The technical committee in charge of Ubuntu releases has announced their decision to exclude Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Unity from the upcoming 26.04 release, which will feature a long-term support cycle (LTS). Instead, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Kylin, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Ubuntu Cinnamon will be receiving LTS status. Kubuntu, although not mentioned, is likely to be part of the list.
Ubuntu Unity has been left without developers and was absent from the recent 25.10 release. On the other hand, Ubuntu MATE is still based on the MATE 1.26 branch established in 2021 and is facing unresolved issues due to a shortage of developers. Development of the MATE environment has been stagnant since last spring.
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