Archives For jimingkui

No patience with common video editors (e.g., Kdenlive and Openshot) as they can take hours to export a video after trimming / cutting it? Try LosslessCut.

LosslessCut is a cross platform tool for lossless trimming / cutting of video and audio files. The software is extremely fast, it does the job in seconds without losing quality because it simply cuts the data stream and directly copies it over.

With LosslessCut, you can do:

  • Losslessly trim or cut out parts of video/audio
  • Lossless merge/concatenation of arbitrary files (identical codec parameters)
  • Lossless stream editing: Combine arbitrary tracks from multiple files
  • Losslessly extract all tracks from a file
  • Remux into any compatible output format
  • Take full-resolution snapshots from videos in JPEG/PNG format
  • Apply a per-file timecode offset in the preview
  • Change rotation/orientation metadata in videos
  • Powerful timeline with zoom and frame/keyframe jumping
  • Auto-saves per project cut segments to file
  • View ffmpeg last command log so you can modify and re-run modify recent commands on the command line
  • Give labels to cut segments
  • Segment panel showing segments with details, export/import cut segments as CSV
  • Video thumbnails and audio waveform
  • Cut out commercials from a recorded TV show
  • Replace audio track
  • Include a subtitle into a video
  • Extract audio, video, oro subtitle track from video

How to Get LosslessCut in Ubuntu:

There’s no .deb binary package for the software so far. You can either download the appimage or Linux tarball from the link below:

You can choose:

  • grab the .appimage package, give executable permission in file Properties, finally run it to launch the software.
  • or download the Linux tarball, extract and run the executable file to open the video editor.

Launch Lossless Cut executable from portable Linux tarball

The software is also available in Ubuntu Software as Snap package. The package version is however lag behind.

For those OK with Linux universal Flatpak package, LosslessCut can be also installed via the flathub repository.

Going to free up Ubuntu system disk space? Try clearing the systemd journal logs, it may free up a few GB of space.

NOTE: This tutorial is tested and works in my case in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 20.04

By using the Disk Usage Analyzer tool, I found that /var/log/journal takes more than 4 GB system space in my Ubuntu 20.04.

Systemd has its own logging system called the journal, and the log files are stored in /var/log/journal. As long as I don’t need the logs for any debugging, it’s safe to delete these files. And following steps will show you how.

1. First open terminal from system app launcher, and you may run command to check out the current disk usage of all journal files:

journalctl --disk-usage

2. If you decide to clear the logs, run command to rotate the journal files. All currently active journal files will be marked as archived, so that they are never written to in future.

sudo journalctl --rotate

3. Now clear the journal logs by choosing one of following commands:

  • Delete journal logs older than X days:
    sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=2days
  • Delete log files until the disk space taken falls below the specified size:
    sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=100M
  • Delete old logs and limit file number to X:
    sudo journalctl --vacuum-files=5

4. You can also edit the configuration file to limit the journal log disk usage (100 MB for example).

Run command in terminal to edit the file via Gedit text editor (For 24.04+, replace gedit with gnome-text-editor or use nano that works in most desktops):

sudo -H gedit /etc/systemd/journald.conf

When the file opens, un-comment (remove # at the beginning) the line #SystemMaxUse= and change it to SystemMaxUse=100M.

Finally, save the file (for nano, press Ctrl+S then Ctrl+X) and reload systemd daemon via command:

systemctl daemon-reload

That’s all, Enjoy!

Want to install Google Fonts in Ubuntu? The GTK+ Font Manager now adds support for Google Fonts integration.

Font Manager is a simple font management tool for GTK+ desktop environment. By releasing version 0.8.0, it adds support for downloading and managing Google Web Fonts, so that you can use Google Fonts for off-line use on your desktop.

Font Manager 0.8 changelog:

  • Fix FTBFS with Vala 0.50+
  • Add Google Fonts integration via G button on header bar.
  • Require WebKitGtk and libsoup
  • Allow saving compare lists contents
  • Add GNOME Shell search provider
  • Update Unicode data to 13.0
  • Update vendor data

How to Install Font Manager 0.8.0 in Ubuntu 20.04:

The software has an official staging PPA contains the latest packages for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 20.10.

1. Open terminal from your system application launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:font-manager/staging

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) for sudo prompts and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then upgrade the font manager, if an old version was installed, via Software Updater. Or run command in terminal to install it:

sudo apt install font-manager

Uninstall Font Manager

To remove the PPA repository, either go to Software & Updates -> Other Software tab, or run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:font-manager/staging

And remove the font manager if you want via command:

sudo apt remove font-manager font-manager-common

GNU Octave 6.1 was released a few days ago with numerous improvements, bug-fixes, and a list of new functions.

Changes in Octave 6.1 include:

  • New sorting option "stable" for intersect, setdiff, setxor, union, and unique functions.
  • Support for cookies to enable RESTful communication with the web service.
  • System web browser can be opened by web function.
  • Numerical integration has been improved.
  • New format command options: uppercase and lowercase (default).
  • Deprecated Qt4 support.
  • Completely rewritten of the legend function.
  • Updated the axis function and many other graphics backend improvements.
  • matlab compatibility improvements.
  • Remove deprecated functions and properties.
  • Add a list of new functions.

How to Get Octave in Ubuntu:

There’s no PPA repository contains the new release package at the moment of writing.

Before the official Snap package and the community maintained Flatpak package publish the new package, you can download & build GNU Octave from the source tarball:

Looking for a mastodon client for Linux? Tootle is a simple free and open-source GTK-based Mastodon client with dark mode support.

NOTE: The Tootle project has discontinued! There will be no security updates and bug-fixes!

Tootle is a client for the world’s largest free, open-source, decentralized microblogging network with real-time notifications and multiple accounts support.

Mastodon is lovely crafted with power and speed in mind, resulting in a free, independent and popular alternative to the centralized social networks.

Anyone can run a server of Mastodon. Each server hosts individual user accounts, the content they produce, and the content they are subscribed. Every user can follow each other and share their posts regardless of their server.

Tootle is available in Ubuntu universe repositories since Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. You can simply open terminal and run command to install it:

sudo apt install tootle

You can also search for and install the client in Ubuntu Software. You’ll see two Tootle packages as it also available via containerized SNAP package.

Go check the package details via “source” section before installing the package.

CPUPower-GUI is a simple graphical utility allows to change the frequency limits of your cpu and its governor.

With the tool, you can easily change the frequency settings on per CPU core basis. Just choose a profile you want to configure, then highlight each cpu core, and set its minimize and maximize frequency using the slider-bars. By default, it has only built-in “Balanced” and “Performance” profiles, but you can create your own in “Profiles” tab and set its frequency for each core as you prefer.

You can also change the cpu governor profiles, Performance and Balanced. And the profiles can be selected easily from the system tray indicator menu.

After setup your profiles, you can configure which to use on startup along with a few other options in the second Preference tab.

How to Install cpupower-gui in Ubuntu:

The software is available in Ubuntu universe repositories since Ubuntu 20.04. The package however is always old.

UPDATE: the 1.0.0 release do NOT work in Ubuntu 22.04 and higher !!

The software developer now offers the official .deb packages for downloading in the Github releases page:

Download and install the .deb package. Then press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and install it via:

sudo apt install ./Downloads/cpupower-gui*all.deb

For Linux Mint, grab the last 3 .deb packages instead and install them using Gdeb package installer.

For the source tarball and more about the utility, go to github project page.

This is a beginner’s guide shows how to remove the ‘Show Applications’ app menu icon from the dock in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04

Why to remove the icon:

The default ‘Show Applications’ app launcher is always a bit slow when I clicking on the 9 dots icon on left dock to show the app menu, even after disabled animation and changed privacy settings.

And I only use it to search for and open applications, which can be done alternatively via the top-left Activities button.

In brief, it’s slow and I use Activities button to search for and open applications.

How to Remove it:

If you’re familiar with Linux command, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run command:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock show-show-apps-button false

That’s it.

You can alternatively open Dconf Editor (install via Ubuntu Software if you don’t have it) and navigate to “org/gnome/shell/extensions/dash-to-dock”.

Then turn off the toggle for the key ‘show-show-apps-button’.

(Optional) To restore the change, either use Dconf Editor or run command:

gsettings reset org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock show-show-apps-button

Blender 2.91 was released on Wednesday as the fourth major release in 2020. It features the user experience improvements, powerful new booleans, better cloth sculpting with support for collisions, volume objects modifiers, improved animation tools and more.

Changes in Blender 2.91 include:

  • Introduce collision support for the sculpt cloth brush and filter.
  • New Sculpt Trim tool.
  • Curve and text objects now support for custom bevel profiles
  • New modifier for volume objects allows to dynamically convert them into a mesh, ideal for stylized fluids.
  • Convert any mesh into a volume and combine it with the new Volume Displace modifier.
  • Convert images into Grease Pencil objects with just one click!
  • New Holdout option in materials allows to paint holes in strokes and filled areas.
  • Property search, Fuzzy search support.
  • Colors, drag & drop supports in outliner.
  • Animation curves can now become much snappier.
  • Once click to convert proxy objects into overrides.
  • And much more other changes, see the release note.

How to Install Blender 2.91 in Ubuntu:

Blender offers official Ubuntu binary via Snap package, which can be installed directly from Ubuntu Software.

Blender also available as universal Flatpak package, which can be installed from flathub.org repository.

For those prefer installing .deb package via apt, there’s a well trusted Ubuntu PPA available though it’s not updated to v2.91 at the moment of writing.

The first update for qBittorrent 4.3 series was released today with some new features, bug-fixes, and web UI changes.

Changes in qBittorrent 4.3.1 include:

  • Allow progress bar styling from custom themes.
  • Allow adding torrents using “Paste” key sequence.
  • Add Latgalian translation.
  • Avoid settings being reset via WebAPI.
  • WEBUI: Fix the issue that IPv6 address can’t be banned.
  • Update dutch.nsi for Windows.
  • Update .desktop shortcut file translations for Linux.
  • And various bug-fixes.

How to Install qBittorrent via PPA:

The official qBittorrent PPA has built the new release packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and derivatives.

1. To add the PPA, open terminal by either pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or searching for “Terminal” from application menu. When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:qbittorrent-team/qbittorrent-stable

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

2. If an old version was installed on your system, upgrade it via Software Updater,

or run following commands to install /upgrade qBittorrent in terminal:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install qbittorrent

Uninstall:

To remove qBittorrent PPA, either go to Software & Updates -> Other Software, or run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:qbittorrent-team/qbittorrent-stable

To remove the bittorrent client, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove qbittorrent

Editing files regularly with the default text editor in Ubuntu? Without looking your documents through Files (Nautilus file browser), gedit offers a built-in file browser mode to make life easy.

And this is the beginner’s guide shows you how to enable this built-in file browser mode in Gedit text editor.

1. First open the text editor either from system applications menu or by click opening a document file.

2. When the editor opens, go to menu (the icon after Save button) -> View, and enable Side Panel. You can alternatively press F9 on keyboard to toggle ‘Side Panel’ on / off.

3. After enabled ‘Side Panel’, click on the ‘Documents’ button in window’s header and select ‘File Browser’.

4. That’s it. You now have a file tree in the left panel of the text editor window, allows to easy access user files / folders, bookmarks, and full file system.