14 DAY TRIAL // With a one-day delay, the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Alpha 2 operating system launches today, January 29, 2016, for several opt-in flavors, including Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Cloud, and Lubuntu.
The announcement was made a few hours ago by Walter Lapchynski of Canonical, where he informs those who want to jump ship to the development builds of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS that they can now download Live ISO images for the Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS Alpha 2, Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS Alpha 2, Lubuntu 16.04 LTS Alpha 2, and Ubuntu Cloud 16.04 LTS Alpha 2 distributions.
"The second alpha of the Xenial Xerus (to become 16.04) has now been released! This alpha features images for Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Kylin and the Ubuntu Cloud images," said Walter Lapchynski in the announcement. "Pre-releases of the Xenial Xerus are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage."
Next stop, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Beta 1
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Alpha 2 is the second milestone in the evolution of the upcoming operating system, due for release on April 21, 2016, and its development cycle will continue with the first Beta build, also for opt-in flavors, on February 25. The Beta freeze for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) will happen in the same week, on Monday, February 22, 2016.
The second and final Beta build, where Ubuntu itself will participate, is currently scheduled for release on March 24. Until then, you can download Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS Alpha 2, Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS Alpha 2, and Lubuntu 16.04 LTS Alpha 2 right now through our website and start testing it.
Don't forget to report bugs if you find any, and please try to keep in mind that these are pre-release versions of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), which means that you shoudn't install them on any of your production-ready systems.