Linux Mint has shared a few tidbits about its next major version, expected in the summer. First up, codename: Linux Mint 22 will be called “Wilma”. All of the Linux Mint 21.x series releases used codenames starting with the letter ‘V’ so a progression to ‘W’ was expected. There a … | Continue reading
A brand new version of free, open-source office suite LibreOffice is ready to download. LibreOffice 24.2 is the follow up to last year’s LibreOffice 7.6 release. A leap because the latest edition is the first to use a calendar-based version number (like Ubuntu’s own): 24 denotes … | Continue reading
Mozilla Firefox 122 has been officially released, with an official Deb package debuting alongside it. Yes: there’s now an official Firefox Deb package for Debian-based distros, including Ubuntu. This gives users a safe, reliable way to get the latest version of their browser shou … | Continue reading
It seems some users aren’t happy that there’s (currently) no way to disable Ubuntu Pro package updates from showing in the Software Updater tool in Ubuntu LTS releases. Last year, Canonical updated update-manager (aka Software Updater) to display a list of Ubuntu Pro package upda … | Continue reading
Linux Mint developers have announced the release of the Linux Mint 21.3 Edge ISO, which is powered by Linux kernel 6.5. The standard Linux Mint 21.3 release that arrived a few weeks back uses the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel by default. That kernel version is solid, stable, and actively … | Continue reading
Just before Christmas I was introduced to a handy script that makes it very easy to install the latest Enlightenment desktop release on Ubuntu 22.04. Emphasis on latest as (I’m sure you already know) you can install the Enlightenment desktop in Ubuntu from the archives, i.e. no P … | Continue reading
Remember the AYANEO mini PC I wrote about last year? You know, the one that looked like a classic Macintosh, ran Windows 11, and was advertised as being Ubuntu-friendly? Well, forget it. —Wait, you already had? Savage, dear reader! Today, AYANEO announced a seriously superior suc … | Continue reading
Canonical may be ramping up its efforts to improve the Ubuntu gaming experience — yasss — but it seems their Steam snap package is causing headaches for Valve. Timothée Besset, a software engineer who works on the Steam client for Valve, took to Mastodon this week to reveal that … | Continue reading
Developers have popped the cork on a new stable release of Wine, the open-source compatibility layer that lets you run Windows apps and games on Linux. Wine 9.0 release’s cup runneth over with enhancements, refinements, and enablements touching on every part of the Wine experienc … | Continue reading
The winner of the KDE Plasma 6.0 wallpaper competition has been announced. In August of last year KDE devs launched a community-based contest to select the default wallpaper for KDE Plasma 6.0. The contest garnered a lot of attention — I often feel like the KDE community is more … | Continue reading
Linux Mint 21.3 is now available to download — the first version to offer Wayland support in the Cinnamon desktop. Following a successful bout of bug-busting in last month’s beta release, Mint devs have gone ahead and rubber-stamped a stable release. Thus, you can reasonably expe … | Continue reading
Yes, I know: I’m writing about yet another system monitor extension for GNOME Shell — I’m sorry; I’m not obsessed, I promise! But I couldn’t not cover this one since it was only released today (yesterday depending on your timezone), and the moment I tried it out and saw everythin … | Continue reading
You can now upgrade to Linux kernel 6.5 in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS — no PPAs, additional repos, or edge packages required. Ubuntu routinely back-ports newer Linux kernels from “interim” releases to its latest long-term support release. The Linux 6.5 kernel from Ubuntu 23.10, released ba … | Continue reading
A new GNOME Shell extension makes it easier to check Bluetooth battery status in Ubuntu 23.10. Emphasis on easier as we can already see battery level for connected Bluetooth devices from the Settings > Power pane, no extensions required. But out of sight, out of mind! Not so with … | Continue reading
A new year, an all-new Linux kernel to help power it! The Linux 6.7 kernel release a hefty one packed with an assortment of new features, new hardware enablement, and more. By commit size alone Linux 6.7 is one of the largest in recent history, an indicator of just how much effor … | Continue reading
Keeping an eye on CPU, memory, and network activity in GNOME Shell is made easy, thanks to an array of community-built extensions tailored-made for the task. Now, there’s a new option available for users to use — and it’s designed, developed, and supported by GNOME itself. Why? G … | Continue reading
