p>
<h2 id="notification-center">Notification Center</h2>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 20.04 includes a <strong>new Indicator that provides a “notification
center”</strong> :bell: We worked with the <a href="https://github.com/trism/indicator-notifications">upstream developer to add new features
to indicator-notifications</a>
and integrate it with MATE Notifications Daemon.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/notification-settings.png" alt="Notification Settings" /></p>
<p>We now have a <strong>notification center that also offers a “do not disturb” :red_circle:
feature</strong>. When do not disturb is enabled, notifications will be muted and captured in the notification center for review. It’s also
<strong>possible to blacklist some notifications</strong>, so they are never stored by the
notification center. I’ve created an icon theme for the notification center so
it fits the look and feel of the default Ubuntu MATE theme. <strong>Notification hints
are also fixed</strong> so any notifications supplying additional media, such as
sounds or icons, now work.</p>
<h2 id="evolution-replaces-thunderbird">Evolution replaces Thunderbird</h2>
<p>The Ubuntu MATE development team discussed the pros and cons of switching the
default mail :email: client in Ubuntu MATE to
<a href="https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evolution">Evolution</a>. Here is a summary of our
assessment:</p>
<ul>
<li>Thunderbird does not integrate as well with the desktop.
<ul>
<li>For example, theme integration, font integration, compatibility with HUD (which is increasingly difficult to support in Thunderbird), notifications with action buttons, locale and spell checking.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Evolution integrates well with MATE Desktop given that both use GTK3.</li>
<li><strong>Evolution includes interoperability with LibreOffice</strong>, for which Ubuntu MATE is already shipping the required components.</li>
<li>Evolution has superior <strong>integration with Google Mail and Exchange</strong>, including calendar, contacts, tasks, and memos.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Indicator Date/Time also integrates with Evolution</strong>. It is fully functional,
including all the features of creating new events or opening upcoming events from the
indicator. Clicking on an individual day in the month displays the events for that day, etc.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/indicator-datetime.png" alt="Indicator Date Time" /></p>
<p>For the many people who use web-mail exclusively, this change will have no
impact, but for those who use desktop mail we feel these productivity :chart_with_upwards_trend:
improvements are significant.</p>
<p>For those of you who love :two_hearts: Thunderbird and wish to continue using it, we will
continue to offer Thunderbird in the Software Boutique for a one-click install.
Likewise, Evolution is now in the Software Boutique, and can be installed/removed
with one click.</p>
<h2 id="magnus">Magnus</h2>
<p>Most desktop environments are lacking a screen magnifier, which is an essential
application for visually impaired :eyeglasses: computer users, as well as accurate
graphical design or detail work. One of the reasons we ship Compiz in Ubuntu
MATE is because it has an excellent screen magnifier and was our solution for
people who need magnification :mag:</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/magnus.png" alt="Magnus for zooming into the screen" /></p>
<p>Martin and <a href="https://twitter.com/sil">Stuart Langridge</a> collaborated
to create <a href="https://kryogenix.org/code/magnus/">Magnus</a>; <strong>a very simple
desktop magnifier</strong>, showing the area around the mouse pointer in a separate
window magnified two, three, four, or five times. Magnus is now shipped :ship:
by default in Ubuntu MATE 20.04.</p>
<h2 id="ubuntu-mate-themes">Ubuntu MATE Themes</h2>
<p>Dozens of theme-related bugs have been fixed. The Ubuntu MATE themes have
been added to the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">gtk-common-themes</code> used by snaps, <strong>so snapped applications
are now themed correctly for Ubuntu MATE users</strong>. This change is already
available all the way back to Ubuntu MATE 16.04.</p>
<p>The most noticeable resolved theme issues are <strong>sensibly sized expanders in tree
view</strong> (they were so tiny) that are easily clickable,
<strong>window controls are correctly proportioned on CSD windows</strong> and we’ve add a
splash of Chelsea Cucumber :bug: to the Ubuntu MATE logo on the menu. Everything
the QA team highlighted has been fixed :hammer:</p>
<h2 id="mate-tweak-and-ubuntu-mate-welcome">MATE Tweak and Ubuntu MATE Welcome</h2>
<p>MATE Tweak now <strong>preserves user preferences when switching between custom
layouts</strong> thanks to a community contribution.</p>
<p>If you’re familiar with MATE Tweak, you’ll know it can switch panel layouts
to somewhat mimic other platforms and distros 🐧 We have now integrated a
graphical layout switcher in Ubuntu MATE Welcome to better promote the feature
and make it more accessible. We have actually had this feature since 18.04, but
the bugs in MATE Panel I mentioned earlier meant it didn’t work. With all the
associated panel bugs fixed :wrench: we now have this:</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/desktop-layout.png" alt="Desktop Layout Switcher" /></p>
<h2 id="nvidia-drivers">NVIDIA drivers</h2>
<p>If you’ve been following the news surrounding Ubuntu you’ll know that
Ubuntu will be shipping :ship: the NVIDIA proprietary drivers on the ISO images.
