I'm now creating a new system on a new microSD card with a new RPi 3 B. I've installed Raspbian Stretch Lite and now running update/upgrade - a little way to go yet...

Or would Ubuntu Mate be better?

Installed latest Raspbian Lite (Stretch), ran update/upgrade, installed the required dependences and latest libindi 1.6.0 and update/upgrade etc. ThenGot error

Kept getting errors with Raspbian so I'm trying Ubuntu Mate.

I've installed Ubuntu Mate onto the microSD card and put it into the RPi but I can't seem to SSH into it. I've put the file SSH into the root as with Raspbian but that hasn't helped. Help please.

Later... Been doing lots of Googling and it would appear that Ubuntu Mate can't be used with headless RPi and SSH into it because the SSH server isn't loaded But I'm sure I've seen posts from people using UM headless. Maybe set it up with monitor etc. and use raspi-config. I think the computer and user names need setting up too, which was why I couldn't SSH from what I've read.

I install regular Ubuntu Mate for RPI3 and it works fine. Regarding Raspian, I am now upgrading my RPI2 from Jessie to Stretch (finally) and will make the 1.6.0 package for Stretch starting from tomorrow.

Ah yes, I had a feeling the problem with Raspbian was the core version. That's often a reason for library conflicts.

Which OS do you recommend, Raspbian or Ubuntu Mate? They each seem to have their pros and cons.

Definitely Ubuntu Mate for RPI3. Why? Because you can just use the PPA and get updates. With Raspbian, you have to download the updates and install manually.

Ubuntu it is then I've always liked Ubuntu until the GUI went off-track and I didn't like it so took the Mint fork. I've had Ubuntu since it first came out. Before that I was using Suse, Red Hat and Debian. I set up a web site explaining Ubuntu and providing hints and tips. Gosh, that was a good few years ago

Sorry to bother you but I'm now having a problem getting Ubuntu Mate to work. Wrote the image file to microSD card and put it in the RPi 3 and powered up. I have an HDMI monitor plus keyboard and wireless trackball connected and Ethernet connection to my router. It came up with a screen saying that it had resized the partition and then rebooted. After that it comes up with an error message "Failed to start Load Kernel Modules" then went on to the round image with blobs below which shows progress (sort of) then a blank screen followed by back to the error screen. This sequence repeats at infinitum. I would appreciate any help - I don't know what I'm doing wrong - should be simple! I have tried several times with the same result.

The web site I got the Ubuntu Mate zipped image file is ubuntu-mate.org/raspberry-pi/. Here are a couple of photos of the screen.

Sorry about this Gina, it seems you're having extremely bad luck getting this to work. Thank you for your patience. It seems this message is normal during boot process on RPI3 (at least Google thinks so). Have you verified the checksum of the downloaded Ubuntu Mate zip file against the hashes provided by them? Just to rule out a corrupted download.

I have now verified the SHA256SUM Checksum and it's correct. I've also tried two different micro SD cards.

Where do you get you Ubuntu Mate image files from? I suspect there are different versions around. I would prefer not to return to Raspbian.

There would seem to be alternatives here :- ubuntu-pi-flavour-maker.org/download/ including a server version which looks interesting. OTOH if you are using Mate with RPi 3 B, why won't it work for me? Very odd!!! It makes sense for me to use the same as you.