UbuntuHandbook

Kdenlive 21.04.1 Released! How to Install it in Ubuntu 21.04, 20.04

Last updated: May 18, 2021

Kdenlive 21.04.1, the first update for the 21.04 release is out. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Ubuntu 20.04 via PPA.

The new release of KDE’s video editor contains mainly bug fixes and improvements. Changelog in the release include:

Invalidate preview render on subtitle actions.
Fix timecode validation on settings dialog.
Fix proxied clip cannot be dragged from monitor to timeline.
Fix incorrect speed cycling with j/l keys.
Ensure render widget is displayed again after being minimized.
Fix playback speed not reset on pause.
Update effect zones on effect deletion.
Render presets: load default values properly to ui.
Fix spacer tool not workin on single clips (without groups).
Improve naming of newely created profile. Commit.
Archiver: Fix more bugs and crashes. Commit.
Archiver: Block UI while job is running.
Archiver: Don’t miss lumas,… on “timline only” mode, prettify code.
Fix several archiving issues with mlt files.
Archive LUT files too.
Appimage: use mlt v6 branch.

Install Kdenlive 21.04.1 in Ubuntu via PPA:

The kdenlive team ppa has made the latest packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Ubuntu 21.04, Linux Mint 20.

1.) Add Ubuntu PPA:

Open ‘terminal’ from your system application menu, then run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

Type your password when it asks (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.

2. ) Install or Upgrade Kdenlive:

If an old version of kdenlive was installed, you can upgrade it via Update Manager:

Or simply run command in terminal to install the video editor:

sudo apt install kdenlive

NOTE for non-KDE users, Kdenlive will be installed along with a large list of KDE libraries.

Uninstall:

To purge the PPA as well as downgrade Kdenlive package, run command in terminal:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

To remove the PPA only, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

And to remove Kdenlive, run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove kdenlive kdenlive-data

In News KDE Video Editor

Get Terminal Integrated into File Manager in Ubuntu 20.04 / Ubuntu 21.04

Last updated: May 17, 2021

Want to embed a terminal in the Files, Nautilus file manager, in Ubuntu? Nautilus Terminal is the project to do the job.

Nautilus Terminal is an open-source project started in 2010. It’s now at version 4.x that supports up to Nautilus 40.

With it, you have an integrated terminal in each file window and tab. The terminal follows the navigation, without running cd command, the terminal automatically go to the directory when you navigate to a folder in file manager.

The terminal placement can be at top (default) or bottom. You can press F4 on keyboard to show or hide it. And it supports drag & drop of file on the terminal.

By right-click on terminal area, you can do copy & paste actions, and go to its Preferences.

The “Preferences” indeed opens Dconf Editor (you need to firstly install it in Ubuntu Software) and navigate to “/org/flozz/nautilus-terminal” settings page. There you can configure:

Background color.
Text color.
Font.
Focus by default.
Toggle shortcut.
Terminal placement.
Custom command.

How to Install Nautilus Terminal in Ubuntu 20.04 & Higher:

The project developer used to maintain an Ubuntu PPA, which is however no longer updated. Ubuntu 20.04 and higher users can now run following commands to install it from PyPi.

1.) Open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, firstly run command to install required libraries:

sudo apt install python3-nautilus python3-psutil python3-pip libglib2.0-bin dconf-editor

2.) Then install Nautilus Terminal via command:

sudo pip3 install nautilus-terminal

3.) And install it for system wide by running command:

sudo nautilus-terminal --install-system

4.) Finally restart Nautilus to apply changes. To do so, run command:

nautilus -q

NOTE: Ubuntu 18.04 users, can run the previous commands one by one by replacing python3 with python to get integrated terminal in Files.

How to Remove Nautilus Terminal:

To remove the integrated terminal, simply run pip command with uninstall flag in terminal:

sudo pip3 uninstall nautilus-terminal -y

And restart Nautilus via step 4.) to apply changes.

For Arch Linux, Fedora, and other details, go to Nautilus Terminal project page.

In App Review nautilus

Gnome Tweaks 40 No Longer Manage Extensions, Use This Tool Instead

Last updated: May 16, 2021

Gnome Tweaks, one of the must have apps for configuring Ubuntu, removes GNOME Shell Extensions support by releasing version 40.

Which means in next Ubuntu release which will ship with Gnome 40+, you have to use another tool to manage Gnome Shell Extensions.

If you have tried out Fedora 34, you should already see the prompt at first launch of Gnome Tweaks: “Extensions management has been moved to GNOME Extensions”.

The “new” tool “GNOME Extensions” is available in Ubuntu universe repositories since Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. If you don’t have it, open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, and run command to install it:

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-prefs

Then you can open it from system app launcher.

Different to the extensions tab in Gnome Tweaks, the GNOME Extensions tool displays built-in Gnome Shell extensions and user installed extensions separately.

Besides the slider icons to toggle on/off extensions and gear buttons to change extension settings, there’s a triangle icon after each extension. Clicking on the icon will expand the extension with a brief description as well as the website and remove buttons.

