Archives For jimingkui

Virtualbox

Oracle Virtualbox 6.1.12 was released a day ago as the sixth maintenance release for the 6.1 series.

Oracle Virtualbox 6.1.12 release highlights:

  • UI fixes for Log-Viewer search-backward icon
  • Fixes and improvements for the BusLogic SCSI controller emulation
  • Regression fixes in FIFO data handling
  • Experimental new type of network attachment, allowing local VM to act as if it was run in cloud
  • Improved resource management in the guest control functionality
  • Fixed command option parsing for the “snapshot edit” sub-command
  • Fix crash of ‘VBoxManage internalcommands repairhd’ when processing invalid input.
  • Guest Additions:
    • New experimental 3D GLX graphics output
    • Fixed releasing texture objects, which could cause guest crashes
    • Fixed writes to a file on a shared folder not being reflected on the host when the file is mmap’ed and the used Linux kernel is between version 4.10.0 and 4.11.x
    • Fixed the shared folder driver on 32bit Windows 8 and newer returning an error when flushing writes to a file which is mapped into memory under rare circumstances
    • Improve resize coverage for VMSVGA graphics controller
    • Fix issues detecting guest additions ISO at runtime
    • Fixed German translation encoding for Windows GA installer

How to Install VirtualBox 6.1.12 in Ubuntu:

The official .deb packages are available for download at the link below:

If you’ve already added the Oracle apt repository for Linux, install the updates simply via Software Updater.

Or add the apt repository by running following commands one by one:

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), paste below command and run to add the repository:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list'

For Linux Mint, you HAVE to replace $(lsb_release -sc) in the command with bionic for Mint 19.x, or xenial for Mint 18.x, or focal for Linux Mint 20.

2. Then download and install the repository key via command:

wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

3. Refresh system package cache via command:

sudo apt update

4. Finally install Virtualbox 6.1:

sudo apt install virtualbox-6.1

Uninstall:

To remove it, simply run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove virtualbox-6.1

And go to Software & Updates -> Other Software to remove apt repositories.

Python 3.8.4 was released a few days ago as the latest stable release of the Python language. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 16.04.

This is the first bugfix release that is considerably smaller than the previous three. There’s almost 20% fewer changes at 162 commits than the average of previous three bugfix releases. Detailed information about all changes made in version 3.8.4 specifically can be found in its change log. Note that compared to 3.8.3, version 3.8.4 also contains the changes introduced in 3.8.4rc1.

The deadsnakes team maintains unofficial Python packages for different Ubuntu releases. Note the PPA does not contain Python 3.8 for Ubuntu 20.04 as upstream ubuntu provides the package.

Install Python 3.8.4 in Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04:

1.) Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, or by searching for ‘terminal’ from system application launcher.

When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa

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

2.) Then run commands to refresh system package cache, and install Python 3.8:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3.8

3.) Once successfully installed, check your system Python versions (python –version):

4.) (Optional) To use Python 3.8 as the default python3, run commands:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.6 1

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.8 2

For Ubuntu 16.04 replace python3.6 with python3.5. And you can then switch between the two Python3 versions via command:

sudo update-alternatives --config python3

NOTE: Due to known bug, terminal won’t open if you changed python3 symlink. An workaround is recreate a symlink via command (For Ubuntu 16.04 replace python3.6 with python3.5):

sudo rm /usr/bin/python3; sudo ln -s python3.6 /usr/bin/python3

Uninstall:

To uninstall the Python3.8 packages, run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove python3.8 python3.8-minimal

To remove the Deadsnakes PPA, launch Software & Updates and go to Other Software tab, then remove the repository line and close the window.

Advanced clipboard manager CopyQ 3.12.0 was released yesterday with new script function, dark mode improvements, and various bug-fixes.

CopyQ is a free open-source clipboard editor with editing and scripting features. The latest version so far is CopyQ 3.12.0 that features:

  • Unsaved data are now saved whenever application is unfocused
  • Filter field in commands can now modify menu items.
  • Application icon will no longer automatically change when there is an ongoing
    operation.
  • New preview() script function shows/hides item preview.
  • Use brighter bar for pinned items with a dark theme
  • Improved notification text line wrapping
  • Improved layout when showing many shortcut buttons
  • Fix SSL/TLS errors on Windows.

How to Install Copyq 3.12.0 in Ubuntu:

The official PPA repository has made the latest packages for all current Ubuntu releases.

1. To add the PPA, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) from application menu and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hluk/copyq

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

2. Then install CopyQ either via Synaptic package manager or by running commands in terminal:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install copyq

Once installed, start the clipboard manager from application menu and you’ll see the icon in system tray area.

Uninstall:

To remove the software, either use Synaptic package manager or run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove copyq

To remove PPA repositories, launch Software & Updates and navigate to Other Software tab.

This simple shows how to easily download & install Google web fonts in Ubuntu and other Linux through 3 different applications.

There are quite a few handy applications that can help downloading & installing Google Web Fonts for offline use in Ubuntu. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you 3 of them, including Font Manager, Font Downloader, and TypeCatcher.