Anyone selecting the additional 3rd party hardware drivers during installation
without an Internet connection will have the drivers available in offline
scenarios.</p>
<p>Post-install, Ubuntu MATE users with computers that support hybrid graphics
will see the MATE Optimus hybrid graphics applet displaying the NVIDIA logo.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/mate-optimus-19.10.1.png" alt="MATE Optimus" /></p>
<p>We have given MATE Optimus an update. MATE Optimus adds support for NVIDIA On-Demand
and will now prompt users to log out when switching the GPU’s profile. MATE, XFCE, Budgie,
Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE and LXQt are all supported. Wrappers, called <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">offload-glx</code>
& <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">offload-vulkan</code>, can be used to easily offload games/apps to the PRIME
renderer. <strong>I’m also delighted to see Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 are shipping MATE
Optimus too!</strong></p>
<p>The <strong>NVIDIA drivers are now going to receive updates via the official
Ubuntu software repository</strong>. So no need to add a PPA to get updates and more
importantly, <strong>the NVIDIA drivers are signed (which is not supported for
drivers distributed via PPA) so you can keep Secure Boot enabled.</strong></p>
<h3 id="remote-desktop-awareness">Remote Desktop Awareness</h3>
<p>Our MATE Desktop 1.24 packages ship support for
<a href="https://github.com/ArcticaProject/librda">Remote Desktop Awareness (RDA)</a>. RDA
makes MATE Desktop more aware of its execution context, so it behaves
differently when run inside a remote desktop session compared to when running
on local hardware. Different remote technology solutions support different
features and they can now be queried from within MATE components. The inclusion
of RDA offers the option to suspend your remote connection, supports folder
sharing in Caja and MIME type bindings for SSHFS shares, and allows session suspension
via the MATE screensaver.</p>
<h2 id="zfs-on-root">ZFS on root</h2>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/zol-logo.png" alt="ZFS on Linux" /></p>
<p>Support for ZFS as the root filesystem is added as an experimental feature in 20.04.
The ZFS file system and partitioning layout is handled automatically directly via the
installer. <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">zsys</code> was added in 20.04 which now takes system snapshots before significant
installs or upgrades and inserts restore options into the GRUB bootloader menus should you
need to recover.</p>
<p>You can read more details on Didier Roche’s blogs:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://didrocks.fr/2019/08/06/ubuntu-zfs-support-in-19.10-introduction/">Part 1 - Ubuntu ZFS support in 19.10: introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="https://didrocks.fr/2019/10/11/ubuntu-zfs-support-in-19.10-zfs-on-root/">Part 2 - Ubuntu ZFS support in 19.10: ZFS on root</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.24.0</strong> and <strong>Linux 5.4</strong> are <strong>Firefox 75.0</strong>,
<strong>Celluloid 0.18</strong>, <strong>LibreOffice 6.4.2.2</strong> and <strong>Evolution 3.36.1</strong>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/focal/versions.png" alt="Major Applications" /></p>
<p>See the <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FocalFossa/ReleaseNotes">Ubuntu 20.04 Release
Notes</a> for details of all
the changes and improvements in Ubuntu that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE Today</h2>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-1804-lts-or-1910">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS or 19.10</h2>
<p>You can upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS from either Ubuntu MATE 18.04 LTS or Ubuntu
19.10. Ensure that you have all updates installed for your current version of
Ubuntu MATE before you upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” drop down menu to “For long-term support versions” if you are using 18.04 LTS; set it to “For any new version” if you are using 19.10.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c -d</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘20.04’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<p>There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu MATE. Please ensure you have
network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible
mirror and follow the instructions above.</p>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<h3 id="ubuntu-mate">Ubuntu MATE</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/1745345">Xorg crashes to Login prompt in VirtualMachines</a>
<ul>
<li>When <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">gstreamer-vaapi</code> is installed it will cause Xorg to crash and bring the user back to the login prompt when running certain applications.</li>
<li>See <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/workaround-for-xorg-crashes-to-login-prompt-in-virtualmachines-20-04/21368/2">Workaround for Xorg crashes to Login prompt in VirtualMachines 20.04</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="ubuntu-family-issues">Ubuntu family issues</h3>
<p>This is our known list of bugs that affects all flavours.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pad.lv/1713720">Ubiquity slide shows are missing for OEM installs of Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Budgie</a>
