14 DAY TRIAL // Ubuntu MATE project leader Martin Wimpress has announced today, October 6, 2016, that the latest MATE 1.16 desktop environment has landed in the stable repositories of the upcoming Ubuntu MATE 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system.
When we reported last week on the availability of the Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Beta 2 pre-release, we told you that it shipped with MATE 1.15.1 packages, which were the last development version for MATE 1.16. At that point in time, Martin Wimpress promised that the final release of Ubuntu MATE 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) would launch with the MATE 1.16 desktop environment by default.
And guess what? Today, those who chose to become early adopters can now enjoy the new MATE 1.16 desktop on their Ubuntu MATE 16.10 installation, and this also comes as excellent news for those who are using Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), as they will also get the MATE 1.16 packages shortly after today's announcement, according to Martin Wimpress.
"Yesterday MATE Desktop 1.16 landed in Debian Unstable and earlier this evening it landed in the official Ubuntu Yakkety archive. This means MATE Desktop 1.16 will definitely feature in the final release of Ubuntu MATE 16.10," says Martin Wimpress. "And, as an added bonus, I'm currently working on a build of MATE Desktop 1.16 for Xenial."
MATE 1.16 desktop in Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS mostly uses GTK2
While all the above comes as fantastic news for fans of the Ubuntu MATE operating system, the developer informs them that the upcoming MATE 1.16 packages for Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) are mostly using the older GTK+ 2 technologies, and not the new GTK+ 3 ones as they're used in the next week's Ubuntu MATE 16.10 release.
Of course, you can always upgrade your Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS installation to Ubuntu MATE 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) after its October 13 launch, if you want to use MATE 1.16 with GTK3. But if you're sticking with Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS on your PC, you should keep an eye on the repos because the xenial-mate PPA will be updated in the coming days.