Ubuntu MATE 18.10 Beta

Ubuntu MATE 18.10 is a modest, yet strategic, upgrade over our 18.04 release. If you want bug fixes and improved hardware support then 18.10 is for you. For those who prefer staying on the LTS then everything in this 18.10 release is also important for the upcoming 18.04.2 release. Read on to learn more…

We are preparing Ubuntu MATE 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) for distribution on October 18th, 2018 With this Beta pre-release, you can see what we are trying out in preparation for our next (stable) version.

Superposition on the Intel Core i7-8809G Radeon RX Vega M powered Hades Canyon NUC

What works?

People tell us that Ubuntu MATE is stable. You may, or may not, agree.

Ubuntu MATE Beta Releases are NOT recommended for:

• Regular users who are not aware of pre-release issues
• Anyone who needs a stable system
• Anyone uncomfortable running a possibly frequently broken system
• Anyone in a production environment with data or workflows that need to be reliable

Ubuntu MATE Beta Releases are recommended for:

• Regular users who want to help us test by finding, reporting, and/or fixing bugs
• Ubuntu MATE, MATE, and GTK+ developers

What changed since the Ubuntu MATE 18.04 final release?

Curiously, the work during this Ubuntu MATE 18.10 release has really been focused on what will become Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2. Let me explain.

MATE Desktop

The upstream MATE Desktop team have been working on many bug fixes for MATE Desktop 1.20.x, that has resulted in a lot of maintenance updates in the upstream releases of MATE Desktop. The Debian packaging team for MATE Desktop, of which I am member, has been updating all the MATE packages to track these upstream bug fixes and new releases. Just about all MATE Desktop packages and associated components, such as AppMenu and MATE Dock Applet have been updated. Now that all these fixes exist in the 18.10 release, we will start the process of SRU’ing (backporting) them to 18.04 so that they will feature in the Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2 release due in February 2019. The fixes should start landing in Ubuntu MATE 18.04 very soon, well before the February deadline.

Hardware Enablement

Ubuntu MATE 18.04.2 will include a hardware enablement stack (HWE) based on what is shipped in Ubuntu 18.10. Ubuntu users are increasingly adopting the current generation of AMD RX Vega GPUs, both discrete and integrated solutions such as the Intel Core i7-8809G Radeon RX Vega M found in the Hades Canyon NUC and some laptops. I have been lobbying people within the Ubuntu project to upgrade to newer versions of the Linux kernel, firmware, Mesa and Vulkan that offer the best possible “out of box” support for AMD GPUs. Consequently, Ubuntu 18.10 (of any flavour) is great for owners of AMD graphics solutions and these improvements will soon be available in Ubuntu 18.04.2 too.

Known Issues

Here are the known issues.

Ubuntu MATE

• The Software Boutique doesn’t list any available software.
  • An update, due very soon, will re-stock the software library and add a few new applications too.

Ubuntu family issues

This is our known list of bugs that affects all flavours.

• The ISO may not boot on VirtualBox.
  • This appears to impact Ubuntu (proper) more than Ubuntu MATE. It is an intermitent problem on Ubuntu MATE and simply resetting the VM may work on the next boot. If not, press a key when the initial boot prompt (Man and Keyboard) is displayed, then press F6 and select nomodeset and press ENTER to boot.
• The ISO boots fine and installation works as expected on On QEMU/Libvirt, but it sometimes fails to boot post-install.
  • This may be due to Plymouth crashing, investigations are underway.
• Ubiquity slide shows are missing for OEM installs of Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Budgie
  • To work around this, run apt install oem-config-slideshow-ubuntu-mate in the OEM prepare session.

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.

• Ubuntu MATE Bug Tracker

Feedback

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 come and talk to us.