<ul>
<li>To work around this, run <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">apt install oem-config-slideshow-ubuntu-mate</code> in the OEM prepare session.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>You’ll also want to check the Ubuntu MATE bug tracker to see what has already
been reported. These issues will be addressed in due course.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate">Ubuntu MATE Bug Tracker</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin Wimpress & franksmcbUbuntu MATE 20.04 LTS represents 2 years :sweat_drops: of continued improvement to MATE Desktop and Ubuntu MATE itself. For Ubuntu MATE 19.10 we focused on addressing as many “paper-cut” issues as possible. That was a hugely successful :tada: initiative, the community feedback was overwhelmingly positive :chart_with_upwards_trend: and that is reflected in adoption; the Ubuntu MATE 19.10 interim release is our most actively used interim release to date! :champagne: This was only possible thanks to dedicated group of QA testers joining the Ubuntu MATE team and coordinating with developers to highlight :flashlight: where attention was needed.Ubuntu MATE 19.10 Release Notes2019-10-18T00:00:00+00:002020-12-11T19:46:20+00:00https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-eoan<p><strong>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 <em>“paper-cut”</em> 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. Make yourself a cup of tea ☕ and get a slice of cake 🍰 before reading
on to find out what we’ve been working on for the last 25 weeks.</strong></p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/eoan-ermine-desktop.png" alt="Ubuntu MATE 19.10 Beta" />
<strong><em>Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger</em></strong></p>
<h1 id="ubuntu-mate-1910---paper--cut-️-release">Ubuntu MATE 19.10 - paper 🧻 cut ️🔪 release</h1>
<p>I have not been completely happy 😞 with the quality of recent Ubuntu MATE
releases. All the important stuff works but there have been niggly issues
that by themselves are not deal breakers, but in aggregate are frustrating 😠
and spoil the experience. I’ve been focused on resolving these issues during
the 19.10 development cycle and you’ll see that every new feature in Ubuntu
MATE 19.10 addresses one of these paper-cuts. We’ve achieved this by expanding
our QA team significantly and Ubuntu MATE 19.10 has been subject to weekly
testing throughout this cycle. I can’t thank our QA team enough for
highlighting the issues that need attention.</p>
<p>Most of <strong>the paper-cut effort has been focused around the window manager,
the panel and the indicators</strong> as these are the main touching points of the
desktop environment that users interact with.</p>
<h2 id="mate-desktop-1222">MATE Desktop 1.22.2</h2>
<p>Upstream <a href="https://mate-desktop.org">MATE Desktop</a> recently released 1.22.2.
All the updates are present in Ubuntu MATE 19.10 plus I’ve cherry 🍒 picked a
good deal of fixes from MATE Desktop development snapshots. In total, 67
additional patches have been applied to the MATE Desktop packages in Ubuntu
MATE 19.10 to finesse this release prior to launch day 🚀 Included in those
patches are fixes for <strong>locking the screen on resume from suspend</strong>, adding
a <strong>Media Information extension to the file manager</strong>, <strong>performance
improvements for the window manager</strong> and <strong>cycling external displays using</strong>
<kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>p</kbd>. All this work has also been submitted
to <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Since the final beta we worked on the following</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Added <em>experimental</em> ZFS 🗄 install option.</li>
<li>Fixed rendering window controls on HiDPI 🔍 displays.</li>
<li>Fixed irregular icon sizes 📏 in MATE Control Center and made them render nicely on HiDPI displays.</li>
<li>Fixed Caja 📂 extensions not loading.</li>
<li>Fixed <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-power-manager</code> 🔌 so it uses upower-glib <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">get_devices2()</code>.</li>
<li>Fixed Pluma 🗒 plugins not loading.</li>
<li>Fixed a crasher 💣 in MATE Dock Applet due to an Attribute error in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">adjust_minimise_pos()</code>.</li>
<li>Fixed a <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">gnome-keyring</code> timeout ⏱ in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mate-session-manager</code>.</li>
<li>Fixed Codec 🎞 updates in Software Boutique.</li>
<li>Updated Advanced MATE Menu ⚙ to use the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">start-here</code> icon, so all menus are consistent.</li>
<li>Updated the Ubuntu MATE Guide ❓</li>
<li>Updated the Ubiquity Slideshow 🎭</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="window-manager-improvements">Window Manager improvements</h3>
<p>Marco is the Window Manager for MATE Desktop and in Ubuntu MATE 19.10
it brings a number of new features and fixes.</p>
<p><strong>XPresent support is properly fixed</strong> which means that <strong>screen tearing is now
a thing of the past</strong> and <strong>invisible window corners are finally here!</strong> Invisible
window corners mean that windows can be easily resized 📏 without having to
