Due to the changes to incorporate Adobe Flash DRM technology, Hulu movies and TV shows are not longer working on Ubuntu Linux without HAL support since a couple of weeks ago.
A couple of weeks ago, Hulu made some changes to their video playback system to incorporate Adobe Flash DRM technology. Unfortunately, this meant that Hulu no longer functioned on Ubuntu because Adobe stopped supporting Flash on Linux several year ago, and therefore Adobe’s DRM requires HAL which was likewise obsoleted about 4 years ago and was dropped from Ubuntu in 13.10. The net result is that Hulu no longer functions on Ubuntu.
Fortunately, Michael Blennerhassett has maintained a PPA repository with HAL packages for all current releases and derivatives, e.g, Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17.
Below is how-to install the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) from PPA:
1. Add the PPA. Open terminal from the Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mjblenner/ppa-hal
2. After adding the PPA, install hal package via Synaptic Package Manager. Or by running below commands in terminal:
uText is a very simple markdown editor with live text preview and syntax highlighting support. Supported export formats: HTML, ODT, PDF
uText is a minimalist text editor with syntax markdown focused on writing, providing all the tools and facilities that the user may need. It’s written in Python and developed by atareao team who’s behind touchpad-indicator and my-weather-indicator.
The editor features:
Live text preview
Day, Night, and fullscreen mode to focus on writing.
Search and replace, spell check
save in dropbox.
other common options
To install this editor:
Open terminal from the Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut keys. When it opens, run below commands to get it from the developer’s PPA:
Or you can directly download and install the “utext_x.x.x_all.deb” package from PPA ARCHIVE. The .deb works on all current Ubuntu releases though it’s built against Ubuntu 15.04.
The first maintenance release of Kodi 15 “Isengard” has been released. Official PPA’s ready for Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and derivatives, e.g. Linux Mint 17.x, and Elementary OS Freya.
Following issues has been fixed in Kodi 15.1, remaining issues will be fixed in next point release in the 15.x range.
Flush renderbuffers when flushing video player
Fix broken network.bandwidth setting
Fix stuttering in PVR windows
Fix holding lock while querying PVR backend
Unsigned apps are not working on jailbroken iOS 5.1 devices
Add installed languages to the list of possible stream languages
Ensure that file descriptor for logfile is NULL’ed
Fixes a crash when trying do delete a file in filemanager
Reimplement Cocoa_GetVolumeNameFromMountPoint for OSX
Update label color for sliderex controls
CProgressJob: fix crash in DoModal
Fix missing return in CGUIWindowPVRBase::OnBack
FFmpeg: Bump to 2.6.4
Handle startup splash as regular window
Fix linkage for VTB framework for iOS
Fix broken native keyboard on iOS 5.1.1 devices
Fix wrong navigation in SmartPlaylistEditor.xml
Make some virtual filesystems available when no network is available yet
Fix formatting on mysql queries that could cause crash on update
Only set mouse wheel control spin and slider controls when they are actually focusses
Respect view mode changes of EPG when controlling number of EPG updates
Handle startup splash as regular window which prevent problems if PVR or masterlock is used as startup window
Fix watched flag not displaying if item is also resume-able
Remove some logging on exiting that could crash on exit in some cases
Fix overlapping subtitles in some cases
Install / Upgrade Kodi 15.1 in Ubuntu:
1. Add the official PPA.
Open terminal from the Dash, App launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run below command in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
2. Install/Upgrade Kodi
After adding the PPA, you can directly upgrade Kodi by launching Software Updater / Update Manager after checking for updates.
Or you can run below commands one by one in terminal to install it for the first time:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kodi
You may also install the encoder and addons via command:
Want to install an Android application on your phone and for some reason you can’t access Google Play store from your Android device? Well, an alternative way is to download the APK file for the application on desktop computer, transfer it to your device, and install it manually.
Besides a web browser plugin, there’s an open-source desktop application called GooglePlayDownloader that allows you to search for and download APK files of applications from Google Play Store.
To use it, just select an application from search result and click the Download button. After you selected a folder to save APK files, a window pops up with downloading process though the process bar is not working for me. Just wait until it says ‘Download complete’.
How to install this Software in Ubuntu:
1. (Only for Ubuntu 14.04 and earlier) download the dependency package and click install it via Software Center:
Scroll down and click package links and download the xxxthumbnailer_xxx.deb packages from expanded pages (Work on Ubuntu 14.04 though they’re built against 15.04).
Finally install these three .deb packages by clicking on each of them to open with Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button.
To apply changes, remove the thumbnail caches and restart Nautilus by running below commands one by one:
NOTE: This post is outdated!! Ubuntu user may follow this tutorial to install the app. And Elementary OS may just get it from app store.