Option 1: Font Manager

Font Manager is a free open-source app for GTK Desktop environments. It allows to preview, download & install Google Web Fonts, or install fonts from local files.

The app works in 3 different modes: Manage, Browse, and Compare. Which can be switched by clicking to top-left button.

While “Manage” mode allows to install, uninstall, preview fonts, “Browse” mode allows you to preview all installed fonts in different categories. As well, it provides option to compare selected fonts (from all installed) side by side.

It as well has command line options, to list, enable, disable, and install fonts in terminal or console.

Besides that, Font Manager also includes extra features, including:

  • Change system fonts.
  • Active/De-active installed fonts.
  • Import/Export.
  • Add custom user actions.
  • And more.

Install Font Manager

Font Manager is available in most Linux repositories.

Ubuntu users can simply search for and install it from either Ubuntu Software or App Center. Or, just press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run command to install:

sudo apt install font-manager

For feature requires and bugs, just go to its Github project page.

Option 2: TypeCatcher

TypeCatcher is a GTK app designed to search, browse, and download Google webfonts for off-line use. It’s a 12 years old app that’s still working today, though the app rarely gets update now.

The app provides a quite basic UI, allowing to search and browse Google Fonts, preview with selected or custom text in different size. Along with buttons to install, uninstall, and open font URL page in web browser. All the Google fonts are installed to .fonts/typecatcher folder. Just open Files (nautilus file browser) and press Ctrl+H to view them.

Install Typecatcher:

The app is available in Debian and Ubuntu system repositories. User can either open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install the package:

sudo apt install typecatcher

Or, search for and get it from Ubuntu Software, App Center, or your system package manager.

NOTE: TypeCatcher does NOT launch in Ubuntu 22.04 due to bug, see this step by step tutorial to fix it. In Ubuntu 24.04, it takes quite a few seconds to launch, perhaps due to poor network connection issue.

Option 3: Font Downloader

For choice, Font Downloader is another tool can download & install Google Web Fonts for offline use in Linux Desktops.

The app provides a quite basic user interface, to search, browse, and install fonts! However, I don’t find an option to uninstall.

The only difference to other 2, is that the app provide a button to download font only without install. So, you can use the .tff font files anywhere else.

Get Font Downloader

Ubuntu 24.04 and Debian Sid can get the app simply from system repository, either by running the command below in terminal:

sudo apt install font-downloader

Or, use App Center or system package manager to search & install it as .deb (Debian) package.

For most other Linux, the app is available to install as universal Flatpak package.

(Optional) Change Fonts in Ubuntu Desktop

To change your system fonts in Ubuntu, Fedora Workstation, and other Linux with GNOME Desktop environment. Simply install GNOME Tweaks from system package manager.

Then, you can easily change the font of Interface text, Document text, and Monospace text in the first tab of the app window.

GScan2PDF, graphical to produce PDFs or DjVus from scanned documents, released version 2.8.1 a day ago.

The previous program launching issue should be fixed in the release, though it didn’t happen in my machine. Gscan2pdf 2.8.1 release highlights:

  • Pass resolution to tesseract to avoid messages like “Warning! Invalid resolution 0 dpi. Using 70 instead”
  • Cope better if data model becomes corrupted
  • Add restart option to ‘device not found’ mini-wizard & if tmp directory changed.
  • When saving a session file, note that pages have been saved to avoid ‘Some pages have not been saved. Do you really want to quit?’ message.
  • Improvements to the Crashed sessions dialog to make it more intuitive.
  • Update position of OCR text when cropping
  • Create PS level 3 instead of 1.
  • Fix check for unpaper version. (Scan fails if unpaper is not installed but selected in post processing)
  • Fix check for tesseract version. Remove support for tesseract
  • Update translations.

How to Install gscan2pdf 2.8.1 in Ubuntu:

The official Gscan2PDF PPA has made the new release packages for all current Ubuntu releases, and their derivatives, including Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.10, Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 18.x, 19.x, and 20.

1. Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or by searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jeffreyratcliffe/ppa

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

2. For those who have a previous release installed, upgrade it through Software Updater:

Or run following command in terminal to install or upgrade the software:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install gscan2pdf

How to Remove:

To remove gscan2pdf, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove gscan2pdf

And the PPA can be removed via Software & Updates utility, under Other Software tab.

Audacious music player 4.0.5 was released a day ago with some important bug-fixes. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 19.10, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and derivatives.

Audacious 4.0.5 release highlights:

  • Fixed UI freeze when asterisk key (Shift+8) was pressed.
  • Fixed an exception when reading a large APE (> 1M) tag
  • Fixed album artist not being displayed for .m4a files
  • Fixed a crash on exit with a plugin settings window open
  • Fixed a crash when scrobbling with curl 7.71.0
  • Changed the default CDDB server to gnudb.org

How to Install Audacious 4.0.5 in Ubuntu:

All users of current Ubuntu releases and Linux Mint 18.x, 19.x, 20 can install the new release via Ubuntu PPA by running following commands one by one.

