UbuntuHandbook

How to Install Nvidia 352.21 in Ubuntu 15.04/14.04

Last updated: August 29, 2015

NVIDIA driver 352.21 for Linux has been released recently with new GPUs support and numerous bug fixes. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and their derivatives via PPA.

Nvidia 352.21 release highlights:

Added support for the following GPUs:
- GeForce 720A
- GeForce 920A
- GeForce 930A
- GeForce 940A
- GeForce GTX 950A
- GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Fixed a bug that caused the Display Configuration page of the nvidia-settings control panel to automatically generate layouts with multiple displays occupying the same position when enabling or disabling Base Mosaic.
Updated nvidia-settings to allow the use of the standard Display Configuration page when SLI Mosaic is enabled.
Fixed a bug that caused the kernel to report errors when unmapping DMA allocations on kernels with CONFIG_DEBUG_DMA_API enabled.
Added GLX Protocol support for the following OpenGL extensions:
- GL_ARB_copy_buffer
- GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object
Fixed a bug that caused a kernel crash if SLI Mosaic and G-SYNC were used at the same time on a configuration with more display devices connected to one GPU than another.
Added the ability to configure the swapping behavior for quad-buffered stereo visuals. The driver can be configured to independently swap each eye as it becomes ready, to wait for both eyes to complete rendering before swapping, or to allow applications to specify which of these two behaviors is preferred by setting the swap interval. This setting can be adjusted in the nvidia-settings control panel, or via the NV-CONTROL API.
Fixed a regression which caused the GPU fan status display to disappear from the nvidia-settings control panel.
Added reporting of ECC error counts to the nvidia-settings control panel.
Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented OpenGL sampler objects from being properly deallocated when destroying OpenGL contexts.
Fixed a bug that caused GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB to incorrectly report sRGB support in 30 bit-per-pixel framebuffer configurations.
Added support for G-SYNC with sync-to-vblank disabled. This allows applications to use G-SYNC to eliminate tearing for frame rates below the monitor’s maximum refresh rate but allow tearing above the maximum refresh rate in order to minimize latency.
When G-SYNC is active and sync-to-vblank is enabled, the frame rate is limited to the monitor’s maximum refresh rate.
GLSL gl_Fog.scale is now +infinity when gl_Fog.end equals gl_Fog.start. Previously, the value 0 was used, but this broke certain applications such as the game XIII running on Wine (Wine bug #37068).
Enabled G-SYNC by default when Unified Back Buffer (UBB) is disabled.
Updated the NVIDIA GPU driver to avoid using video memory already in use by vesafb.
Fixed a bug in nvidia-settings that caused the application to crash when saving the EDID to a file.
Fixed a bug that prevented the “mkprecompiled” utility included in the driver package from reading files correctly.
Fixed a bug that could cause an Xid error when terminating a video playback application using the overlay presentation queue in VDPAU.
Updated nvidia-installer to avoid recursing too deeply into kernel source trees under /usr/lib/modules, mirroring an existing restriction on recursion under /lib/modules.
Fixed a rare deadlock condition when running applications that use OpenGL in multiple threads on a Quadro GPU.
Fixed a kernel memory leak that occurred when looping hardware- accelerated video decoding with VDPAU on Maxwell-based GPUs.
Fixed a bug that caused the X server to crash if a RandR 1.4 output provided by a Sink Output provider was selected as the primary output on X.Org xserver 1.17 and higher.
Fixed a bug that caused waiting on X Sync Fence objects in OpenGL to hang indefinitely in some cases.
Fixed a bug that prevented OpenGL from properly recovering from hardware errors or sync object waits that had timed out.

Install NVIDIA 352.21 via PPA:

NOTE: If you’re just looking for a working driver for your graphics card, the default Nvidia package in Ubuntu repository may interact better with the rest of your distribution’s framework.

Open terminal from the Dash, Application Menu, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run below commands one by one to add the PPA, and install the driver:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nvidia-352 nvidia-settings

In Howtos Nvidia Driver

How to Install Open Broadcaster Software in Ubuntu 15.04/14.04

Last updated: June 14, 2015

This is a quick tutorial for Ubuntu users how to install Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), a free and open source software for recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or recording services.

OBS features:

Encoding using H264 (x264) and AAC.
Support for Intel Quick Sync Video (QSV) and NVENC.
Unlimited number of scenes and sources.
Live RTMP streaming to Twitch, YouTube, DailyMotion, Hitbox and more.
File output to MP4 or FLV.
GPU-based game capture for high performance game streaming.
DirectShow capture device support (webcams, capture cards, etc).
Windows 8 high speed monitor capture support.
Bilinear or lanczos3 resampling.