In addition, Fedora users can get the tool by installing gnome-extensions-app package. Other Linux with Gnome Desktop can install the flatpak package.

In Gnome Shell Gnome Shell Extension

Get Started Tweaking Ubuntu 20.04 with ‘Ubuntu First Steps’

Last updated: September 20, 2024

After a clean Ubuntu installation, you have to tweak the desktop appearance more or less to meet your needs.

Besides struggling with different system configuration tools, e.g., System Settings, Gnome Tweaks and Dconf Editor, ‘Ubuntu First Steps‘ is a handy tool with mostly used options to tweak your Ubuntu Desktop.

Update 2024: The project has NOT been updated for a few years. I MAY or MAY NOT work anymore!

It’s a free and open-source tool written in Python with ability to tweak the dock launcher:

Dock position.
Enable minimize on click action.
Reduce dock length.
Enable dock on multi monitors.
Show apps at top, and more.

It also offers options to change desktop icon size, show or hide home and trash icons, change date & time display, show battery percentage, and enable HiDPI Fractional Scaling.

With it, you can easily enable or disable camera, microphone, and sound output, and stop Ubuntu remembering application usage, recent, temporary, and trash files.

There’s also “Repositories” tab with a list of Ubuntu PPAs. It is however not recommended to use the feature as some are either obsolete (e.g., GIMP PPA, Audacity PPA) or useless (e.g., Grub Customizer, it’s available in main repository).

In addition, some useful apps e.g., VLC, GIMP, Blender, and FileZilla, can be installed from “Applications” tab via singe click.

NOTE to apply changes, you have to click the upper-left corner gear button!

How to install ‘Ubuntu First Steps’:

The software developer built the package with only Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS support.

Open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run following commands one by one to add the PPA and install the tool:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao

sudo apt install ubuntu-first-steps

Once installed, open it from system app launcher and enjoy!

How to Remove:

To remove the Ubuntu PPA, either go to Software & Updates -> Other Software or open terminal and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:atareao/atareao

To remove the configuration tool, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove ubuntu-first-steps

In Howtos

Manage Users and Groups in Ubuntu via The Classic Graphical Tool

Last updated: May 14, 2021

Looking a graphical tool to manage users and groups in Ubuntu Desktop? Try the classic Gnome user settings tool.

A user is anyone who uses a computer, and users may be grouped together into a “group”. Users and groups are used to control access to the system’s files, directories, and peripherals.

For those hate Linux commands, the classic GUI tool, which was default in Ubuntu when it was Gnome 2, allows to add, remove, edit users and groups.

Like system default User Settings, it offers options to add, remove, and edit all user accounts. Though there are a few differences:

It can generate random password for user account.
Automatic login option seems not working.
Custom user privileges under Advanced Settings.

By clicking on “Manage Groups” button, you can then add, remove, edit groups.

To add or remove a user from a group, simply go to group properties, and check or un-check the user name under Group Numbers.

To install the GUI user and group managing tool, open terminal from system app launcher and run command:

sudo apt install gnome-system-tools

Then search for and open “Users and Groups” from system app launcher and enjoy!

In Gnome Shell Users and Groups

Fix VirtualBox Shared Folder Is Locked / Unable to Open in Ubuntu 21.04

Last updated: May 14, 2021

Running Ubuntu as virtual machine via VirtualBox? You may encounter permission issue to access the shared folder between host and guest.

Shared Folders is an useful feature for file sync between Virtualbox host and guest OSes. However, after you created one, the shared folder is marked with cross and lock icons. And it pops up an error dialog when you trying to open it:

Unhandled error message:
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.Error.Failed: Unix process subject does not have uid set.

Or it prompts permission issue while accessing from the left pane in file manager:

You do not have permissions necessary to view the contents of “xxx”

Fix shared folder permission issue:

The shared folder belongs to vboxsf group in the guest. All you need to do is add your user into this group.

There are a few ways to add an user to a group. Here I’m going to do it via a single command:

Firstly, start the virtual machine and login.
Open a terminal window from system app launcher.
When terminal opens, run command to check your username in case you don’t remember:
```
whoami
```
Finally add user to vboxsf group (replace USER_NAME with what printed in last command.):
```
sudo adduser USER_NAME vboxsf
```

Restart VM to apply change and enjoy!

In Howtos Virtualbox

Szyszka – New Fast Batch File Renamer For Linux, Windows, Mac

Last updated: May 13, 2021

Szyszka is a new batch file renaming tool written in Rust programming language with GTK+ 3 toolkit. And it works on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.

The name, Szyszka, is Polish word which means Pinecone. The tool has a very simple user interface, simple click “Add Entries”, press and hold Shift, or Ctrl to select your desired files. Add folder is not supported in the first 1.0 release, it is however marked as planned feature.

You can then add multiple rules which can be freely combined:

Replace text
Trim text
Adding text
Adding numbers
Purge text
Change letters to big/small
Use custom rule

While adding rules, it shows example at bottom with before and after change which is extremely helpful for beginners.