precisely grab the window corners. <strong>HiDPI rendering improvements</strong> fix a number
of rendering problems that were present in various themes and components,
<strong>most notably windows controls are now HIDPI aware</strong>.</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th><strong>Before</strong> 😢</th>
<th><strong>After</strong> 😀</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="/images/blog/eoan/lo-windows-controls-clip.png" alt="Before" /></td>
<td><img src="/images/blog/eoan/hi-windows-controls-clip.png" alt="After" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Alt+Tab navigation</strong> makes it possible to
traverse the application switcher via keyboard and mouse. We’ve also <strong>cleaned
up the window controls</strong> by removing the menu button. The menu is still
available either by right clicking the window title bar or pressing
<kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Space</kbd>.</p>
<h3 id="compiz--compton">Compiz & Compton</h3>
<p>The main reason we’ve been shipping shipping Compton and Compiz in Ubuntu MATE
was to offer a solution to screen tearing or improve game performance. Compiz
has invisible window borders and also has a great screen magnifier suitable
for visually impaired users. However, now that…</p>
<ul>
<li>Magnus (see below) provides screen magnification</li>
<li>Marco supports invisible windows borders</li>
<li>Marco has improved Alt+Tab behaviour</li>
<li>Marco is free from screen tearing</li>
<li>Marco frame performance when gaming is further improved</li>
<li>Using Compton and Compiz with MATE Desktop introduces other bugs and integration issues</li>
</ul>
<p>…it is <strong>time to remove Compiz and Compton from the default Ubuntu MATE
install</strong>. The fundamental reasons for including them no longer exist.</p>
<p>If you love 😍 Compiz, it can be installed by opening a terminal and running
the following command:</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>sudo apt install compiz compiz-core compiz-mate compiz-plugins compiz-plugins-default
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>Only having one window manager to target means we can promptly deliver new
features and minimise development effort. Which brings us to…</p>
<h3 id="new-key-bindings">New Key-bindings</h3>
<p>The key-bindings for window tiling have only worked on full keyboards ⌨️ with a
10-key pad. Few laptops 💻 have a 10-key pad and not all keyboards have a
10-key either. There are some well known key-bindings from other platforms that
were not recognised in Ubuntu MATE. So, we’ve had a think 🤔 and come up with this:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Maximise Window:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Up</kbd></li>
<li><b>Restore Window:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Down</kbd></li>
<li><b>Title Window right:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Right</kbd></li>
<li><b>Title Window left:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Left</kbd></li>
<li><b>Center Window:</b> <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>c</kbd></li>
<li><b>Title Window to upper right corner:</b> <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Right</kbd></li>
<li><b>Title Window to upper left corner:</b> <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Left</kbd></li>
<li><b>Title Window to lower right corner:</b> <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Right</kbd></li>
<li><b>Title Window to lower left Corner:</b> <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Left</kbd></li>
<li><b>Shade Window:</b> <kbd>Control</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>s</kbd></li>
</ul>
<p>I’m happy 😀 with these key-bindings as it is now possible to tile a window to
all screen quadrants 📐 using any keyboard form factor.</p>
<p>We updated the application launcher key-bindings, some of these have existed
in Ubuntu MATE for a while:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Cycle external displays:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>p</kbd></li>
<li><b>Lock Screen:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>L</kbd></li>
<li><b>Screenshot a rectangle:</b> <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>PrintScr</kbd></li>
<li><b>Open File Manager:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>e</kbd></li>
<li><b>Open Terminal:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>t</kbd></li>
<li><b>Open Control Center:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>i</kbd></li>
<li><b>Open Search:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>s</kbd></li>
<li><b>Open Task Manager:</b> <kbd>Control</kbd> + <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Escape</kbd></li>
<li><b>Open System Information:</b> <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Pause</kbd></li>
</ul>
<p>The key-bindings compliment existing well established alternatives. So if
<kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>t</kbd> (Terminal) and
<kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>L</kbd> (Lock Screen) are ingrained in
your muscle 💪 memory 🧠 they are still available too. You can find all the
keyboard shortcuts documented in the <strong>Getting Started section of Ubuntu MATE
Welcome</strong>.</p>
<h2 id="panel--indicator-improvements">Panel & Indicator improvements</h2>