1. Open terminal by either pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

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

2. Then run commands one by one in terminal to install or upgrade the audio player:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install audacious audacious-plugins

Uninstall:

You can easily remove the PPA either by going to Software & Updates utility -> Other Software tab, or by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

To remove audacious, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove audacious audacious-plugins

Open source, low-latency, high quality voice chat software, Mumble 1.3.2, was released a few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 16.04.

Mumble 1.3.2 is a maintenance release that fixed overlay not starting, and keychain-error on macOS for custom certificates.

There’s also known issues: overlay blocked by BattleEye, CS:GO Trusted Mode.

How to Install Mumble in Ubuntu:

Mumble is available as containerized Snap and Flatpak packages. You can install the Snap from Ubuntu Software, and install Flatpak from flathub repository.

For those prefer .deb package from apt repository, do following steps to install it from Mumble Team PPA.

1. Open terminal either from application menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, paste below command and hit Enter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mumble/release

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

2. If an old release was installed, simply upgrade Mumble via Software Updater:

Or run commands one by one in terminal to check updates and install the chat utility for gamer:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mumble mumble-server

Uninstall Mumble:

You can purge the PPA which also downgrade the VoIP chat app to the stock version via command:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:mumble/release

To simply remove mumble, either use system package manager or run command in terminal:

sudo apt-get remove mumble mumble-server

KeePassXC, a cross-platform community-driven port of the Windows application “Keepass Password Safe”, released version 2.6.0 a few days ago.

KeePassXC 2.6.0 release highlights include:

  • Custom Light and Dark themes
  • Compact mode to use classic Group and Entry line height
  • New monochrome tray icons
  • View menu to quickly switch themes, compact mode, and toggle UI elements
  • Save Database Backup feature
  • Adds autostart option.
  • And many other new features, improvements. See here for details.

How to Install KeePassXC in Ubuntu:

The official upstream PPA has made the packages of the password manager for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.10, Ubuntu 20.04, and derivatives.

1.) Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, or by searching for ‘terminal’ from system application launcher.

When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phoerious/keepassxc

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

2.) Then either update the software package using Software Updater

or run command to install the software:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install keepassxc

Uninstall:

You can run the PPA repository simply by running command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:phoerious/keepassxc

And if you want, remove keepassxc password manger via command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove keepassxc

The Qt4 framework has been removed from Ubuntu 20.04 main repository. It is however still required for some obsolete applications.

Though it is not recommended, you can still get Qt4 libraries (e.g., libqt4-declarative, qt4-dev-tools, qt4-qmake, libqtwebkit4, and more) as software dependencies or for building an application via this third-party PPA.

NOTE: Qt4 has reached end of life! You may run into security issues with the library. USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! And for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, please scroll down for option 2.

Option 1: Install Qt4 in Ubuntu 20.04

1.) Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or by searching for ‘terminal’ from your system application launcher. When terminal opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rock-core/qt4

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it prompts and hit enter.

2.) After adding the PPA, it should automatically refresh the system package cache. On some Ubuntu derivatives, you may run command to manually update the package cache:

sudo apt update

3.) Finally install the software .deb package, and it should automatically install the required Qt4 libraries after running sudo apt -f install.

Or you may install specified Qt4 package by running command:

sudo apt install PACKAGE_NAME

See here for a full list of available Qt4 libraries.

Option 2: Install Qt4 in Ubuntu 22.04

For the new Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, you can get the Qt4 libraries via this unofficial PPA. The packages there belongs to kelebek333.

1. Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/ppa

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

2. After adding the PPA, install your old app packages should automatically install Qt4 as dependencies.

To install the packages manually, either run command sudo apt install PACKNAME in terminal or use Synaptic package manager:

Uninstall Qt4:

To remove the PPA, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:rock-core/qt4

Or remove the PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 using command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/ppa

To remove all Qt4 libraries, run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove libqt4* libqtcore4 libqtgui4 libqtwebkit4 qt4*

This quick tutorial shows how to enable remote desktop service in Ubuntu 20.04, so that you can access to Ubuntu desktop remotely via VNC viewer.

1.) Open System Settings utility, navigate to Sharing in the left pane, toggle on Sharing in the top-right, and finally click on “Screen Sharing”.

2.) In the pop-up dialog, turn on “Screen Sharing” and select:

  • Enable remote control by tick “Allow connections to control screen”.
  • Setup a password or select ask for access on each connection.

3.) As a workaround of TightVNC connection error: “No security types supported. Server sent security types, but we do not support any of them“.

NOTE: Instead of running following commands, you may use Dconf Editor and navigate to org/gnome/desktop/remote-access.

Run command in terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal):

gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false

You may also run command to allow people not in local network to access using UPnP (if your router supports it):

gsettings set org.gnome.Vino use-upnp true

Finally, connect to this Ubuntu desktop remotely using either Computer name (as picture in step 1.) shows) or IP address via a VNC viewer / client and enjoy!