Ubuntu first switched to using Wayland as its default display server in 2017 before reverting the following year. It tried again in 2021 and has stuck with it since. But while Wayland is what most of is now login to after installing Ubuntu, anyone doing so on a PC or laptop with … | Continue reading
VMware has made its professional virtualisation software free to use on Windows, macOS, and Linux — for personal use only, though. For Windows and Linux users that means VMware Workstation Pro 17 is now readily available without cost, while macOS users get VMware Fusion Pro 13. B … | Continue reading
Mozilla Firefox 126 is now available download, and in-app updates beginning to roll out to existing users on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. As Firefox updates go the 126 release is rather light on user-facing goodies, especially versus last month’s release which intro’d clip … | Continue reading
Linux kernel 6.9 has been released after several months of attentive development. Linux founder Linus Torvalds announced the final release on the Linux Kernel Mailing List in his usual relaxed, laissez faire style. He notes that while kernel contributors have reported “a few regr … | Continue reading
The recent Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release has garnered plenty of praise for its great performance on Intel/AMD hardware, both does the latest version runs as well on the ARM-based Raspberry Pi? I’m pleased to say it does. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for Raspberry Pi is available in both server an … | Continue reading
Let’s go, folks — Ubuntu 24.10 daily builds are available for download. Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’ officially opened for development earlier this week following the reveal of the official codename (more than window dressing the codename is a critical part of infrastructure se … | Continue reading
If you use Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or later and want to access the Google Gemini AI chatbot straight from your desktop outside of a web browser, you’re in luck! The Gemini AI ChatBot GNOME Shell extension (unaffiliated with Google; it’s not an official thing) gives you immediate access … | Continue reading
Google’s recent ‘structural simplification’ led to 200 people across many of its core development teams, including Python, Dart, and Flutter, losing their roles. With Canonical committed to using Flutter for its own desktop apps that news has left some in the Ubuntu community wor … | Continue reading
Canonical has published a draft release schedule for Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’. According to the timetable we should expect the final stable release of Ubuntu 24.10 to arrive on Thursday October 10, 2024. This is 25 weeks after Ubuntu 24.04, which is perfectly in keeping wit … | Continue reading
Canonical kernel engineer Juerg Haefliger has shared an update on Ubuntu support for the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s (Gen 1) laptop. The 13-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X13s is an ARM laptop powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx (gen3) processor with Adreno 690 GPU, 16 GB RAM, a 256 GB SSD, and … | Continue reading
Fans of open-source racing game SuperTuxKart will be pleased to hear its devs are busy in the pitman pepping the next major update to launch this summer. SuperTuxKart 1.4 was released back in 2022 with a ton of improvements. Successive updates in that series have fine-tuned, fixe … | Continue reading
Media Progress is a new GNOME Shell extension that adds a real-time progress bar to the MPRIS notification/sound control doohickey that shows in the notification area. This extension doesn’t do else bar (heh) that, but as simple enhancements go it’s a nifty one. More than a mere … | Continue reading
Over the last 12 months I’ve received a trickle of messages from readers (through the tip form) asking why the Disqus comments section doesn’t load, or comes and goes. Comments are auto-enabled all articles I publish. And if comments are intentionally disabled for an article (whi … | Continue reading
Linux Mint 22 will include a Matrix web client preinstalled when released later this year. The IRC-based desktop chat app Linux Mint has been building, Jargonaut, to replace Hexchat and provide real-time communication for its users, will no longer be included (the status of any f … | Continue reading
It seems that the popular command-line system info tool Neofetch is dead, Jim. The Github repo for the project was archived by its main developer last week and is now read-only, a sure sign that development has well and truly ceased to be. Not that this is a shock given that deve … | Continue reading
A new version of the open-source music player Amarok has been released, the first major update to the Qt-based media app since 2018. Amarok 3.0 is the first stable release to use Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5, and work to port the music player to the the newest Qt 6 and KDE Framework … | Continue reading
