Ubuntu Mate 18.04???

[taylorkh]

Please pardon me if this is the wrong place to ask this question. I have been looking around various forums and have not come across an answer...

Does anyone have any idea when Ubuntu Mate 18.04 will be available for the Pi? I have three Pi computers running Ubuntu Mate 16.04 (1 3B and 2 3B+). 16.04 works fine and is a long term support release but I would like to try 18.04 on at least one of them. apt-get on the 3B recently gave me a message about a new release being available but I did not try to upgrade as this machine is the firewall/router/DHCP/shared VPN for my LAN and I really don't want to try the upgrade in production.

I guess I could swap one of the 3B+ machines in place of the 3B and then see what happens on the 3B if I do the release upgrade but...

If someone has any good information on the status, I would be grateful.

TIA,

Ken

[MaxVMH]

If you just want to try it out, I made images (EDIT: of Ubuntu Mate 16.04) last April to test some stuff, I haven't used them since so YMMV, use at own risk, updating may break the OS, etc. ... I don't recommend using them for anything important.

• This one is for SD cards
• This one is for USB drives

(If you prefer to make an image yourself, click here for instructions.)

[taylorkh]

Thanks MaxVMH,

I trust that as you have a USB image these images are suitable for the 3B+ ? I am pulling the torrent now for the SD card and will give it a try.

Thanks again,

Ken

[MaxVMH]

Thanks MaxVMH,

I trust that as you have a USB image these images are suitable for the 3B+ ? I am pulling the torrent now for the SD card and will give it a try.

Thanks again,

Ken

I just realized it's Ubuntu Mate 16.04 for the 3B+, not 18.04. Sorry if I wasted your time

I suggest you head over to the Ubuntu Mate forums and ask for support for 18.04 on the 3B+, it's the only way they'll know that there's demand.

[DirkS]

See e.g. https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/when-wi ... y-pi/17542
And more: https://ubuntu-mate.community/search?q= ... r%3Alatest

[taylorkh]

No problem MaxVMH. The torrent was still downloading - now canceled.

Thanks for the links DirkS. That is the same sort of dismal stuff I have been seeing.

Ken

[taylorkh]

I don't know if Ubuntu Mate 18.04 is available for the Pi or if the project is "dead" as some post think but...

It sure looks like I have it running on one of my Pi 3B+ machines. I made a backup image of the SD card just in case and then ran sudo do-release-update. After a couple or 3 hours (thought I was updating Windoze and a reboot I see the 18.04 green background etc. And...

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ken@taylor24:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release:	18.04
Codename:	bionic

I have not tried out various programs but so far, so good.

Ken

[fruitoftheloom]

I don't know if Ubuntu Mate 18.04 is available for the Pi or if the project is "dead" as some post think but...

It sure looks like I have it running on one of my Pi 3B+ machines. I made a backup image of the SD card just in case and then ran sudo do-release-update. After a couple or 3 hours (thought I was updating Windoze and a reboot I see the 18.04 green background etc. And...

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ken@taylor24:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release:	18.04
Codename:	bionic

I have not tried out various programs but so far, so good.

Ken

There are several post regards Ubuntu 18.04 by the poster 'feelslikeautumn' he appears to have undertaken much work on getting it running on a 3B+:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/sear ... 1&sr=posts


.

[taylorkh]

Thanks fruitoftheloom,

So far I have found that the Network Manager Applet is missing (networking works OK) and, more importantly, the time sync with an NTP server does NOT work. This is sort of a killer as the Pi has no battery backup clock.

Ken

[taylorkh]

It gets better and better. I fired up the Pi 3B+ on my upgraded to 18.04 SD card. Just like magic the time sync is now working A little searching provided a fix for the notification - or lack thereof - issue. Basically change the Panel in Mate-Tweak from "Familiar" to something else and then back again. I had to redo my panel - change to the old style Menu Bar and add back a few icons. All works well and the network manager applet is back. And the best news of all... FIrefox installed during the upgrade and IT WORKS

Ken

[MaxVMH]

What distribution did you upgrade from? The Ubuntu Mate 16.04 image I made or another image?

