Canonical has approved a new Ubuntu variant based on the Mate desktop as an official release. A first alpha release of Ubuntu Mate 14.10, in which the Mate desktop replaces the Unity environment, can already be obtained from the makers.
Mate offers users a more traditional desktop environment than Unity and is largely based on the Gnome 2.x interface. In addition to a classic desktop, it has lower system requirements. Linux Mint, among others, uses Mate, but an official Ubuntu variant was still missing. Now that Ubuntu Mate has received approval from Canonical, it can call itself an official Ubuntu variant, alongside Kubuntu and Xubuntu, for example.
Ubuntu Mate is now available in an early alpha version. It runs on the under construction Ubuntu 14.10, the release codenamed Utopic Unicorn. The OS requires at least a Pentium III and 512MB of ram, and is available in both a 32bit and 64bit edition. The iso images are just under 900MB in weight.