The second and final beta release of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is now available

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of Ubuntu
16.04 LTS Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.

Codenamed "Xenial Xerus", 16.04 LTS continues Ubuntu's proud tradition
of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a
high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at
work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

This beta release includes images from not only the Ubuntu Desktop,
Server, Cloud, and Core products, but also the Kubuntu, Lubuntu,
Mythbuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio,
and Xubuntu flavours.

The beta images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build
or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of 16.04
that should be representative of the features intended to ship with the
final release expected on April 21st, 2016.

There is, however, one bug in this beta serious enough that it's worth
calling it out in the release announcement. This bug affects all
flavours, and will be fixed before release:

1) In some cases, attempts to install to a hard drive that already
contains a swap partition may fail in the partitioning phase. If
you encounter this, the simplest workaround is to boot to the live
session, start a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T) and type "sudo swapoff -a".
You can then start the installation from the icon on the desktop
and it should proceed successfully.

Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu Core, Cloud Images:
Xenial Final Beta includes updated versions of most of our core set of
packages, including a current 4.4.6 kernel, and much more.

To upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 Final Beta from Ubuntu 15.10, follow these
instructions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XenialUpgrades

The Ubuntu 16.04 Final Beta images can be downloaded at:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04/ (Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server)

Additional images can be found at the following links:

http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/16.04/beta-2/ (Cloud Images)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/16.04/beta-2/ (Community Supported)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/releases/16.04/beta-2/ (Core)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/16.04/ (Netboot)

The full release notes for Ubuntu 16.04 Final Beta can be found at:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes

Kubuntu:
Kubuntu is the KDE based flavour of Ubuntu. It uses the Plasma desktop
and includes a wide selection of tools from the KDE project.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/16.04/beta-2/

More information on Kubuntu Final Beta can be found here:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/XenialXerus/Beta2/Kubuntu

Lubuntu:
Lubuntu is a flavor of Ubuntu that targets to be lighter, less
resource hungry and more energy-efficient by using lightweight
applications and LXDE, The Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment,
as its default GUI.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/16.04/beta-2/

More information on Lubuntu Final Beta can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/Beta2/Lubuntu

Mythbuntu:
Mythbuntu is an Ubuntu flavor focused on setting up a standalone
MythTV based Digital Video Recorder (DVR) system.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/16.04/beta-2/

Ubuntu GNOME:
Ubuntu GNOME is a flavor of Ubuntu featuring the GNOME desktop
environment.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/16.04/beta-2/

More information on Ubuntu GNOME Final Beta can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/Beta2/UbuntuGNOME

UbuntuKylin:
UbuntuKylin is a flavor of Ubuntu that is more suitable for Chinese
users.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/16.04/beta-2/

More information on UbuntuKylin Final Beta can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/Beta2/UbuntuKylin

Ubuntu MATE:
Ubuntu MATE is a flavor of Ubuntu featuring the MATE desktop
environment.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/16.04/beta-2/

More information on UbuntuMATE Final Beta can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/Beta2/UbuntuMATE

Ubuntu Studio:
Ubuntu Studio is a flavor of Ubuntu that provides a full range of
multimedia content creation applications for each key workflows:
audio, graphics, video, photography and publishing.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/16.04/beta-2/

More information about Ubuntu Studio Final Beta can be found here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes/Beta2/UbuntuStudio

Xubuntu:
Xubuntu is a flavor of Ubuntu that comes with Xfce, which is a stable,
light and configurable desktop environment.

The Final Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/16.04/beta-2/

More inormation about Xubuntu Final Beta can be found here:
https://xubuntu.org/news/xubuntu-16-04-lts-beta-2

Regular daily images for Ubuntu, and all flavours, can be found at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com

Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for clients, servers and
clouds, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A
tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and
an incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.

Professional technical support is available from Canonical Limited and
hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information
about support, visit http://www.ubuntu.com/support

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways
you can participate at: http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate

Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions really help us to
improve this and future releases of Ubuntu. Instructions can be
found at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

You can find out more about Ubuntu and about this beta release on our
website, IRC channel and wiki.

To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu's
very low volume announcement list at:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-announce

On behalf of the Ubuntu Release Team,

Adam Conrad

  Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Final Beta released