How to Get Szyszka in Ubuntu:

The tool is available in Ubuntu Software as Snap package. Before installing it, you can try the .Appimage package which is available to download in the releases page:

Download Szyszka (Appimage)

Once you get it, right-click and go to file ‘Properties’ dialog. Then check “Allow executing file as program” in Permissions tab. Finally right-click and select ‘Run’ the Appimage.

As a new project, there may have bugs. Please report issue at the Github page.

In App Review file renamer

Kodi Media Center 19.1 Released! How to Install in Ubuntu 21.04

Last updated: May 12, 2021

Kodi 19.1, the first update for the “Matrix” series, was released with various bug-fixes.

The new release of the media player and entertainment hub contains mainly bug-fixes. It fixed HDR metadata detection issue, playback of optical DVDs in Linux, and BD-J Blu-ray chapter skipping via remotes/keyboard.

System fonts and use fonts detection for ASS subtitles, as well as rendering of semi-transparent ASS subtitles on Wayland are now fixed in the release.

Kodi 19.1 also enabled filecaching by default for network filesystems, improved reliability for HTTP and NFS network filesystems, and added support for WS-Discovery protocol to locate SMB servers and browse shared folders via SMBv3.

Other changes in the release include:

Fixed media flagging for DVD/BluRay
Fixed incorrect HDR metadata
Fixed green screen when playing the menu of some DVDs
See the release note for more.

How to Install Kodi 19.1 in Ubuntu:

The official Kodi PPA has made the packages for all current Ubuntu releases including Ubuntu 21.04.

Open terminal either from system app launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, do following steps one by one.

1. Add Kodi PPA.

To add the official Kodi PPA, run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

Type user password when it asks, with no asterisk feedback, and hit Enter to continue.

2. Install / Update Kodi.

If you’re now running the stock version of Kodi package in Ubuntu, the Software Updater will refused to update it. So it’s recommended to use the command below to install or update the media player.

Firstly refresh system package cache, if you’re on Ubuntu 18.04, via command:

sudo apt update

Then install Kodi via command:

sudo apt install kodi

Once installed Kodi, either launch it from system app launcher or log out and select “Kodi” session to login.

How to Downgrade:

You can purge the Ubuntu PPA as well as downgrade Kodi to the stock version available in Ubuntu main repositories. To do so, run command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

In News XBMC media center

HP Printer Driver HPLIP 3.21.4 Released with HP Envy 6400 Support

Last updated: May 24, 2021

HP printer drivers for Linux, HPLIP, released version 3.21.4 today with new devices and Linux distros support.

HPLIP 3.21.4 is a small release adds HP Envy 6400 series printers support, and adds new systems LinuxMint 20.1, Debian 10.8 support. Ubuntu 21.04 is not yet supported though it has been released for a few weeks.

And it does not install in Ubuntu 20.04 in my case, though it works in Ubuntu 20.10 and Ubuntu 18.04.

Download & Install HPLIP 3.21.4:

HPLIP packages are hosted on sourceforge.net, go to link below and download the “hplip-3.21.4.run” package:

Download HPLIP (.run)

Then open Downloads folder in file manager, right-click on blank area and select “Open in Terminal”.

When terminal opens, firstly run command to add executable permission to the file:

chmod +x hplip-3.21.4.run

Then run it to start installing the driver:

./hplip-3.21.4.run

Answer some questions in terminal outputs and done.

In News HP Print Driver for Linux

How to Install FFMPEG 4.4 via PPA in Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04

Last updated: October 16, 2022

FFmpeg 4.4 “Rao” now can be installed in all current Ubuntu releases easily via an Ubuntu PPA.

FFmpeg is a free and open-source solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. The major 4.4 version was released almost a months ago with PGX decoder, AV1 encoding support SVT-AV1, AV1 decoder with hardware acceleration used only, AV1 VAAPI decoder, and so many other new features.

Thanks to Rob Savoury, an Ubuntu PPA is available contains the packages for all current Ubuntu releases.

1.) Add the PPA:

Firstly open terminal either from system app launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run the command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2.) (Optional) Add optional PPAs:

For newest versions of graphics and multimedia dependencies, you can also add the following PPAs by running commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/graphics

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/multimedia

3.) Finally install / update FFmpeg:

As a widely used media library, it’s mostly installed on your system. So you can run command to upgrade it in terminal:

sudo apt full-upgrade

NOTE: using Software Updater is not recommended in the case. It may keep back FFmpeg since old libraries may be required for some apps, Pitivi in the case.

4.) Check FFmpeg version:

Once installed, run command to check software version:

ffmpeg -version

How to Restore Stock FFmpeg version:

You can purge the Ubuntu PPA which will also downgrade FFmpeg libraries to the stock version in Ubuntu. Also purging the FFmpeg PPA may also remove some apps for unknown reasons :(.

Firstly install ppa-purge tool via command: