UbuntuHandbook

How to Easily Setup Home Media Server in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: July 10, 2024 — 1 Comment

This simple tutorial shows how to easily turn your Ubuntu or Debian into home media server, so that you can listen to the music, watch photos and videos that are stored in Linux PC remotely using your mobile phones and/or smart TVs.

GNOME, the default desktop in Ubuntu and Fedora Workstation, has built-in option to enable this feature. It uses Rygel home media solution as backend.

It automatically transcode media to a format compatible with the client device. And, client machines that supports DLNA/UPnP, such as Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, smart TV, Android, iOS, can access them through the local network.
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In Howtos multimedia, network

How to Install Dolphin Emulator 2412 in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: December 2, 2024 — 1 Comment

This tutorial shows how to install the latest dolphin emulator (2412 updated) through either Flatpak or PPA repository in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04.

It’s been 8 years since the latest major 5.0 release series. The Nintendo video game console emulator finally announced Dolphin 2407, which uses new date-based versioning scheme. 2407 means version released in July of 2024.

According to the announcement, it adopts a rolling release cycle, and will roll out new releases every few months. The development releases will have sub-numbers, for example, Dolphin 2407-144 means dev build with 144 commits after 2407. And, hotfix releases will have the addition of a suffix, so it can be Dolphin 2407a.

In Howtos Dolphin Emulator, game

LocalSend – AirDrop Alternative to Transfer files over Local Network

Last updated: July 5, 2024 — Leave a comment

Looking for an app to transfer files and send messages over local network? LocalSend is good choice that works for most devices.

LocalSend is a free and open source application which promotes itself as alternative to Apple’s AirDrop. It’s a cross-platform app that allows to securely send files and messages over local network without an internet connection.

It works in Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Fire OS. Meaning you can use the file transfer app in most PC and mobile devices. And, the app doesn’t require an internet connection or external servers. It uses REST API for secure communication. All data is sent securely over HTTPS, and the TLS/SSL certificate is generated on the fly on each device.

In App Review network

Linux Mint 22 Beta is Available for Testing

Last updated: July 3, 2024 — Leave a comment

Linux Mint, the popular Linux Distribution, announced version 22 Beta release this Monday!

The new release is based on Ubuntu 24.04, features Cinnamon Desktop 6.2, and supports until 2029.

Thanks to the upstream changes, the release now is powered by Linux Kernel 6.8 with updated drivers and modern hardware support. The default PulseAudio is replaced by the low latency Pipewire sound server. JPEG-XL (.jxl) is supported out-of-the-box with the default Pix image viewer. The boot splash and login screen have better HiDPI support.

In News Linux Mint

Show Spotify Playback Info in Top-bar in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: July 2, 2024 — Leave a comment

Spotify users? Here’s an extension that can display the current track information in Ubuntu top-bar.

It’s spotify-tray, a free open-source tool available as GNOME Shell Extension, that can show title, artist, and/or album of current playing song or podcast in top-panel.

The extension is very simple and customizable. You can control:

Where (left, center, or right) to display the playback info in top-bar.
What to display, including track, artist, album, custom text, emoji (via built-in selector).
Display in static mode, or horizontally scrolling marquee.

In Howtos spotify

Krita 5.2.3 Released with Numerous Bug-Fixes (Ubuntu PPA)

Last updated: June 30, 2024 — Leave a comment

The popular free open-source digital painting software, Krita, released version 5.2.3 a few days ago.

The release rework the build system, so the CI can be built in all 4 platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android).

Besides that, Krita 5.2.3 fixed various bugs, including crash on saving webp images, crashes when inserting keyframe columns when there’s a transform mask, animation playback freezes when pausing past the end of audio, batch exporter python plugin does not respect trimming flag, and various fixes to tool canvas input shortcut behavior.
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In News image editor, Krita

NVIDIA 555.58 Stable Released! GSP Firmware Enabled by Default

Last updated: June 29, 2024 — Leave a comment

NVIDIA announced the first stable release of the 555 series driver for Linux few days ago.

It’s NVIDIA 555.58, the latest new feature branch version. The release now uses GSP firmware by default on all GPUs that support it (e.g., Tesla T4, T10, A100 series).

GSP, stands for GPU System Processor, acts like a CPU embedded into the GPU, it can be used to offload GPU initialization and management tasks. To disable this feature, user can just add NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0 kernel parameter to /etc/default/grub config file if boot with Grub2.

In News nvidia

OpenShot 3.2.0 Released with Great Performance Improvement

Last updated: June 29, 2024 — Leave a comment

OpenShot released version 3.2.0 a few days ago with great performance improvements.

OpenShot is a free open-source Qt-based video editor works on Linux, Windows, and macOS. Due to its beginner friendly menu options, built-in title templates, and animated titles (Blender powered), I prefer it over Kdenlive and Shotcut.

However, the video editor was sluggish, froze frequently, and slow for video preview playback every time after made changes. It made me crazy quite often, so I turned to learn using Kdenlive for basic editing.

In OpenShot 3.2.0, the video editor has significant performance enhancements. It’s now running smoothly out-of-the-box in my Ubuntu 24.04 laptop!

In News OpenShot Video Editor, video editor

6 Free Apps to Edit / Annotate PDF Files in Ubuntu Desktop

Last updated: June 28, 2024 — 4 Comments

Looking for an app to sign, annotate, or edit PDF files in Ubuntu Linux? Here I’m going to introduce some for you!

PDF, stands for Portable Document Format, is a file format that’s popular for office use. Besides using Adobe Acrobat, Linux has quite a few applications that can edit this file format.

1. Firefox

In App Review PDF

How to Hide GNOME Top Bar in Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04 or 20.04

Last updated: June 25, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to hide (or auto-hide) the top bar in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and/or Ubuntu 20.04 with default GNOME Desktop.

Like the left (or bottom, if you moved it to) dock panel, the top bar can be hidden in Ubuntu and other Linux with GNOME Desktop to save screen space. And, this can be done by using one of the following extensions:

Just Perfection – GNOME UI & behavior config tool with many toggle options, including hide top-bar.
Hide Top-bar – support intellihide, that hides only when app window hit screen top or maximized.
Hide Panel Lite – very light version that only hide top-bar, except in overview. However, so far supports ends at GNOME 42.
Dock Unroll – light version that support GNOME 46.

In Howtos Gnome