Haguichi, LogMeIn Hamachi GUI for Linux desktop, has reached 1.3.0 release which is ported to GTK+ 3.x and Vala.
Haguichi 1.3.0 is a big release that brings a completely revamped user interface. Now it’s based on GTK+ >= 3.14 and fully ported from Mono to Vala. It also features:
New GTK headerbar (client side decorations). A classic titlebar is used on Unity, MATE, Cinnamon, etc.
Flexible Layout, the user interface now adapt dynamically to the window size
Haguichi now looks crispy as hell on HiPDI displays.
added a sidebar shows details and actions for the selected network or member.
New logo icon.
Added short text to empty network list on how to add a network.
Added symbolic application and panel icons for adwaita-icon-theme.
Commands that don’t actually exist are not shown as member action anymore.
Unicode characters are now used for ellipsis and quotation marks.
Changed autostart .desktop file installation path back to /usr/etc/xdg/autostart.
Dropped support for Hamachi version 2.1.0.81 and older.
Removed deprecated status icon.
updated translations.
How to Install Haguichi 1.3.0 in Ubuntu:
Thanks to Webupd8 Team, the new release has been made into PPA for Ubuntu 15.10 and Ubuntu 15.04. Also an old version available for Ubuntu 14.04/12.04.
1. To add the PPA, open terminal from the Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/haguichi
2. After that, update system cache and install the LogMeIn Hamachi GUI via Synaptic Package Manager or by running below commands one by one:
Mozilla Firefox 40 was released yesterday and available for upgrade in Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 12.04 repositories.
Release highlights according to the official release note:
Support for Windows 10
Added protection against unwanted software downloads
User can receive suggested tiles in the new tab page based on categories Firefox matches to browsing history (en-US only).
Hello allows adding a link to conversations to provide context on what the conversation will be about
New style for add-on manager based on the in-content preferences style
Improved scrolling, graphics, and video playback performance with off main thread compositing (GNU/Linux only)
Graphic blocklist mechanism improved: Firefox version ranges can be specified, limiting the number of devices blocked
Add-on extensions that are not signed by Mozilla will display a warning
NPAPI Plug-in performance improved via asynchronous initialization
Smoother animation and scrolling with hardware vsync (Windows only)
JPEG images use less memory when scaled and can be painted faster
Sub-resources can no longer request HTTP authentication, thus protecting users from inadvertently disclosing login data
IndexedDB transactions are now non-durable by default
Implemented AudioBufferSourceNode.detune to modulate playback rate in cents, a logarithmic unit of measure used for musical intervals
Improved Performance tools in the developer tools: Waterfall view, Call Tree view and a Flame Chart view
New rules view tooltip in the Inspector to tweak CSS Filter values
Console API messages from SharedWorker and ServiceWorker are now displayed in web console
New page ruler highlighting tool that displays lightweight horizontal and vertical rules on a page
Inspector now searches across all content frames in a page
Fix that Kannada text does not display properly in built-in pdf viewer
security fixes.
How to upgrade:
The packages has been made into Ubuntu updates and security repositories. Just search for and launch Software Updater and install the updates after checking for updates:
Smuxi IRC client finally reached the 1.0 release. Here’s how to install or upgrade it in Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and derivatives, e.g., Linux Mint 13/17.x, Elementary OS Freya and Luna.
Smuxi is an open-source, distributed and user-friendly IRC / Twitter / XMPP / Campfire / JabbR client for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X based on GNOME / GTK+.
The 1.0 release was announced recently when it’s 10 years old and features:
Message Persistence – messages sent and received are now stored on the disk in a way they can automatically be retrieved/loaded when you restart Smuxi.
new command line tool smuxi-message-buffer allows to convert and export the message history.
4 new plugins:
topic-diff: Shows the word differences of the topic after topic changes. (meebey)
away-nick: Automatically appends and removes $AWAY_SUFFIX to/from the nick name when you go away using the /away command or by disconnecting all frontends from the smuxi-server. (meebey)
system-info: Shows system info. Includes system kernel version, distro name, and CPU vendor information. (AK0)
now-playing: This plugin is not new but was rewritten in Python to get rid of the spaghetti code monster which was written in Bash. (jamesaxl)
UI, text frontend, twitter and other enhancements. See details
Install/Upgrade Smuxi in Ubuntu:
1. Open terminal from the Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut keys. When it opens, run command to add its stable PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:meebey/smuxi-stable
2. If you have an old version installed on your system, just launch Software Updater/Update Manager and upgrade the software after checking for updates.
Or use Synaptic Package Manager (available in Software Center) to check for updates and install Smuxi 1.0:
For those who are familiar with command line, just run below commands one by one:
