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News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux

Install The Twitter Client Choqok 1.5 in Ubuntu 14.04 / 14.10

January 26, 2015 — Leave a comment

Choqok, a free and open-source micro-blogging client for KDE, has reached the 1.5 release recently. It has been more than one year since the previous version was released in September 2013.

Choqok features Twitter, Pump.io (Formerly known as Identi.ca), and OpenDesktop.org services support and KWallet integration. The 1.5 release brings below changes

There’s a new option to disable the system tray.
As mentioned above, we now have a plugin for Pump.io microblogs.
We have a new plugin for expansion of short URLs, and dropped old UnTiny plugin. **
A preview for photos posted to Twitter.com is now available.
Issues in updating friends list of Twitter is fixed and sending direct message is working again.
There’s a new option in User menu for Reporting a User to Twitter.
A long wanted request on StatusNet(Gnu social) plugin was ability to take into account the server’s custom set, char limit. now we have it.
IMStatus plugin now supports KDE Telepathy.
Yourls and Goo.gl shortening plugins are fixed and now they are working again.
Broken shortening plugins are dropped.

How to Install / Upgrade Choqok in Ubuntu:

The latest binaries have been made into Adilson’s PPA, available for Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 and Linux Mint 17 (fail to build for Ubunt 12.04 at the moment).

Note: as a KDE app, installing Choqok also installs numerous Kubuntu libraries.

To add the PPA, open terminal from menu and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:adilson/experimental

Then update package cache and install or upgrade the app by running below two commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install choqok

In Howtos choqok twitter client, twitter client

Install The Free Font Creator & Editor ‘Birdfont’ 2.0 in Ubuntu

January 25, 2015 — Leave a comment

Birdfont, a free and open source font editor, has reached the 2.0 release recently with new UI layout, bug fixes and a few improvements.

BirdFont is a free font editor that lets you create vector graphics and export TTF, EOT & SVG fonts. It is written by Johan Mattsson using Vala programming language, works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

The 2.0 release brings:

New UI layout
New zoom tool
Improved background import
Customizable short cuts
New tab for changing font name
Illustrator SVG import and other bug fixes
Load bf fonts faster

How to Install/Upgrade birdfont in Ubuntu:

The binary packages have been made into my personal PPA (unofficial), available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04.

Open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T. When it opens, run command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/birdfont

After that, update system package cache and install the editor by running below two commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install birdfont

If you don’t want to add PPA, download & install the .deb package directly from launchpad page.

New to Birdfont? See the video tutorials on its website.

In Howtos birdfont, font editor

How to Use Your Android Phone As A Wireless Webcam in Ubuntu

January 24, 2015 — 2 Comments

Don’t have a camera on your Ubuntu machine? Well, you can use your Android phone as a webcam or IP Cam through WIFI or USB.

In below steps I’ll show you how to do it through the DroidCam software.

1. Install DroidCam client in Ubuntu machine.

Open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run the commands below one by one to install the app from PPA:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:paolorotolo/droidcam

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install droidcam

Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint 13/17 are supported.

If you don’t want to add PPA, grab the .deb package directly from the launchpad page.

2. Install DroidCam app in your Android device from Google Play.

3. Launch DroidCam app in your Android device:

4. Launch DroidCam client in Ubuntu machine. Select connection mode, type in ip (if need), and click Connect.

5. Once connected, open a webcam specific app, like Cheese, in Ubuntu and select “DroidCam (v4l2loopback)” as its webcam device.

Finally you’ll see what your Android camera sees in the Cheese window. That’s it.

In Howtos Android Wireless Webcam, DroidCam

Wine 1.7.35 Added Support for OpenGL Core Contexts, How to Upgrade in Ubuntu

January 24, 2015 — Leave a comment

Wine 1.7.35, the latest development version of Wine for running Windows applications in Linux, was released a few hours ago.

The 1.7.35 release brings support for OpenGL core contexts, initial support for glyph placement in DirectWrite, and adds more WBEM objects. Also a total of 56 bugs has been fixed in this release. Source code and full list of changes are available at this page.

How to install / upgrade wine 1.7 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu users, besides building from the source you have to wait a few days for the official PPA updated for the latest binaries. Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and Ubuntu 14.04 are supported so far.

To add the PPA, open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

After that, upgrade Wine by installing available updates via “Software Updater” utility. Or install wine1.7 for the first time by running below two commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install wine1.7

Since Wine PPA is not updating for Ubuntu 12.04, Precise users can use this unofficial PPA to get the latest wine release.

Before adding this PPA, you should remove the official PPA via command:

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

Then add the new PPA for Ubuntu 12.04:

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:ricotz/unstable

Finally upgrade Wine1.7 through Update Manager, or install it via the previous two sudo apt-get command.

In Howtos wine, wine 1.7

System Restore App ‘TimeShift’ Adds LUKS-encrypted Partition Support

January 23, 2015 — Leave a comment

TimeShift, the open-source System Restore software, has reached the 1.7.x release recently. The new release added new command line options to restore, list and delete snapshots, added backup and restore support for LUKS-encrypted partitions.

Never heard of it? TimeShift for Linux is a application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS. It takes snapshots of your system files and settings. User files such as documents, pictures and music are excluded. Your files remains unchanged when you restore your system to an earlier date.

The 1.7 version brings command line options to restore, delete snapshots. For example:

timeshift --restore    #interactive

timeshift --restore --snapshot "2015-01-21_19-28-43" --backup-device /dev/sda2 --target-device /dev/sda1 --skip-grub

timeshift --delete    #interactive

timeshift --delete --snapshot "2015-01-21_19-28-43"

timeshift --delete-all    #completely remove all snapshots

If your system is installed on a LUKS-encrypted partition then you can now restore snapshots both online (from running system) and offline (from another system / LiveCD).

How to Install/Upgrade TimeShift:

TimeShift is available in the developer’s PPA for Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 12.04.