[taylorkh]

I started with the "official" Ubuntu Mate 16.04 image and installed it on a Pi 3B. I then did the "sudo BRANCH=stable rpi-update" trick. This allowed the image to run on the Pi 3B+. I had run that for a few weeks, added a few packages etc. I then upgraded that working image to 18.04. The only program I "lost" - at least that I have found so far - is the Midori browser. This I think was somewhat obsolete and now that Firefox works... no big deal.

Ken

[mrdone]

I started with the "official" Ubuntu Mate 16.04 image and installed it on a Pi 3B. I then did the "sudo BRANCH=stable rpi-update" trick. This allowed the image to run on the Pi 3B+. I had run that for a few weeks, added a few packages etc. I then upgraded that working image to 18.04. The only program I "lost" - at least that I have found so far - is the Midori browser. This I think was somewhat obsolete and now that Firefox works... no big deal.

Hi Ken! I did exactly the same as you: flashed SD card with ubuntu mate 16.04, did the rpi-update on RPi 3B with working WiFi and then plugged the card to RPi 3B+. Everything seems to work fine except wifi. I tried to reconfigure WiFi in Network Manager but no luck. Did you do anything else and do you have any idea how can I try to fix this wifi problem on 3B+?

[taylorkh]

Hello mrdone,

I do not think that WiFi works in Ubuntu on the Pi3B+. I have read that WiFi works in Raspbian on the 3B+ but I have not tried it. I have also read, I think, that some wireless related files could be copied from a Raspbian install to Ubuntu to fix the problem. I have not tried this either as I do not need WiFi at the moment.

If I get a chance I may look into this option. Please let me know if YOU find out how to do it.

Thanks,

Ken

[MaxVMH]

Hello mrdone,

I do not think that WiFi works in Ubuntu on the Pi3B+. I have read that WiFi works in Raspbian on the 3B+ but I have not tried it. I have also read, I think, that some wireless related files could be copied from a Raspbian install to Ubuntu to fix the problem. I have not tried this either as I do not need WiFi at the moment.

If I get a chance I may look into this option. Please let me know if YOU find out how to do it.

Thanks,

Ken

Copy the contents of /lib/firmware/brcm/ from the latest Raspbian root partition to your Ubuntu Mate root partition.


Then make sure to run the following command:

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sudo rfkill unblock wifi

And reboot (through GUI or with the following command):

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sudo reboot

[taylorkh]

Thanks MaxVMH ,

There appear to be ONLY three files which need to be added to Ubuntu to get the WiFi card running on the 3B+. Those are:

brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin
brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob
brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

I have copied them from a new Raspbian install. They are also described in this wiki https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/RaspberryPi. I added them to a Ubuntu Mate 16.04 install and to my home done upgrade to 18.04 install. WiFi works on both I did of course have to create the WiFi connection, using the gui, as my wireless network is hidden.

Ken

[mrdone]

Copy the contents of /lib/firmware/brcm/ from the latest Raspbian root partition to your Ubuntu Mate root partition.

There appear to be ONLY three files which need to be added to Ubuntu to get the WiFi card running on the 3B+. Those are:

brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin
brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob
brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt

MaxVMH and taylorkh , thanks worked like a charm! After upgrade to 18.04 Ubuntu seems to become more responsive so I am quite happy.

[MaxVMH]

@taylorkh: thanks for the additional information & @mrdone: glad to hear you got it to work

[taylorkh]

Thank YOU both for helping to motivate me to figure this out. I was not planning on using WiFi on my Pi computers but at least now I have it available should I decide to do so. And with 18.04 I should be good for support until 2023

Ken

[cjan]

just saw Wimpy is back in mate forum

• I have started preparing PI images based on Ubuntu MATE 18.04.1. I've hit more issues than in the past and I have not had as much free time recently which is delaying the release.

[cjan]

fresh install bionic sounds good, but /opt is empty.
search ubuntu wiki, they miss libraspberrypi-dev?
and 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-raspi2/ppa/ubuntu bionic/main' is too old.
does libraspberrypi-dev replaced by others?

[code_exec]

For those wanting to upgrade to Ubuntu MATE 18.04 you can follow my instructions.

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=223749&p=1371614