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I read recently that Ubuntu officially supports certain Raspberry Pi hardware on the desktop as of version 20.10. See the announcement here: https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-20-10-on-raspberry-pi-delivers-the-full-linux-desktop-and-micro-clouds

I'm wondering if that official support extends to other flavors such as Ubuntu MATE, Lubuntu, etc?

I know that Ubuntu MATE has made images available for Raspberry Pi for a little while, but I was under the impression that was due to extra development done by the Ubuntu MATE team, and it was not "officially" supported by Canonical.

My guess is that the work done by Canonical will benefit many of the other flavors as well, but I was hoping someone here could confirm.

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

Citizen Underdog
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  • I don't know why the other flavors are not available as ARM64 builds - but I know you can install different graphical interfaces on top of Ubuntu Server (on Raspberry Pi), which gives you kind of the same thing. – Artur Meinild Nov 03 '20 at 12:36
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    Look up https://github.com/wimpysworld/desktopify which allows you to add whichever Ubuntu flavor you like ontop of the Ubuntu Server image. Ubuntu-MATE do have an image, however please note sddm has an issue with some pi's (used by Kubuntu & Lubuntu) which desktopify currently doesn't cater for. It's a known issue. – guiverc Nov 03 '20 at 12:47
  • Possibly relevant: There's some level of unofficial support for RPis in Ubuntu's parent Debian. – marcelm Nov 03 '20 at 23:09

2 Answers2

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Look up https://github.com/wimpysworld/desktopify which allows you to add whichever Ubuntu flavor you like on top of the Ubuntu Server image.

Desktopify does more than just add the desktop (allowing for some differences in the pi to amd64 boxes, plus desktop versus server).

Put an Ubuntu Server image for Raspberry Pi on a SDHC card.
Boot the Ubuntu Server SDHC on a Raspberry Pi 2, 3 or 4.
Login to the Raspberry Pi; username ubuntu and password ubuntu
    You will be prompted to change the password
Clone the project
    git clone https://github.com/wimpysworld/desktopify.git
Change your current directory to desktopify directory
    cd desktopify
Convert the server to a desktop
    sudo ./desktopify --de ubuntu-mate

Ubuntu-MATE do have an image (just released).

Please note sddm has an issue with some pi's (used by Kubuntu & Lubuntu) which desktopify currently doesn't cater for. It's a known issue.

guiverc
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  • I can't find a link for the pi image for Ubuntu-MATE 20.10. It hit my inbox earlier in the day, but I don't currently see it (and won't need it till the weekend). I can't recall if was just a beta/RC or actual release. – guiverc Nov 03 '20 at 12:57
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    Running regular Ubuntu MATE desktop on RPi (4 in my case) is good too. – N0rbert Nov 03 '20 at 19:16
  • This is a great response with very helpful links. I believe the developer of this project is an Ubuntu employee, so that helps add credibility to its functionality. – Citizen Underdog Feb 01 '21 at 13:35
  • @CitizenUnderdog a number of the contributors to desktopify are Canonical employees (work on it can be seen on youtube), and Martin Wimpress is the head of Ubuntu Desktop (a co-creator of Ubuntu-MATE, ....etc) For prior releases it was as simple as apt install *wanted*-desktop however there are differences with how Server works, plus the pi in later releases so a lot more needs to be done. desktopify just does all those things known to be needed, plus installs the desired desktop. Look up the history of the desktopify project and you'll see many flavor people involved too... – guiverc Feb 01 '21 at 21:35
  • Further note to my prior comment, whilst there maybe Canonical employees, they are community members when they work on that Ubuntu community project, ie. Martin & others are doing it in their free time (just as Martin does Ubuntu-MATE in his free time) and thus the Canonical employees really has no bearing. It could be placed on a Ubuntu wiki page (the only ref. I see is on Martin's own page; signed note by community member), but that's more work (easy to put there, but needs updating whenever changes are made) – guiverc Feb 01 '21 at 22:57
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You can achieve this by following the instructions on how to install Ubuntu Server on Raspberry Pi, namely point 5: Installing a desktop.

The following desktop options are available (I checked Ubuntu Packages for Groovy):

Kubuntu: sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop

Lubuntu: sudo apt install lubuntu-desktop

Ubuntu Budgie: sudo apt install ubuntu-budgie-desktop

Ubuntu Mate: sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop

Xubuntu: sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop

I didn't find any packages for Ubuntu Kylin or Ubuntu Studio, so I guess those flavors are not available as addon desktop packages for server.

Artur Meinild
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