Intel has released an array of new AI effects for open-source audio editor Audacity. Intel’s OpenVINO AI plugins for Audacity (to give them their proper name) are designed to work offline and locally, meaning no cloud servers, signups, or subscriptions required. There are effects … | Continue reading
Longing to use the legendary Linux screenshot tool Shutter on Wayland? Well, now you can! Upstream, Shutter is still under semi-active development (2 releases last year). However, its developers are yet to officially add support for using the app under Wayland session – now used … | Continue reading
When it comes to free, open-source desktop publishing (DTP) there’s little as capable, as fully-featured, or as widely used in professional settings as Scribus. Now a brand new stable release of this powerful page-making tool is available, the first since 2019. Scribus 1.6.0 ship … | Continue reading
A few months back I wrote a guide on how to set custom folder icons in Nautilus without needing to install 3rd-party apps or change icon set. It’s all done using a native, built-in feature of the Nautilus file manager — it’s not even a new feature either as the file manager has l … | Continue reading
Official support for Ubuntu 23.04 ‘Lunar Lobster’ ends on January 25, 2024 — just under a month away at the time I’m writing this post. As an interim/short-term support release, Ubuntu 23.04 receives 9 months of updates from release. Having been released in April of 2023, January … | Continue reading
An early Christmas treat has arrived for those seeking Enlightenment — no, not spiritual concept, but the EFL-based desktop shell for Linux and BSD systems. Enlightenment 0.26.0 is modest uplift to Enlightenment 0.25, which was released in December 2021. For those unfamiliar with … | Continue reading
It’s time to deck the digital halls as Christmas is just a few days away. By now you’ll have put up the tree (and the cat’s since stripped it), you’ll have wrapped the presents (all last-minute, I’m sure), and said HECK NO to the eggnog (wise, it is gross). But have you left your … | Continue reading
Mozilla Firefox 121 has been released, and it’s a notable one for Linux Wayland users. For the Ubuntu 23.10 release, the Firefox Snap runs in Wayland mode by default (and like many of you I’ve noticed nothing but bountiful benefits resulting from the switch). Mozilla’s workshop e … | Continue reading
Productivity is on the minds of the Ubuntu’s desktop developers as they plan what features to ship in the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release. Given that many folks now use of web-based office tools like Microsoft 365 Online and Google Workspace (which is sometimes referred to as ‘ … | Continue reading
Hot on the heels of its quasi-official arrival on Flathub, a new version of the Vivaldi web browser has been released. Vivaldi 6.5 includes some nice new features, a few of which enhance and build on existing ones introduced in earlier releases: Of these, the new ‘Sessions Panel’ … | Continue reading
A brown mushroom, a slice of lime, and a fiery phoenix — no, that’s not the start of a rubbish joke but a handful of the newest emoji added to the Unicode standard. And if you’re using Ubuntu, you’ll be able see and use them well before iPhone users, too. Rolling out to users on … | Continue reading
Wondering how your current Linux system will handle AI and ML-related workloads? Well, now you can find out. Primate Labs, makers of the hugely popular Geekbench software, has released a new preview build of their AI benchmarking tool, Geekbench ML. And it now supports Linux. Gee … | Continue reading
Intel GPU support has been added to the Linux system monitor app Mission Center. I’ve written about this GTK4/libadwaita app a few times in the past and, to plagiarise myself, the reaction to it has been off the charts (in a good way). The app is written in Rust and uses OpenGL t … | Continue reading
Eager to get your hands on the next Linux Mint release? You can, as a beta build is now available to download. Linux Mint 21.3 beta isn’t production ready (it’s a beta) so in theory you shouldn’t be installing this as your main OS. However, chances are some of you will, and as th … | Continue reading
The first point release to GNOME Shell 45 only hit Ubuntu 23.10 at the end of last month, and now a second one is already on its way! GNOME Shell 45.2 was released upstream at the start of December, now Ubuntu’s developers have packaged it up and pushed it out to users of Ubuntu … | Continue reading
If Calibre, the popular open-source ebook manager, was a book itself it’d surely be a perennial bestseller, thanks to an exhaustive, multi-faceted feature set. And in the latest Calibre 7 release, the feature set expands yet further. The latest version introduces a clutch of new … | Continue reading