<p>This is where a good deal of effort has been invested. Let’s break it down.</p>
<h3 id="brisk-menu-and-mate-dock-applet">Brisk Menu and MATE Dock Applet</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/getsolus/brisk-menu">Brisk Menu</a> is under the Solus GitHub
organisation, but it’s been a couple of years since it had a new release. The
Solus Project gave me administrative access 🔱 to the Brisk Menu repo and I’ve
made a new release. Thanks to the efforts of a couple of Ubuntu MATE
contributors several bug 🐞 fixes have landed too, which includes <strong>resolving
frequent crashers in Brisk Menu, preventing a scrollbar always appearing
in the category column</strong> of the menu and <strong>silencing sounds firing as you
rollover menu entries</strong>.</p>
<p>The previous maintainer of <a href="https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/mate-dock-applet">MATE Dock Applet</a>
announced that he no longer had the time ⌛️ to develop the project. Ubuntu
MATE has taken on ownership and we’ve already published a couple of new
releases 🤘 which include fixes for frequent crashes.</p>
<h3 id="mate-panel">MATE Panel</h3>
<p>MATE Panel has had a long standing bug fixed that caused it to crash 💥 when
the panel was reset or replaced. This was most noticeable when switching panel
layouts via MATE Tweak and could result in the panel layout being left
incomplete or entirely absent. This bug is now fixed! MATE Tweak has been
updated to neatly integrate with with fixed MATE Panel behaviour so that <strong>layout
switching is now 100% reliable</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="indicators">Indicators</h3>
<p>A bug which resulted in <strong>oversized icons in indicators is finally resolved</strong>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/indicators-before.png" alt="Before" />
<strong>Before 😢</strong></p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/indicators-after.png" alt="After" />
<strong>After 😀</strong></p>
<p>However, it turned out some of the bugs were due to the icons 🎨 themselves.
Over 💯 icons have been refactored 🖌️️ to correct their resolutions or aspect
ratio; as a result the panel and indicators both scale correctly.</p>
<p>A race condition that could result in <strong>two network status icons being
displayed is fixed</strong>, and <strong>when connected via VPN, lock icons are now
overlayed on the Network Indicator</strong>. The battery 🔋 indicator is improved
and now has a larger <strong>charging symbol while charging</strong>.</p>
<p>We’ve <strong>added the Date/Time Indicator and integrated it with MATE Desktop
and it now replaces the MATE clock applet</strong> which corrects the placement of
the clock and session indicators.</p>
<p>We’ve finally addressed a long standing issue which has been around since
Ubuntu MATE 14.10 🕸️ Some of the monochrome symbolic icons used in the
indicators were also used in applications. The presented a couple of issues:</p>
<ul>
<li>In some cases you couldn’t easily see the icons against the window base colour.</li>
<li>The mix of monochrome and full colour icons in applications looked inconsistent.</li>
</ul>
<p>This issue is now resolved, <strong>monochrome symbolic icons are only used for
indicators and full colour icons are used in the Control Center, Sound
Preferences, Bluetooth, OSD, etc</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="mate-window-applets">MATE Window Applets</h3>
<p><a href="https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/mate-window-applets">MATE Window Applets</a>
have received a number a bug fixes and new features from a community
contributor. Window control icons now dynamically load from the currently
selected theme, rather than requiring manual user configuration, and
<strong>a number of bugs (including significant memory leaks) have also been
resolved</strong>.</p>
<h2 id="notification-center">Notification Center</h2>
<p>Ubuntu MATE 19.10 includes a <strong>new Indicator that provides a “notification
center”</strong> 🔔 We worked with the <a href="https://github.com/trism/indicator-notifications">upstream developer to add new features
to indicator-notifications</a>
and integrate it with MATE Notifications Daemon.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/notification-settings.png" alt="Notification Settings" /></p>
<p>We now have a <strong>notification center which also offers a “do not disturb” 🛑
feature</strong>. When do not disturb is enabled, notifications will not be displayed
but will be captured in the notification center for review. It’s also
<strong>possible to blacklist some notifications</strong>, so they are never stored by the
notification center. I’ve created an icon theme for the notification center so
it fits the look and feel of the default Ubuntu MATE theme. <strong>Notification hints
are also fixed</strong> so any notifications supplying additional media, such as
sounds or icons, now work.</p>
<p>Personally, I love ❤️ this feature! No more will I have awkward messages from
my Mum flash up while I’m presenting 😜</p>
<h2 id="evolution-replaces-thunderbird">Evolution replaces Thunderbird</h2>
<p>The Ubuntu MATE development team discussed the pros and cons of switching the
default mail ✉️ client in Ubuntu MATE to
<a href="https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evolution">Evolution</a>. Here is a summary of our
assessment:</p>
<ul>
<li>Thunderbird does not integrate as well with the desktop.
