14 DAY TRIAL // Now that Ubuntu MATE 14.10 has been released, its developers are looking to the future and planning to build an Ubuntu 14.04 LTS version.
The previous statement might seem a little bit odd. Developers usually go forward, never backwards, but this is a special occasion. The first Ubuntu MATE Remix made available was an Alpha version based on Ubuntu 14.10, which means that the devs were a little late to the LTS party.
Ubuntu MATE registered great success in the Linux community, but it's easy to understand why users were sorry to have missed the LTS window, which only opens every couple of years. In order to get an LTS version for this distro, people would have had to wait until 2016, which is a long time. This is why the devs thought about also building an LTS right after the 14.10 launch.
Ubuntu MATE 14.04 LTS is in the works
One of the Ubuntu MATE developers, Alan Pope, has revealed on his Google+ account the fact that they are working on an LTS version. There is little to no information about the new version, with a few exceptions. We can tell you that a number of features from the Ubuntu 14.10 branch are backported to the 14.04 build, and that they have advanced quite a bit.
"Actually 14.04 is quite an evolution on 14.10 an I think this 14.04 release is going to be what 14.10 should have been. Lots of new features and lots of fixes. In 14.04 version there is indicator support, so you can have indicators in there now, and we pulled all the latest MATE packages from Debian Jessie," says Martin Wimpress, one of the devs from the Ubuntu MATE project, on the latest LINUX Unplugged 65 show.
Having an LTS version out there is very important because its users will also get much better support. Alan Pope mentions that people will be able to use it until 2019, which means that it will have the same kind of support as the Ubuntu base. For now, there is nothing to test, but it's very likely that we'll get something very soon.
This type of decision, to provide an LTS release after the development window has been closed, is something new, but we have to keep in mind that Ubuntu MATE is not officially yet a part of the Ubuntu family.
Users can download Ubuntu MATE 14.10 right now from Softpedia and give it a spin.