Mozilla Firefox is working on new customisation options, including the ability to set a background image on the new tab page. A number of modern web browsers including Google Chrome, Vivaldi, and Microsoft Edge allows users to set a custom image as the backdrop for the new tab pa … | Continue reading
The official codename for Ubuntu 24.10 has been revealed. Although Ubuntu 24.04 LTS has have only just been released the pace of development marches on. Ubuntu developers have already begun bootstrapping the base on which the next short-term release, which is scheduled for releas … | Continue reading
With Ubuntu 24.04 LTS out and the weekend upon us you may be planning to upgrade a previous Ubuntu install to the newest version. But you shouldn’t. For one, “officially” you can’t since Ubuntu 24.04 LTS upgrades are not enabled yet (for reasons I’ll get in to in a second) from e … | Continue reading
Arriving alongside the main Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release are new versions of the official Ubuntu flavours, including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Cinnamon. What follows is a concise, top-level overview of the key new features and changes in some of the most popular Ubuntu flavours, p … | Continue reading
Among the many new features in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is the ability to access your Microsoft OneDrive files through the Nautilus file manager. No 3rd-party app downloads, no dodgy scripts to run, and no paid plans to cough up for because this nifty feature is part of GNOME 46 (and ava … | Continue reading
After 6 frenzied months of development the final stable Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release has arrived and is available for download. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (codenamed ‘Noble Numbat’) includes a rich array of new features ranging from an enhanced desktop installer and a the latest GNOME desktop … | Continue reading
A new version of Clapper, a GTK4-based video player for Linux desktop has been released — the first major update in nearly 2 years. I first wrote about Clapper back in 2021 having been seduced over by its slick user interface (a superficial reason to like a media player, I know), … | Continue reading
Those making the upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 from 22.04 LTS are going to be blown away by the sheer amount of improvements included. Because in addition to benefitting from all of the great new features Ubuntu 24.04 offers compared to Ubuntu 23.10, LTS upgraders benefit from the chan … | Continue reading
Next time you stop by the Flathub website you will notice it’s had a bit of a revamp. The latest UI refresh lands a year after its last big redesign and builds on that look by adding new on-page features. These changes make it easier for Linux users to find the apps they are look … | Continue reading
Using Linux on a 64-bit ARM device and longing to use Firefox Nightly builds? Well, you’re in luck — Mozilla has finally made ARM64 Linux builds available to download. As I understand it most Linux distributions that support ARM64/AArch64 offer a native ARM version of Firefox in … | Continue reading
A new version of Audacity, a popular open-source audio workstation, is available to download. Audacity 3.5 introduces major new features and improvements, fixes a number of issues in earlier builds, and removes a number of older, less-used options. The headline addition is sure t … | Continue reading
Among the many new features in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is out-of-the-box support for HEIF/HEIC images. Anyone using Ubuntu 24.04 won’t have to manually install any extra packages to be able to see HEIF/HEIC thumbnails previews in the Nautilus file manager or open HEIF/HEIC files in the … | Continue reading
You know the drill by now: a new month rolls around, and a new version of the inimitable Mozilla Firefox rolls off the release server for us all to enjoy. And bang on cue, Firefox 125 has arrived. The big-ticket new feature in this update is URL paste suggestions: Mozilla says th … | Continue reading
If you want to relax or need to concentrate on a task at your computer then listening to ambient sounds can often help — and the best Linux app for this task just got a big update! Blanket is a free, open-source GTK4/libadwaita app that comes packaged with a variety of ambient lo … | Continue reading
I think most of us are familiar with the way that APT, the package management tool underpinning Ubuntu and all other Debian-based Linux distributions, looks and behaves. But some (much needed) visual changes are coming in the next major stable release, APT 3.0 — and they look gre … | Continue reading
The Ubuntu 24.04 beta is now available to download — one week later than originally planned! Ubuntu 24.04 will become the next long-term support release (LTS) and this beta will provide developers, testers, and enthusiasts time to try it out, track down bugs, and road test its ne … | Continue reading
