14 DAY TRIAL // As part of today's Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Beta 1 release for opt-in flavors, we're now announcing the release and immediate availability for download of the first Beta build of Lubuntu 16.04 LTS.
Lubuntu 16.04 LTS will launch this spring, on April 21, 2016, along with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and the rest of the official flavors, based, of course, on the lightweight LXDE desktop environment.
Back when we reported on Lubuntu being ported to Raspberry Pi 2 with LXQt, Jörn Schönyan of Lubuntu said to us, "No, we won't switch to LXQt - we want a new LTS with LXDE on our back and will likely switch with 16.10."
Therefore, being an LTS (Long Term Support) release and all that, Lubuntu 16.04 LTS will ship with the LXDE desktop environment, but you'll be able to install LXQt yourself from the official software repositories.
As expected, the first Beta build of Lubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) is powered by Linux kernel 4.4.2 LTS, and there's also support for the PowerPC (PPC) hardware architecture.
If you want to test Lubuntu 16.04 LTS Beta 1, you can download the Live ISO images for 64-bit, 32-bit or PPC machines right now from Softpedia, but please try to keep in mind that Beta builds may contain bugs, so they're not suitable for production use.