14 DAY TRIAL // Believe it or not, the development cycle of the next Ubuntu release has started, and a first Alpha build is officially released today, June 30, 2016, as expected based on the release schedule for Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak).
As some of you might very well be aware, the two Alpha release and the first Beta in the development cycle of a new Ubuntu Linux version are only for the opt-in flavors. Unfortunately, as we reported the other day, only three Ubuntu flavors are participating in the Ubuntu 16.10 Alpha 1 release, namely Ubuntu MATE, Lubuntu, and Ubuntu Kylin.
We've been monitoring the development of Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) since the first daily builds were made available for download. Until today, we can report that no major changes have been made to the operating system, which ships pretty much with the same core components and applications as Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus).
Therefore, Ubuntu 16.10 Alpha 1 ships today with Linux kernel 4.4 LTS, systemd 230, and the latest Unity 7 user interface. However, please check our in-depth articles to see what's new in the Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Alpha 1, Ubuntu Kylin 16.10 Alpha 1, and Lubuntu 16.10 Alpha 1. The final release will be based on Linux kernel 4.8.
"While these Alpha 1 images have been tested and work, except as noted in the release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the Yakkety Yak. In particular, once newer daily images are available, system installation bugs identified in the Alpha 1 installer should be verified against the current daily image before being reported in Launchpad," said Martin Wimpress in today's announcement.
Ubuntu 16.10 release date changed to October 13, 2016
The development cycle of the Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system continues with a second Alpha build for opt-in flavors, which, by the looks of it, will be the same ones that participated in today's Alpha release, on July 28, and a first Beta version on August 25, also for opt-in flavors, but probably more than three.
The Ubuntu 16.10 Final Beta will land on September 22, when the Ubuntu Desktop and Server images will be available for public beta testing, along with all the opt-in flavors. The final release of the Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) operating system will see the light of day on October 13, 2016, not October 20 as initially planned.
Until then, you can now download the Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Alpha 1, Ubuntu Kylin 16.10 Alpha 1, and Lubuntu 16.10 Alpha 1 ISO images for 64-bit and 32-bit hardware architectures right now via our website. Please keep in mind that these are very early pre-releases, not suitable for daily use as they contain many unresolved bugs.