News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
For Ubuntu 16.04 users who are accustomed to have window buttons ‘minimize, maximize, close’ on the left side, this quick tutorial will show you how to change window buttons position after you install or upgrad to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
1. To get started, open Ubuntu Software, search for and install Gnome Tweaks.
2. Then launch the Gnome Tweaks, and navigate to Windows tab. At the bottom, you can see the toggle to change the titlebar buttons placement.
That’s it. Enjoy!
SMPlayer media player 18.4.0 was released a few days ago with new feature to change the position of OSD bar.
Other than that, the time displayed by a tooltip when the mouse is over the seekbar is now much more accurate. And now it’s possible to turn off the use of the system native file dialog in Preferences -> Interface.
For Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.10, Ubuntu 18.04, and derivatives, do following steps to install or upgrade SMPlayer via its PPA repository.
1. Search for and launch “terminal” from application launcher. When it opens, run command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
Input your password (no visual feedback while typing) when it asks and hit Enter.
2. Then upgrade SMPlayer using Software Updater (or Update Manager):
or run commands in terminal to install (or upgrade) the media player:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install smplayer smtube smplayer-themes
Uninstall:
To remove SMPlayer, run command in terminal:
sudo apt-get remove --autoremove smplayer smtube smplayer-*
And remove the PPA via “Software & Updates” utility under Other Software tab.
HPLIP 3.18.4, an HP developed Linux drivers for HP inkjet and laser based printers, was released recently with Ubuntu 18.04 beta support and new printers support.
HPLIP 3.18.4 adds support for following new devices:
HPLIP 3.18.4 also adds support for Ubuntu 18.04, Debian 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4.
To install the software, download the package “hplip-3.18.4.run” from the link below:
Then open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or search for “terminal” from app launcher. When it opens, run command:
cd ~/Downloads/ && chmod +x hplip-3.18.4.run && ./hplip-3.18.4.run
Input your password (no visual feedback while typing) when it prompts and hit Enter.
Then follow the terminal outputs, answer some questions to build and install HPLIP on your system. When everything is done, plug/re-plug your printers and enjoy!
GIMP 2.10, a new major release of the most popular Linux image editing software, was announced a day ago with huge list of changes.
The most notable changes in GIMP 2.10 include:
The new release has been made into PPA repository for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 17.10.
Ubuntu 16.04 is not supported at the moment due to inextricably Glib dependencies.
1. Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcuts, or by searching for ‘Terminal’ from app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp
Type your password (no visual feedback) when it prompts and hit Enter to continue.
2. After added the PPA, you can upgrade to GIMP 2.10 from an existing release using Software Updater (Update Manager):
or run commands one by one in terminal to install or upgrade GIMP:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gimp
Tip: apt update command is not required for Ubuntu 18.04 since it automatically refresh repository caches after adding PPA.
For any reason, you can restore to the old GIMP 2.8.22 by running following command in terminal to purge the PPA:
sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp
VLC media player 3.0.2 was released a few days ago. The release fixed more than 150 bugs since the 3.0.0 release, and improves decoding speed on macOS.
Changes in VLC 3.0.2 include:
The VideoLAN team offers official snap package, so Ubuntu users can easily install the latest VLC package from Ubuntu Software.
or you can run command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to install the snap:
snap install vlc --classic
NOTE for Ubuntu 16.04 uses who never installed a snap package, first run command in terminal to install snapd daemon via command:
sudo apt-get install snapd snapd-xdg-open
Geary is a free and open-source email client formerly developed by Yorba. Now, it’s a community maintained app for GNOME Desktop.
The source code of the email client is available in this Gitlab page. And, features include:
The graphical interface of this app is a little bit lag behind, since GNOME is porting to GTK4 plus Libadwaita, though it’s still working good. And, users can install it in all current Ubuntu releases, through either Deb package or Flatpak package.
For those who prefer the native .deb package format, Geary is available in system repository, though it’s a bit old.
To install it, simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then run commands below one by one:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install geary
If you want the most recent version, then it’s available to install as Flatpak package which runs in sandbox environment, and can be installed in most Linux.
Linux Mint 21+ and Fedora 38/39+ can directly search for and install the package from either Software Manager or GNOME Software.
While Ubuntu users can install the Flatpak by running 2 commands below one by one in terminal (Ctrl+ALt+T):
sudo apt install flatpak
flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gnome.Geary.flatpakref
flatpak update org.gnome.Geary
NOTE: If you’re first time installing an app as Flatpak package, then you may need to log out and back in for the app icon visible in start menu or Gnome ‘Show Apps’ screen.
To remove Geary email client, simply run command in terminal:
sudo apt-get remove --autoremove geary
For the Flatpak package, use this command instead to uninstall:
flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.gnome.Geary
Kid3 audio tag editor 3.6.1 was released earlier today. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 17.10, Ubuntu 16.04, and/or Ubuntu 14.04.
This bugfix release improves the speed when saving with a lot of unchanged files in the directory. It fixes wrong parsing of the xid atom when using the Mp4v2Metadata plugin, scrolling to the opened file when using a custom sort order in the file list and avoids changing the file name extension when setting file names from the tags.
Kid3 3.6.1 changelog:
The developer maintains a PPA repository with the latest packages for all current Ubuntu releases.
1. Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching for ‘terminal’ from app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ufleisch/kid3
Type in your password (no visual feedback while typing) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. Then run following commands to install or upgrade the audio editor:
sudo apt update sudo apt install kid3-qt
For KDE users, replace kid3-qt in the last command with kid3 for better integration.
To upgrade Kid3 from an existing release, simply install the updates via Software Updater:
Uninstall:
To remove the PPA, launch Software & Updates and navigate to ‘Other Software’ tab.
To remove Kid3 tag editor, either use system package manger or run command:
sudo apt-get remove --autoremove kid3 kid3-*
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.
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:
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:
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.
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