<ul>
<li>For example, theme integration, font integration, compatibility with HUD (which is increasingly difficult to support in Thunderbird), notifications with action buttons, locale and spell checking.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Thunderbird & Lightning occupies 171MB on the ISO image, while Evolution uses 46MB.</li>
<li>Evolution integrates well with MATE Desktop given that both use GTK3.</li>
<li><strong>Evolution includes interoperability with LibreOffice</strong>, for which Ubuntu MATE is already shipping the required components.</li>
<li>Evolution has superior <strong>integration with Google Mail and Exchange</strong>, including calendar, contacts, tasks, and memos.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Indicator Date/Time also integrates with Evolution</strong>. It is fully functional,
all the features of creating new events or opening upcoming events from the
indicator work. Clicking on a day in the month displays the events for the
selected day etc.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/indicator-datetime.png" alt="Indicator Date/Time" /></p>
<p>For the many people who use web-mail exclusively this change will have no
impact, but for those who use desktop mail we feel these productivity 📈
improvements are significant.</p>
<p>For those of you who love 💕 Thunderbird and wish to continue using it: we will
continue to offer Thunderbird in the Software Boutique for a one-click install.
Likewise, Evolution is now in the Software Boutique so can be installed/removed
with one-click too.</p>
<h2 id="gnome-mpv-replaces-vlc">GNOME MPV replaces VLC</h2>
<p>We have <strong>switched from VLC to GNOME MPV</strong>, soon be renamed to
<a href="https://celluloid-player.github.io/">Celluloid</a>, for the default media
player 🎬 The reasons for switching to GNOME MPV are similar to swapping out
Thunderbird for Evolution; <strong>better desktop integration</strong>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/gnome-mpv.jpg" alt="GNOME MPV" /></p>
<p>We’ve changed GNOME MPV’s default UI to better fit in with MATE Desktop by
not using client side decorations (CSD). GNOME MPV has an MPRIS implementation
that completely integrates with the Sound Indicator. GNOME MPV uses less space
on the ISO image compared to VLC and we’ll get on to why that is important
later.</p>
<p>GNOME MPV doesn’t offer the extensive array of preferences and options
to users that VLC does, and instead ships sane defaults; only surfacing
options where they make sense. GNOME MPV is a GTK3 application whereas VLC uses
Qt5. <strong>GNOME MPV looks right at home in Ubuntu MATE which uses GTK3 throughout</strong>.
While we’ve done our best to coerce VLC to take hints from the GTK theme, it
has never been perfect. Most importantly, <strong>GNOME MPV is an excellent media
player with the same broad media format support that VLC offers</strong>. Ubuntu MATE
20.04 will ship Celluloid 🎞️, the new name for GNOME MPV. VLC will remain in
the Software Boutique as a single click install for anyone who wants it.</p>
<h2 id="magnus">Magnus</h2>
<p>Most desktop environments are lacking a screen magnifier, which is an essential
application for visually impaired 👓 computer users and also useful for accurate
graphical design or detail work. One of the reasons we ship Compiz in Ubuntu
MATE is because it has an excellent screen magnifier and was our solution for
people who need magnification 🔍</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/magnus.png" alt="Magnus" /></p>
<p>I collaborated with my friend <a href="https://twitter.com/sil">Stuart Langridge</a>
to create <a href="https://kryogenix.org/code/magnus/">Magnus</a>; <strong>a very simple
desktop magnifier</strong>, showing the area around the mouse pointer in a separate
window magnified two, three, four, or five times. Magnus is now shipped 🚢
by default in Ubuntu MATE 19.10, Ubuntu Budgie 19.10 and other distros are
already picking up it too 💪</p>
<h2 id="ubuntu-mate-themes">Ubuntu MATE Themes</h2>
<p>Dozens of theme related bugs have been fixed and the Ubuntu MATE themes have
been added to the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">gtk-common-themes</code> used by snaps, <strong>so snapped applications
are themed correctly for Ubuntu MATE users now</strong>. This change is already
available all the way back to Ubuntu MATE 16.04.</p>
<p>The most noticeable theme issues that have been resolved are <strong>expanders in tree
view are now a sensible size</strong> (they were so tiny) so you can easily click them,
<strong>window controls are correctly proportioned on CSD windows</strong> and we’ve add a
splash of Chelsea Cucumber 🥒 to the Ubuntu MATE logo on the menu. Everything
the QA team highlighted has been fixed 🔨</p>
<h2 id="mate-tweak-and-ubuntu-mate-welcome">MATE Tweak and Ubuntu MATE Welcome</h2>
<p>MATE Tweak now <strong>preserves user preferences when switching between custom
layouts</strong> thanks to a community contribution.</p>
<p>If you’re familiar with MATE Tweak you’ll know it can switch panel layouts
to somewhat mimic other platforms and distros 🐧 We have now integrated a
graphical layout switcher in Ubuntu MATE Welcome to better promote the feature
and make it more accessible. We have actually had this feature since 18.04 but
the bugs in MATE Panel I mentioned earlier meant it didn’t work. With all the
associated panel bugs fixed 🔧 we now have this:</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/desktop-layout.png" alt="Desktop Layout Switcher" /></p>
<h2 id="nvidia-drivers">NVIDIA drivers</h2>
<p>If you’ve been following the news surrounding Ubuntu you’ll know that
Ubuntu will be shipping 🚢 the NVIDIA proprietary drivers on the ISO images.
