UbuntuHandbook

Ubuntu 24.10 Wallpaper Contest Opens for 20th Anniversary

Last updated: July 20, 2024 — Leave a comment

Wallpaper Contest for the upcoming Ubuntu 24.10, Oracular Oriole, is open, accept artwork for the 20th anniversary!

Like the last wallpaper contest, the artwork submissions are separated into 4 categories. Each category will have 2 winners, and finally 8 mixed images will be included in the Ubuntu 24.10 disc image as optional wallpapers.

With Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu is reaching the 20th anniversary. So, this time the contest includes a category that’s specially for the two decade anniversary of Ubuntu. While 3 others are Mascot Theme, Digital / Abstract, and Photography.

image by romactu1 from 24.10 wallpaper contest

In News Ubuntu 24.10, wallpaper

Use Android / iPhone to Remote Control Ubuntu Desktop

Last updated: July 19, 2024 — 2 Comments

This simple tutorial shows how to use your Android or iOS Phone as remote input (e.g, touchpad, send command) for Ubuntu and other Linux Desktop.

KDE community has an popular free open-source software project called KDE Connect. It enables ability to communicate between your computer (Linux, macOS, and Windows) and mobile devices (Android and iOS) in local network.

With it, you can send photos, videos, and files between paired devices, share clipboard, and do remote actions such as:

- Send remote commands, such as log out, power-off, restart, and custom commands.
- Use your phone as touchpad for PC.
- Slideshow remote
- Remote Multimedia control

There are as well features to send SMS from PC, “Ring” your phone to help find it, and browser your files on Mobile Phone. However, the features may NOT work due to either permission issues or requirement of running mobile app in foreground.

In Howtos GSConnect, KDE Connect

Blender 4.2 LTS Released with EEVEE Render Engine, Extensions Support

Last updated: July 18, 2024 — Leave a comment

Blender, the popular free open-source 3D animation software, announced new 4.2 release few days ago this Tuesday!

Blender 4.2 is a Long Term Support (LTS) release with 2 years support for critical fixes. It introduced new EEVEE render engine, which is completely rewritten from scratch.

The new engine features screen space global illumination, real displacement, better Subsurface Scattering, much more stable Dithered volumetrics result while navigating the scene, motion blur in 3D viewport, as well as:

Virtual Shadow maps,
unlimited BSDFs and unlimited number of lights,
New Transparent Shadows option,
multi-trheaded shader compilation,
Shadow Map Raytracing and more.

In News blender

Audacity 3.6.0 Released with New & Master Effects [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: July 18, 2024 — 3 Comments

Audacity audio editor announced new major 3.6.0 release few days ago. Here are the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu users.

The new release features new Master Effects. By clicking “Effects” button in app window, it will now show you Realtime Effects and Master Effects options for choice. While, the new Master Effects allows to apply effects to the entire project at once.

In News audacity, Audio

GNOME 47 Finally Adding Accent Color Support

Last updated: July 29, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME 47, the next release of the popular Linux Desktop environment, is in alpha stage now!

GNOME 47, which is scheduled to be released on Sep 14, 2024, will be the default desktop for next Ubuntu 24.10 and Fedora Workstation 41 if everything goes well.

The first alpha development release was out a few days ago. Which, introduced accent color support!

Ubuntu since 22.04 already has the feature out-of-the-box. Under “Appearance” settings page, there are some big dots with different colors under “Style” section. They are called accent colors. Choose one from there will apply the color to all toggle switches, check-boxes, slider-bars, selection borders, etc in the desktop.

In News Gnome, Ubuntu 24.10

Linux Kernel 6.10 Released with Many New Hardware Support

Last updated: August 8, 2024 — 2 Comments

Linux Kernel 6.10 was finally released a day ago on this Sunday. Linus Torvalds announced on this page:

“So the final week was perhaps not quote as quiet as the preceding ones, which I don’t love – but it also wasn’t noisy enough to warrant an extra rc. And much of the noise this last week was bcachefs again (with netfs a close second), so it was all pretty compartmentalized.

In fact, about a third of the patch for the last week was filesystem-related (there were also some btrfs latency fixes and other noise), which is unusual, but none of it looks particularly scary.”

In News kernel

OBS Studio 30.2 Adds Native NVIDIA NVENC Encoder for Linux, Multitrack Video Streaming

Last updated: July 14, 2024 — Leave a comment

OBS Studio, the popular free open-source live streaming software, announced new major 30.2.0 release a day ago.

The new release has some improvements for Linux support. They include native NVENC encoder interface for NVIDIA GPU hardware accelerated encoding, and NVENC AV1 support. And, Linux shared texture support to the NVENC encoder, QuickSync encoder, as well as VA-API encoder.

OBS Studio 30.2.0 also added multi-track video streaming support, aka Enhanced Broadcasting on Twitch.

To improve the experience for viewers with poor network conditions or those watching on older devices, the streaming service usually creates multiple video qualities of original high-quality source content.

Now, OBS Studio itself can produce multiple video qualities, though, it so far supports only Windows and requires NVIDIA GTX 900, GTX 10, or RTX 20 series GPU or newer or an AMD RX 6000 series GPU or newer. And, it will collect info, such as OBS version and audio/video settings, CPU, GPU, Memory, and OS info and set to the streaming service.

In News network, OBS Studio

Enable Top Panel for Multiple Monitors in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: July 28, 2024 — 5 Comments

Have Ubuntu computer connected with multiple monitors? Here’s how to make the top panel show in all displays!

GNOME, the default desktop in Ubuntu, so far only shows the top-panel in the primary display. There is a multi-monitors-add-on extension, allowing to make it work in all displays. However, it’s no longer in development and supports end at GNOME 3.38.

Thankfully, there’s open-source fork of that extension with GNOME from version 42 to 46 support, meaning for Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 12, Fedora Workstation, RHEL 9 , and other Linux with recent GNOME.

In Howtos Gnome

6 Sticky Notes App for Linux Desktop in 2024

Last updated: July 11, 2024 — Leave a comment

Looking for Microsoft Sticky Notes alternative app for Linux Desktop? Here I’m going to introduce some for you.

Sticky Notes is useful to write your sudden idea, to-do lists, and important messages on computer screen. There are quite a few free open-source sticky notes apps for Linux Desktop. And, here are some of them still work in 2024.

In App Review note-taking app, sticky notes

Firefox 128.0 Adds Translation support for Selected Text

Last updated: July 10, 2024 — Leave a comment

Firefox web browser announced new 128.0 release one day ago on Tuesday.

This is a new monthly release that introduces some handy new features. They include context menu option to translate a selection of text. Rather than translate full web page, user can now highlight single or a selection of text, then use right-click and select to translate the text.