The picture above shows the latest MATE Desktop 1.16 release running on Ubuntu MATE 16.10.
Which means exactly what you’re hoping it means! ;)
Yes, despite a bit of uncertainty last month, Ubuntu MATE 16.10 will now definitely ship with the MATE Desktop 1.16. All of the relevant desktop packages and app updates are readily available in the Ubuntu 16.10 archives.
As expected, the version of MATE in Yakkety is built against GTK3.
LTS Users Can Get Update Too
Users of the Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS don’t need to miss out either, as MATE supremo (and now Canonical employee) Martin Wimpress says he is “working on a build of MATE Desktop 1.16 for Xenial. Providing everything passes testing without issue I hope to publish that to the xenial-mate PPA later this week or early next.”
That version of MATE will be largely based on GTK2.
As soon as that version hits the PPA you can be assured that we’ll be walking you through the process of installing it, cushioned with plenty of caveats n’ caution, of course!