How to Update Desktop MATE 1.26 on Ubuntu 21.04

Ubuntu MATE is a flashback version of Ubuntu that allows you to continue using Ubuntu almost entirely the way it worked more than a decade ago.

But no matter how things look, updates continue to roll out to the MATE desktop environment, which shares the same name as Ubuntu MATE.

The latest version is MATE 1.26. This is how you can update the MATE desktop in Ubuntu 21.04 to the latest version.

How to get MATE 1.26 on Ubuntu

The latest version of one of the lightest desktop environments for Linux is not officially available for Ubuntu MATE 21.04. If you want the official update, you need to upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 21.10.

If you need to stick with Ubuntu MATE 21.04 for the moment, or are using another Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, you're out of luck. Instead, you'll need to add a Personal Package Archive, also known as a PPA, to install MATE 1.26.

You may have trouble copying and pasting PPA commands if you are unsure of the source. The following commands install MATE 1.26 from a repository directly from the Ubuntu MATE developers. You can go to Launchpad and see for yourself.

Install PPA MATE 1.26

To add a repository, type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mate-dev/fresh-mate

Then you have to download the updated packages. You can do this with:

sudo apt upgrade

Ubuntu MATE users need to login or restart their computer. When the desktop loads, you will automatically be logged into the new MATE 1.26 environment.

How to Update Desktop MATE 1.26 on Ubuntu 21.04 Picture 1 How to Update Desktop MATE 1.26 on Ubuntu 21.04 Picture 1

If you are running Ubuntu MATE 20.04, the current LTS release, these same commands will still move your desktop to MATE 1.26.

For those who don't have the MATE desktop yet, you can run the command below to install it. This is useful when you want to install MATE 1.26 on other Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, for example.

sudo apt install mate-desktop

What's New in MATE 1.26?

After rolling back, you won't notice any dramatic changes. That's not what MATE wants to do. But this release offers back-end modernization and performance improvements, such as working to run most of the MATE desktop on the Wayland compositor.

There are some new features, such as the Caja file manager that can now format drives from the context menu, and the Engrampa archive manager supported for additional formats like EPUB and RAR.