News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
Ubuntu 24.10, code-name “Oracular Oriole”, was officially released!
This is the latest short term release with 9 months support until July 2025. It features Linux Kernel 6.11 and GNOME Desktop 47.
And, there are official flavors feature other desktop environments, such as KUbuntu 24.10 and Ubuntu Studio 24.10 with KDE Plasma 6.1, XUbuntu 24.10 with XFCE 4.18, Ubuntu MATE 24.10 with 1.26.
Python, the popular free open-source programming language, finally announced 3.13.0 stable this Monday!
Python 3.13 introduced new interactive shell. It’s enabled by default and based on code from the PyPy project.
When you start the new shell in an interactive terminal, it uses colors by default for prompts and tracebacks and supports multi-line editing.
As well, it supports REPL-specific commands such as help, exit, and quit without call them as functions. And, I can finally use clear command in the shell to clear screen.
The new interactive shell also supports interactive help browsing using F1, history browsing using F2, and ‘paste mode’ with F3 for pasting larger blocks of code.
Just in case for those who don’t like the new shell, it can be disabled by setting environment variable. PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1.
Python 3.13 shell, with colors, multi-line editing, etc support
This tutorial shows how to completely disable suspend and/or hibernate function, so your Linux computer will never go to sleep.
Linux can automatically go to sleep when system is idle or laptop lid is closed, though user can configure to disable that behavior via either graphical options or logind.conf configuration file.
But, if you never want to sleep your computer, e.g., for server, then you can completely disable this function. So even the suspend option in power-off menu or the corresponding Linux command won’t work!
image from pixabay.com
This tutorial shows how to automatically run custom command, script, or other actions after resuming your Linux PC/laptop from suspend or hibernate.
As you may know, there are quite a few ways to run something automatically at Ubuntu startup. You can use “Startup Applications” utility to run apps or custom commands at login, use crontab to schedule startup jobs, udev rules to auto-configure devices on detection, and systemd-tmpfiles service to auto create, delete, and write configuration files.
But what if your computer does not function properly, or some personal settings do not persist after waking up from sleep?
Without waiting for upstream fixes, you can workaround by creating custom systemd services, to auto-restart the function, or re-configure the settings, and trigger it automatically when waking up from sleep.
The popular FFmpeg media library released new version 7.1 a few days ago. Here are the new features and Ubuntu PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 users.
The new release of FFmpeg library added official VVC decoder support. Versatile Video Coding (VVC in short), also known as H.266, has about 50% better compression rate for the same quality compared to HEVC (aka H.265). It supports resolutions ranging from very low up to 4K, 16K, and 360° videos, as well as YCbCr 4:4:4, 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 with 8–10 bits per component, HDR, variable and fractional frame rates from 0 to 120 Hz, and more.
FFmpeg added experimental VVC decoding support since the last 7.0 version. Now, the decoder goes official and it’s compatible with DVB test content. The release also supports for decoding VVC with Intel Quick Sync Video acceleration. As well, it supports encoding VVC using libvvenc library.
As you know, Ubuntu uses PipeWire as replacement of PulseAudio for its default sound server since Ubuntu 23.04. And, it now uses WirePlumber to manage pipewire session and policy.
With WirePlumber, you may configure more about your sound output and input. You can use Linux command to switch default audio input/output device, change volume level, and mute/un-mute sound and microphone.
As well, you may change the audio bit depth, sample rate, resample quality, and other properties for certain sound device.
MPV, the popular free open-source Linux media player, released version 0.39.0 last week. Here are the new features and Ubuntu PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 users.
The new MPV 0.39.0 introduced Video Super Resolution scaling support with Intel and NVIDIA RTX GPUs. It’s a technology that can use your GPU to upscale low resolution video to higher resolutions. For AMD GPUs, the feature will be integrated into the FFmpeg library.
According to the official release note, the feature is implemented through the d3d11va filter, meaning that it’s Windows only. To enable it, either use vf set d3d11vpp=scale=nvidia:scale-target in your mpv.conf file or see the official documentation for the command line options.
MPV media player
This tutorial shows how to disable the touchpad in Ubuntu with GNOME, XFCE, MATE, and any other desktop environments.
Most desktops today have an option to “disable touch while typing”. But if you always have your computer with a mouse connected and rarely use the touchpad, then it can be a good choice to disable the touchpad to avoid mis-operation.
And, here’s how to do the job in Ubuntu either by using desktop setting options, or globally by using Linux command or config file.
This is a step by step guide shows how to install Sweet Home 3D, the free interior design software, in Ubuntu and other Linux.
Sweet Home 3D is a popular free open-source software to create & edit your home plan and furniture layout in 2D and 3D. It’s available in Ubuntu system repositories, but old!
To install the latest version of the software, you can choose:
This tutorial shows you how to check the health status, amount of read/written data, temperature, media error, and other useful info of your SSD in Ubuntu.
For Windows, there’s a popular CrystalDiskInfo utility for reading and monitoring HDD/SSD disk status. For those who’re looking for free open-source alternatives for Linux, here are 3 options:
smartctl command line utility.