Ubuntu ships with LibreOffice because it’s a powerful open-source office suite compatible with documents created in other productivity apps, including Microsoft Office and Apple’s iWork. While LibreOffice can open files made in Apple Pages (a word processor, saves as .pages) and … | Continue reading
Development of open-source AI models just got a major boost with the launch of the AI Alliance, a super-team made up of companies, developers, scientists, academics, and spearheaded by Meta and IBM, owners of Red Hat. While governments around the world wrestle with ways to regula … | Continue reading
Ahead of the Zorin OS 17 release expected later this month, a beta version has been made available for download and testing. Zorin OS 17 rebases on top of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and the Linux 6.2 kernel but, interestingly, ships with GNOME 43 and not GNOME 42, which is the default in U … | Continue reading
Looking to record system sounds and your microphone at the same time on Ubuntu, and save it to a single audio file? Reco is a free, open-source audio recording app for Linux, written in Vala and GTK. Although it’s designed for elementary OS it works well on Ubuntu and other Linux … | Continue reading
Mozilla now provides Deb builds of Firefox Beta and Firefox Developer Edition for Debian-based Linux distributions (y’know, like Ubuntu) Just like the Firefox Nightly Debs Mozilla announced back in October, Debian packages for Firefox beta and Developer Edition are available to i … | Continue reading
Looking for a quick way to switch workspaces in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS using your mouse? You’ll already known you can click on the Activities button in the top bar. That opens the overview screen which shows all active workspaces. You click on a workspace to go straight to it. Not a ha … | Continue reading
Outside of single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi, small form-factor desktop PCs aren’t super common — a market gap gaming hardware company Ayaneo hopes to fill. They’ve unveiled the Ayaneo Retro Mini PC AM01, an AMD-powered desktop computer housed inside a 5-inch box desig … | Continue reading
Varia is a new, open-source download manager for Linux based on Aria2, a powerful command-line download utility. As the user interface is built with GTK 4 and libadwaita, Varia looks perfectly in-keeping with other modern GTK apps Ubuntu offers: Of course, it’s 2023 and we all (a … | Continue reading
The open-source text editor Notepad++ is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new release filled with some neat new features. In Notepad++ 8.6 (the 238th release since 2003, for those keeping count) the Windows-based code tool adds to its extensive feature set with an improved … | Continue reading
GNOME Shell’s built-in screen recording feature is perfect at capturing short clips but when you need to record longer sessions you should use a dedicated screen recording app. Such tools give you greater control over video quality, output format, sound capture, frame rate, and s … | Continue reading
It’s been a while since I last wrote about Musique, an open-source desktop music player for Windows, macOS, and Linux (I first featured it in 2010, back when it was called MiniTunes). Amazingly, the app is still going, and it just received its first major update in almost 3 years … | Continue reading
The recent GNOME Shell 45.1 update has begun rolling out to users of Ubuntu 23.10. As the first point release issued to GNOME Shell since the GNOME 45 release in September, the update ships with an miscellaneous assortment of bug fixes, code cleanups, and crash remedies. Specific … | Continue reading
When it comes to Linux clipboard managers few have the panache of Pano, a GNOME Shell extension I first wrote about last year. Pano presents an interactive, easy-to-use dashboard in which to store, search, and organise your clipboard history, similar to the popular macOS app Past … | Continue reading
Mozilla Firefox 120 has landed, bringing with it a flurry of new features and improvements. Firefox 120 now supports corner snapping for Picture-in-Picture (PIP) mode on Windows and Linux. This will put a PIP window back in a corner after it’s been moved elsewhere. To try it, hol … | Continue reading
We’re not short of system monitoring tools for Ubuntu, with an array of desktop apps, extensions, widgets, Conky scripts, and command-line tools readily available to us. But if you’re keen to keep an eye firmly fixed on system resource usage the newly launched SystemStatsPlus GNO … | Continue reading
Inkscape, a free and open-source vector graphics editor, has released a new version which its developers say is the ‘biggest bug fix’ update they’ve ever shared! Alongside 40 bug fixes there are over 30 crash/freeze fixes included in Inkscape 1.3.1, with remedies to address workf … | Continue reading