Sorry that OBS doesn’t work for my laptop’s integrated graphics card. Picture from linux distro community forum

Install Open Broadcaster Software in Ubuntu:

Open terminal from the Dash, Application Menu, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, copy and paste (Ctrl+Alt+V) below commands and run one by one:

1. OBS requires ffmpeg, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10 need to add below PPA via command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kirillshkrogalev/ffmpeg-next

2. OBS has an official Ubuntu PPA that currently supports Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and Ubuntu 15.04. To add the PPA, run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio

3. Finally, refresh your system package cache and install the OBS package by running below two commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install obs-studio

For 14.04 Trusty and 14.10 Utopic, above command also installs the ffmpeg libraries from the PPA you added in step 1.

Not clear enough? See the video by Osirez Tech:

In Howtos open broadcast software

Install Up-Clock – Ubuntu Touch Style Lockscreen App on Your Desktop

Last updated: June 11, 2015

Up-Clock is a beautiful linux application inspired by the Ubuntu Touch Lockscreen. It’s a desktop clock widget that was carefully built to be pretty and smart.

The configuration is really simple, you can change the color, set alarm, change the clock type, tranparency, and more…

Install Up-Clock in Ubuntu:

There’s a PPA contains the packages for this app, available for Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 15.04.

To add the PPA and install up-clock, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run below commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/up-clock 

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install up-clock

If you don’t want to add PPA, grab and install the .deb package directly from the launchpad page.

In Howtos ubuntu touch lockscreen

How to Install Speed Dreams (Racing Game) in Ubuntu 15.04

Last updated: June 9, 2015

Speed Dreams is an open source 3D racing game which is initially forked from TORCS. It features high quality graphics, 3D real-time motorsport simulator for gamers and researchers, and a variety of input devices support (e.g, keyboards, mouses, joypads, joysticks, racing wheels and pedals.).

Speed Dreams works on Linux, Microsoft Windows, AmigaOS 4, AROS, MorphOS and Haiku. For Ubuntu, it can be easily installed from PlayDeb repository and below is how:

1. Add PlayDeb repository.

Open terminal from the Dash/Launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run:

echo deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu vivid-getdeb games | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playdeb.list

2. Import the keyring:

wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

3. Launch Synaptic Package Manager (install it from Ubuntu Software Center if need), search for install speed dreams after checking for updates:

You may install all the packages listed in the above picture to get more cars and tracks.

In Howtos racing game, speed dreams

Komodo Edit 9.1 Released, PPA for Ubuntu 14.04/12.04/15.04

Last updated: June 6, 2015

A new release of Komodo Edit text editor has been announced with UI and user experience improvements and bug fixes.

Changes in Komodo Edit 9.1 according to the release note:

Select Commando (Go to Anything) results by pressing ALT+number.
The Commando user experience has had significant usability improvements. Most notably when starting Commando you will now be presented with a convenient list of scopes that you can use to narrow down your search results.
Color Schemes: Use foreground color for caret color
Commando: Don’t preserve query when navigating backwards.
Commando: Escape now clears the current search.
SDK: Added the “shell” SDK, allowing you to easily run shell commands.
UI: Improved scrollbar contrast on dark color schemes.
UI: “Ugly border” showing around notifications on windows
CodeIntel: Improve PHPDoc tooltip legibility – contributed by Defman

Install/upgrade Komodo Edit in Ubuntu:

Komodo Edit 9 with Unity integration has been made into PPA, available for Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04.

To install it, open terminal from the Dash/Launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, follow below steps:

1. Add the PPA repository, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:mystic-mirage/komodo-edit

2. Refresh system cache via Software Updater or by running below command:

sudo apt-get update

3. Upgrade the editor through Software Updater, or install it via below command:

sudo apt-get install komodo-edit

Done.

In Howtos komodo edit

How to Install Spotify Client 1.x (Beta) in Ubuntu

Last updated: June 5, 2015

The beta version of the next major 1.x release of Spotify client for Linux has been announced a few hours ago, available for test in its testing repository.

According to the announcement, the 1.x client brings below changes to Linux users:

Various text/mouse input bugs in current stable release (e.g. client doesn’t give up mouse focus, crash on drag/drop, text input not work on some window managers) have been fixed.
“Now playing” notifications can be switched off in the settings page
The WM_CLASS property should be set correctly

As a beta release (version 1.0.7.153.gb9e8174a at the moment), there are some known issues/limitations:

Login with Facebook Connect does not work (will be fixed soon)
There is no application menu
There is no tray icon
Some key bindings do not work yet, like ctrl+s for shuffle, etc.
The application is super tiny on hi-res displays
32-bit builds are not available yet

If you want to try this new client in Ubuntu 14.04/15.04, follow bellow steps to add Spotify testing repository and keep the client up-to-date via Software Updater.

1. To add the testing repository, open terminal and run:

echo deb http://repository.spotify.com testing non-free | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list

2. After that, you can install the 1.x client either via Synaptic Package Manager or by running below commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install spotify-client

3. (Optional) To remove the testing repository, just run:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list

For those who don’t want to add the repository, download the .deb package at web page.

In Howtos spotify client

Install the Latest Unity 8 and Mir in Ubuntu 14.04/15.04 via PPA

Last updated: June 4, 2015

For those who are interested in testing the latest Unity 8, the next generation Unity shell running on the Mir display, you can now install a preview from PPA.

A Launchpad project, Unity8 Desktop Preview in LXC, is a set of tools and scripts to run the Unity 8 desktop preview ISO in a Linux container on released Ubuntu versions starting with Trusty (14.04). User can log in to the Unity 8 LXC session from LightDM greeter just as they would any normal session.

Install Unity 8 Preview via PPA:

A PPA has been created for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 15.04 and next Ubuntu 15.10.

1. To add the PPA, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) from the Dash/launcher and run:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:unity8-desktop-session-team/unity8-preview-lxc

2. update your system cache by running command:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade

3. Install the package for Unity 8 in lxc:

sudo apt-get install unity8-lxc

Note: This installs a slightly modified version of lightdm that works allows the lxc container login.

4. To set up the Unity8 Desktop Preview LXC, you need to run:

sudo unity8-lxc-setup

What this does is setup the configuration for the LXC, downloads the ISO and then extracts it, and then any last bits of setup necessary to make it work.

Finally restart your computer and you should be able to select log in “Unity 8 in LXC” session from lightdm login screen. For more, read the wiki page.

In Howtos Mir, Unity 8

Audacious 3.6.2 Released with Important Fixes.

Last updated: June 1, 2015

The 3.6.2 release of Audacious music player has been released recently with 4 important bug fixes.

Audacious is a free and open source audio player with a focus on low resource use, high audio quality, and support for a wide range of audio formats. It’s a fork of XMMS and the default audio player in Lubuntu and in Ubuntu Studio.

Audacious 3.6.2 was released at the end of May. It fixed:

audacious won’t play back tagged True Audio (TTA) files
crash when enable Dynamic Range Compresor plugin
audacious skips to the next song when using audtool –playback-seek-relative -x and reaching the start of a song
No sound with 36 kHz Ogg Vorbis file after equalizer is enabled.

How to install/upgrade Audacious in Ubuntu:

Webupd8 Team is maintaining a PPA with Audacious packages for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Mint 17, and eOS Freye.

To add the PPA and install/upgrade the player, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) from the Dash or app launcher and then run below commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install audacious audacious-plugins

Note: There may be a few hours delay for the latest release to be made into PPA, check out the PPA page.

In Howtos audacious

Install Pogo – Simplest & Fastest Music Player in Ubuntu 15.04/14.04

Last updated: May 26, 2015

Pogo is an open-source software which is claimed to be the simplest and fastest audio player for Linux. It is a fork of Decibel Audio Player written in Python and uses GTK+ and gstreamer and supports most common audio formats.

Pogo has a clear interface: folder tree in the left, and playlist in the right. It plays your local music and features fast search on the harddrive and in the playlist, smart album grouping, cover display, desktop notifications and no music library.

Install Pogo in Ubuntu from PPA:

Pogo player has an official Ubuntu PPA, which supports Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and their derivatives.

To install it, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run below commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pogo-dev/stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install pogo

Or you can simply download and install “pogo_x.x.x~ubuntuxx.xx_all.deb” package that matches your OS edition from the PPA page.

In Howtos pogo, simplest and fastest music player

Install the Latest WeeChat IRC Client in Ubuntu 15.04/14.04

Last updated: May 22, 2015

WeeChat, Wee Enhanced Environment for Chat, is a free and open-source IRC client designed to be light and fast.

The client uses a curses frontend, and there are remote interfaces for Web, Qt, Android and Emacs. It can be used and navigated using a keyboard alone but also supports mouse input. The client can be heavily customized via configuration files and using various plugins and scripts.

WeeChat’s features include:

IPv6
SSL
Proxy connections
The screen can be split up to display multiple windows at the same time.
Incremental text search
Aspell support for spell checking
Scripting support for many languages (Perl, Python, Ruby, Lua, Tcl, Scheme with GNU Guile)
FIFO pipes for remote control
Support for multiple character encodings
User-defined aliases and shortkeys

WeeChat works on most platforms and operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris, Windows. While Ubuntu repositories provide an old version, you can install the latest packages and receive future updates of WeeChat by following below steps.

Install/Upgrade WeeChat in Ubuntu:

1. Open terminal from the Dash/Menu, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add WeeChat official PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:nesthib/weechat-stable

2. After adding the PPA, launch Software Updater utility. After checking for updates (automatically), you can upgrade WeeChat by installing available updates:

3. If you don’t have a previous version installed, search for and install WeeChat from Ubuntu Software Center after checking for updates (via Software Updater, or sudo apt-get update command.)