How to Install Sopcast Player in Ubuntu 18.04

April 22, 2018 — Leave a comment

This quick tutorial is going to show you how to install Sopcast Player in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

SopCast Player is designed to be an easy to use Linux GUI front-end for the p2p streaming technology developed by SopCast.

Sopcast Player in Ubuntu Unity

There are a few PPAs contain the Sopcast player packages. Although there’s no Ubuntu 18.04 package available at the moment, you can install the .deb for Ubuntu 17.10 as a workaround.

1. Download and install the dependency package sp-auth:

Download sp-auth (.deb)

For beginners, it’s recommended to install Gdebi package installer from Ubuntu Software, then install .deb packages with Gdebi.

2. Then download and install the sopcast player package built for Ubuntu 17.10:

sopcast player (.deb)

Once installed, launch the software from your application launcher.

I can’t get access to any sopcast channels due to the Great Firewall, so I’m not sure if video streaming works.

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How to Install Notepad++ in Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 via Snap

April 21, 2018 — Leave a comment

For those who want to install Notepad++ text editor in Ubuntu, though there’s already a Linux alternative called Notepadqq, a snap package of Notepad plus plus running with Wine now is available.

Snap is an universal Linux package format with almost all required libraries bundled in its installation file. And wine is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on Linux.

1. To make things easy, the latest Notepad++ 7.5.6 runs with wine has been made as snap package, so it can be easily installed via Ubuntu Software:

or you can open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and install the snap via Linux command:

snap install notepad-plus-plus

2. After installed the snap package, you may install some plugs via commands:

sudo snap connect notepad-plus-plus:process-control

sudo snap connect notepad-plus-plus:removable-media

sudo snap connect notepad-plus-plus:hardware-observe

sudo snap connect notepad-plus-plus:cups-control

Finally launch the text editor from your application launcher and enjoy!

NOTE for Ubuntu 16.04 users first time installing a snap package, you may install the snapd daemon first via command:

sudo apt-get install snapd snapd-xdg-open

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[Quick Tip] Hide User List in Ubuntu 18.04 Login Screen

April 20, 2018 — 1 Comment

gnome shell

The Gnome login screen normally shows a list of available users to log in as. For those who want to disable showing the user list, and manually type a username to login with, below I will show you how.

Open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, when it opens, run following commands one by one:

1. Run command to get access to root:

sudo -i

Type in your password (no visual feedback while typing) when it prompts and hit Enter.

2. Then switch to user gdm, which is required to run gsettings to configure gdm settings.

su gdm -s /bin/bash

3. Finally hide user list from login screen using Gsettings:

gsettings set org.gnome.login-screen disable-user-list true

After that, restart your computer and enjoy!

How to Restore

To restore the change, open terminal and re-do previous steps, except running the last command with:

gsettings set org.gnome.login-screen disable-user-list false
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VirtualBox 5.2.10 Released with Fix for KDE Plasma Hang

April 18, 2018 — Leave a comment

Virtualbox

Oracle announced a new maintenance release for VirtualBox 5.2 series a day ago with various bug-fixes.

Changes in VirtualBox 5.2.10 include:

  • VMM: Fixed missing NULL pointer check in MMIO code
  • Storage: fixed having multiple NVMe controllers with ICH9 enabled
  • Network: fixed wireless detection regression when bridging to adapters with unbound IP protocols
  • Network: fixed VERR_INTNET_FLT_IF_NOT_FOUND when bridging to some adapters on Windows hosts
  • Audio: Fixed interrupt storm in FreeBSD guests with HDA
  • Keyboard: Introduced a small delay to fix old software which expects to be able to read an incoming scan code more than once
  • Windows installer: Removed the “Ignore” action in the case the current VBox installation is still running, as the (successful) update will not work until a host reboot is performed
  • NAT: Handle nameserver 0.0.0.0 which is a valid setting
  • BIOS: INT 15h/87h service must disable A20 gate when done
  • Linux Guest Additions: fix a hang starting KDE Plasma

How to Install Virtualbox 5.2.8 in Ubuntu:

1. If you’re still running with VirtualBox 5.1.x, open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or from application launcher. Remove old Virtualbox via command:

sudo apt-get remove virtualbox virtualbox-5.1

2. Download & install the latest Virtualbox package from the link below:

Download VirtualBox for Linux

3. If you’ve added the Oracle VBox repository, you can directly install the 5.2 release from Synaptic Package Manager or via apt command, after removing the old version.

To add the repository, do:

Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to add the repository:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list'

for Linux Mint 18.x, replace $(lsb_release -sc) with xenial in the code.

Virtualbox Official Linux repository

Setup the keyring so to trust the updates from the repository:

wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Finally install virtualbox 5.2 via commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.2

With the repository added, you can simply install the future 5.2 series updates via Software Updater.

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[Quick Tip] Mass Resize / Rotate Images in Ubuntu 18.04

April 17, 2018 — Leave a comment

gnome shell

This quick tutorial shows you how to easily resize or rotate a mass of image files in Ubuntu 18.04.

Nautilus, Gnome default file browser, has an extension called nautilus-image-converter. It adds “Resize images” and “Rotate images” options into context menu of image files, that allows to easily resize / rotate a mass of images.

With the two new options, you can resize images to a selected size, custom size, or scale images with given percent.

You can also rotate a mass of images with a selected angle or custom angle.

To install the Nautilus extension, open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+To or by searching for ‘terminal’ from app launcher. When it opens, run command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nautilus-image-converter

Input your password (no visual feedback while typing due to security reason) when it prompts and hit Enter.

Once installed, close all current file browser windows, and open it again. Or run command nautilus -q if you still don’t see the resize and rotate options.

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