Anyone selecting the additional 3rd party hardware drivers during installation
without an Internet connection will have the drivers available in offline
scenarios.</p>
<p>This comes at the cost of increasing the ISO size by ~115MB, but I think this
trade-off is worth it. The drivers are not active by default, just present in
the apt repository provided on the ISO image to facilitate installation should
they be requested. But, if your computer has an NVIDIA GPU, you can now have
the drivers installed and operational immediately following install 🌟</p>
<p>Post-install, Ubuntu MATE users with computers that support hybrid graphics
will see the MATE Optimus hybrid graphics applet displaying the NVIDIA logo.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/mate-optimus-19.10.1.png" alt="MATE Optimus" /></p>
<p>Now the NVIDIA 435 drivers are in Ubuntu 19.10, I have given MATE Optimus an
update. MATE Optimus adds support for NVIDIA On-Demand and will now prompt
users to log out when switching the GPU’s profile. MATE, XFCE, Budgie,
Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE and LXQt are all supported. Wrappers, called <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">offload-glx</code>
& <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">offload-vulkan</code> can be used to easily offload games/apps to the PRIME
renderer. <strong>I’m also delighted to see Ubuntu Budgie 19.10 are shipping MATE
Optimus too!</strong></p>
<p>The <strong>NVIDIA drivers are now going to receive updates via the official
Ubuntu software repository</strong>. So no need to add a PPA to get updates and more
importantly, <strong>the NVIDIA drivers are signed (which is not supported for
drivers distributed via PPA) so you can keep Secure Boot enabled.</strong></p>
<h2 id="iso-optimisations">ISO optimisations</h2>
<p>In order to squeeze those ~115MB of NVIDIA drivers on the ISO while keeping
the ISO at ~2.0GB required some optimisation. Certainly switching to Evolution
helped a bit. We’ve also <strong>dropped Brasero from the default installed
applications</strong> because optical media burning is not a widespread use case
these days. Brasero is still in Software Boutique should you need it.</p>
<p>The main gains came from <strong>analysing the data we have about our user distribution
across countries</strong> and changing what language packs we make available on the ISO.
We get the data from <a href="https://snapcraft.io/ubuntu-mate-welcome">snap metrics</a>
and the <a href="https://ubuntu.com/desktop/statistics">Ubuntu Report</a>.</p>
<p>We dropped Chinese, Japanese and Indic language packs from the ISO and added
Russian. This dropped the ISO size considerably and the savings gained were
just about equivalent to what the NVIDIA drivers require.</p>
<p>We are <strong>currently shipping English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French,
Italian and Russian language packs on the iso</strong>, with each language including
all regional dialect variations. Anyone in other parts of the world will get
the language packs providing they have an Internet connection during the
install.</p>
<p>Other gains were made by:</p>
<ul>
<li>Changing to format of the weather station database which saved 15MB 😱</li>
<li>Removing Qt4 components. <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/Qt4Removal">Qt4 is being removed from Debian and Ubuntu</a>.</li>
<li>Removing <a href="https://fcitx-im.org/wiki/Fcitx">fcitx</a> from the Live environment.</li>
<li>Removing obsolete software from the ship-live seed.</li>
<li>Removed <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">usb-creator-gtk</code> from the default install. GNOME Disks provides image writing capabilities.</li>
<li>Reducing the size of Ubuntu MATE Welcome and Software Boutique snaps.</li>
<li>Using image optimisation tools on every graphic asset in the default themes, icon themes and wallpaper back-catalog.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Had we not optimised the ISO image it would have been 2.5GB, but instead
it remains just a hair over 2.0GB while now hosting the NVIDIA drivers and 7
language packs</strong>. So, while the Ubuntu MATE ISO image is larger than some,
a good chunk of that size is hosting drivers and language packs that will
probably never end up getting installed on your computer. The language
packs and drivers are there to best service our diverse community of users
from across the world 🗺️ running a variety of hardware 💻</p>
<h2 id="zfs-on-root">ZFS on root</h2>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/zol-logo.png" alt="ZFS on Linux" /></p>
<p>Support for ZFS as the root filesystem is added as an experimental feature in 19.10.