It’s always sad to hear a long-standing bit of open-source software put itself out to pasture (a euphemism for going way of the dodo, which is a metaphor for dying out). A few weeks back iconic IRC client HexChat announced it is no longer under active development. This week the d … | Continue reading
A handy new translations feature is in the works for Mozilla Firefox that should help speed up translating short snippets of text from one language to another. Firefox 118 introduced a privacy-respecting web page translation feature, and Mozilla devs have continued to improve on … | Continue reading
A new version of Power Profiles Daemon in Ubuntu 24.04 offers power efficiency improvements for laptop users, but those with modern AMD devices may see the biggest gains. Release notes for the power-profiles-daemon package uploaded to Ubuntu 24.04 this week state that it is now “ … | Continue reading
If you were hoping to help test the upcoming release of Ubuntu 24.04 by way of the official beta that was due for release this week, I’ve some bad news: it’s been delayed. However, I think you may have been expecting this. Ubuntu 24.04 beta was scheduled for release on April 4, g … | Continue reading
The next version of Linux Mint is set to include a number of modernisations over earlier versions. First up, Linux Mint 22 will ship with Pipewire as its default sound server. Most major Linux distros now use Pipewire. The tech modernises and standardises multimedia processing, i … | Continue reading
Pop!_OS users are now able to install Linux kernel 6.8, which has just begun rolling out as a package update (so no PPAs or other hoops to jump through to get it). Although the Pop!_OS Linux distro is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which currently tops out at Linux 6.5 back ported as … | Continue reading
8BitDo, makers of retro-themed gaming goods, have unveiled their latest nostalgia-indulging mechanical PC keyboard — and fair warning: it’s way nerdier than their NES-inspired one. The new edition is sure to press all the right buttons for geeks of a certain age as it pays visual … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 24.04 is switching its default webcam app from Cheese to Snapshot, a modern GTK4/libadwaita camera tool that’s part of the GNOME Core Apps set. Cheese has been part of Ubuntu’s default software lineup since 2010, having first been added in the Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix owi … | Continue reading
It’s been a little while since the last #UbuntuintheWild spot but this one feels like a fitting return given it’s quite literally in the wild! The wilds of the Eastern Himalayan forests, in fact. Nature documentary Nocturnes, directed and produced by Anirban Dutta and Anupama Sri … | Continue reading
Ubuntu’s long-term support releases just got even longer, with Canonical today announcing they are eligible for up to 12 years of security coverage from initial release. As you know, every Ubuntu LTS release receives 5 years of standard security (and select application) updates f … | Continue reading
Gamers can look forward to more epic top-tier titles working out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, which is due for release in late April. Following a user suggestion Ubuntu developers have massively increased the distro’s virtual memory mapping limit. This small change should have … | Continue reading
App Center, Ubuntu’s Flutter-based replacement for the Ubuntu Software app, has picked up a redesigned app icon in the latest Ubuntu 24.04 daily builds. This isn’t the first icon change that the App Center has received in recent months. An updated build of the software installati … | Continue reading
If you only started using Ubuntu sometime after 2012 then you have my apologies: this article won’t make a whole lot of sense. But if your roots with the distro reach back farther then the following curio might appeal (though that ‘might’ is, I accept, doing a lot of lifting). Wh … | Continue reading
A big update to Extension Manager, a popular 3rd-party tool to browse, install, and manage GNOME Shell extensions without the need for a web browser, has been released. If you’re into customising Ubuntu, be it changing the look and layout, adding animated effects, patching in new … | Continue reading
This week I heard about Plattenalbum, a modern GTK4/libadwaita Music Player Daemon (MPD) client and it looks good so figured I’d give it a shoutout! Y’know, cheesy 1980s DJ style 🧀. MPD remains a popular way to access music that’s stored on a server, another computer, or … | Continue reading
The GNOME project today formally announced the release of GNOME 46 “Kathmandu”, the latest update to its hugely popular open-source desktop environment. And what an update it is. I ran through the best GNOME 46 features earlier this week. Suffice to say there’s a lot of improveme … | Continue reading