The ZFS file system and partitioning layout is handled automatically directly via the
installer.</p>
<p>You can read more details on Didier Roche’s blogs:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://didrocks.fr/2019/08/06/ubuntu-zfs-support-in-19.10-introduction/">Part 1 - Ubuntu ZFS support in 19.10: introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="https://didrocks.fr/2019/10/11/ubuntu-zfs-support-in-19.10-zfs-on-root/">Part 2 - Ubuntu ZFS support in 19.10: ZFS on root</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="gpd-micropc--other-umpcs">GPD MicroPC & other UMPCs</h2>
<p>Alongside the generic image for 64-bit Intel PCs, we’re also releasing a
bespoke image for the <a href="https://www.gpd.hk/gpdmicropc">GPD MicroPC</a> which
includes hardware specific tweaks to get this device working <em>“out of the box”</em>
without any faffing about. <a href="/ports/umpcs/">See our UMPC page for more details</a>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/zol-logo.png" alt="ZFS on Linux" /></p>
<p class="center">
<iframe class="youtube-embed" width="600" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_-zm17qlLU4?html5=1&rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</p>
<h2 id="major-applications">Major Applications</h2>
<p>Accompanying <strong>MATE Desktop 1.22.2</strong> and <strong>Linux 5.3.0</strong> are <strong>Firefox 69.0.1</strong>,
<strong>GNOME MPV 0.16</strong>, <strong>LibreOffice 6.3.1.2</strong> and <strong>Evolution 3.34.0</strong>.</p>
<p class="center"><img src="/images/blog/eoan/versions.png" alt="Major Applications" /></p>
<p>See the <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EoanErmine/ReleaseNotes">Ubuntu 19.10 Release
Notes</a> for details of all
the changes and improvements in Ubuntu that Ubuntu MATE benefits from.</p>
<div class="jumbotron">
<h2>Download Ubuntu MATE Today</h2>
<a href="/download/" class="btn">Download</a>
</div>
<h2 id="upgrading-from-ubuntu-mate-1904">Upgrading from Ubuntu MATE 19.04</h2>
<ul>
<li>Open the “Software & Updates” from the Control Center.</li>
<li>Select the 3rd Tab called “Updates”.</li>
<li>Set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” dropdown menu to “For any new version”.</li>
<li>Press <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>F2</kbd> and type in <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">update-manager -c</code> into the command box.</li>
<li>Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ‘19.10’ is available.
<ul>
<li>If not, you can use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release-gtk</code></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Click “Upgrade” and follow the on-screen instructions.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="known-issues">Known Issues</h2>
<p>Here are the known issues.</p>
<h3 id="ubuntu-mate">Ubuntu MATE</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/caja-dropbox/+bug/1845876">Caja dropbox does not start</a>.
<ul>
<li>The <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">libdropbox_apex.so</code> shared object, as distributed by Dropbox, has the wrong file permissions.</li>
<li>See <a href="https://askubuntu.com/questions/1177519/how-to-fix-libdropbox-apex-so-problem-with-latest-dropbox">How to fix <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">libdropbox_apex.so</code> problem with latest Dropbox?</a>.</li>
<li>The workaround is to open a terminal and run the following command:</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>sudo chmod a+rx /var/lib/dropbox/.dropbox-dist/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-*/libdropbox_apex.so
</code></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="ubuntu-family-issues">Ubuntu family issues</h3>
<p>This is our known list of bugs that affects all flavours.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pad.lv/1713720">Ubiquity slide shows are missing for OEM installs of Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Budgie</a>
<ul>
<li>To work around this, run <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">apt install oem-config-slideshow-ubuntu-mate</code> in the OEM prepare session.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>You’ll also want to check the Ubuntu MATE bug tracker to see what has already
been reported. These issues will be addressed in due course.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate">Ubuntu MATE Bug Tracker</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="feedback">Feedback</h2>
<p>Is there anything you can help with or want to be involved in? Maybe you just
want to discuss your experiences or ask the maintainers some questions. Please
<a href="https://ubuntu-mate.community/">come and talk to us</a>.</p>Martin WimpressUbuntu 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. Make yourself a cup of tea ☕ and get a slice of cake 🍰 before reading on to find out what we’ve been working on for the last 25 weeks.