UbuntuHandbook

How to Share A Folder in Ubuntu 14.04 (Local Network)

Last updated: February 5, 2015

This is a beginners’ step by step guide that shows how to share a folder in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS over local network.

1. To get started, right-click on the folder you want to share and choose the “Local Network Share” option.

If you don’t see this option, search for and install nautilus-share in Ubuntu Software Center and restart Nautilus by running nautilus -q or just log out and back in.

2. When the ‘File Sharing’ dialog opens, click the box to enable ‘Share this folder’ option. Click the “Install service” button if it asks.

Once the installation process finish, log out and back in.

3. Re-do step 1 to open the ‘File Sharing’ dialog for any folder. Depends on your need, enable write permission and/or guess access.

4. If you want client machines to access this share with a username and password, disable Guest access and do:

Search for and install system-config-samba in Ubuntu Software Center.
Start Samba (graphical tool) from the Dash or menu.
Navigate to menu Preferences -> Samba Users
Click ‘Add User’ in next window and then select your username, type in a Windows username and password.

Finally you can access this folder in a local network machine using the username (either handbook or ubuntu-laptop in picture) and password.

In Howtos file sharing

Sigil Epub Editor Now Is Based on Qt 5.4.0+

Last updated: February 4, 2015

Sigil, a free and open-source EPUB e-books editor, gets a big update recently by releasing version 0.8.3 and 0.8.4 one day after.

One of the big changes is that now Qt 5.4.0 is the minimum required version for building Sigil. Since Qt 5.4.0 fixed the macdeployqt application and even integrated code signing, Mac OS X (>= 10.9.5) users no longer need to disable gatekeeper.

But for Ubuntu, this may not be good news since Ubuntu repositories still provide Qt 5.2 for 14.04 and Qt 5.3 for 14.10 (and 15.04). Users need to manually download & install Qt 5.4.0+ and compile Sigil from the source tarball.

Sigil release notes, binary packages for Windows & Mac, and source code are available at github.com.

For Ubuntu user, besides building the latest Sigil 0.8.4 source code as well as Qt 5.4.0 manually, the old 0.8.2 release can be easily installed from a third-party PPA (run below commands one by one or grab the .deb from link page).

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:i2p.packages/i2p

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install sigil

In News epub, sigil epub editor

Upgrade to Bluefish Editor 2.2.7 in Ubuntu 14.04 / 12.04

Last updated: February 4, 2015

Bluefish advanced text editor has reached the 2.2.7 release recently. Now it supports HTML5 tags in Generic HTML, PHP, CFML, etc.

The new release also brings various fixes and improvements:

fix rare crashes in the autocompletion, the filebrowser, the htmlbar plugin preferences, and in file-load-cancel
fix a rare case of broken syntax highlighting after multiple search/replace actions
better error/warning output when parsing language files
fix javascript regex syntax highlighting
improve loading of files with corrupt encoding (partially loading into read-only file)
improve project loading over sftp
fix UTF-16 loading/saving
improved css, html and pascal/delphi language file
improve autocompletion for html tags
OSX: changed the keys for tab switching such that they no longer confict with some keyboard layouts
OSX: improve behavior at shutdown
improve upload/download to ignore backup files
fix number of results in search and replace on files on disk
better fallback when loading files with a corrupt encoding
improve home/end keys on wrapped text

How to install/upgrade Bluefish in Ubuntu:

Both Gtk2 and Gtk3 versions have been made into its PPAs available for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04.

1. Open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add Bluefish PPA (Gtk3):

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:klaus-vormweg/bluefish

For the Gtk2 version, use this command instead:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:klaus-vormweg/bluefish-gtk2

2. After that, you can upgrade Bluefish editor through Software Updater:

Or by running below two commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install bluefish

That’s it. Enjoy!

In Howtos Bluefish Editor, bluefish ppa

Kodi 14.1 (formerly XBMC) Released With Various Bug Fixes.

Last updated: February 3, 2015

XBMC Team finally announced the Kodi 14.1 (formerly known as XBMC), the first small bugfix release in the Kodi 14 Helix range.

For Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04, and derivatives users, the new release has been made into its official PPA two days before the announcement.

According to the Kodi 14.1 announcement, this release fixes:

incorrect video screensize on Android AML devices
potential segfault when silencing audio
do not skip streaminfo if format is not know.
DXVA flickering on AMD
prevent possible over-flow in ALSA
possible sorting problems in library
possible problem in library navigation
don’t scroll text when it’s set to not do it
scroll text if it’s too long on spinner controls
don’t overlap PVR search labels
bug in DLNA client string on iOS
updated several PVR add-ons
remember played state of video when started from recently added
correct vsync on OSX
broken keyboard input
prevent crash on circular dependencies of add-ons
large file support on Android
random exiting on Android x86 builds (Nexus Player for example)

How to install/upgrade Kodi 14.1 in Ubuntu:

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

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

After added the PPA, you can upgrade Kodi Media Center via Software Updater, or by running below commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install kodi kodi-audioencoder-* kodi-pvr-*

Finally, log out and log in back with Kodi session, or start Kodi from the Dash.

In Howtos Kodi, XBMC media center

Install Flair Weather Conky Widget on Your Ubuntu Desktop

Last updated: February 2, 2015

Flair Weather is a nice clean conky widget for Linux that shows time, date, and weather information on your desktop.

The conky theme contains both white and black version:

Flair Weather Conky White

Thanks to speedracker, Kelly Kretchek, and zagortenay333, you can install this theme on your desktop by below steps.

1. Install curl and Conky Manager, a graphical tool to manage conky themes.

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

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install conky-manager curl

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

2. Download Flair Weather Conky from the right pane of deviantart.com.

3. Open the downloaded package via Archive Manager and extract it to your user Home folder, so you’ll see the result folder Flair_Weather under user’s Home -> .conky (press Ctrl+H to see hidden folders).

4. Start/restart Conky Manager. You should be able to start Flair Weather White or Black theme from the list.

5. Now let’s setup your weather location. Since the theme uses Yahoo! Weather, go to weather.yahoo.com, search your city (and select from drop-down prompts), finally write down the id in the url.

6. Set the weather location for your city by doing below steps:

In conky manager, highlight the Flair Weather widget.
Click the pencil icon to edit the theme file in text editor.
Replace the location id.

Finally configure the widget size, location, transparency, time format, auto-start, etc in the widget settings and app preferences window.

All done. Enjoy!

In Howtos conky, weather widget

Install/Upgrade to Scribus 1.4.5 in Ubuntu 14.04/14.10

Last updated: February 1, 2015

Open source desktop publishing (DTP) software, Scribus 1.4.5, has been released recently with a total of 75 bug-fixes, including many corrections backported from 1.5.0 svn.

Scribus 1.5.0, the preview of the next stable Scribus release (1.6.0), is supposed to be released for testing purposes early in 2015.

According to the official release note, the new release brings below important changes:

Scribus is now being shipped with the most recent version of Barcode Writer in Pure PostScript.
Updates to the Scripter that enable more control on PDF export. There is also a new command in Scripter, applyMasterPage(), which allows you to apply an existing Master Page.
Updates to the Resene color palettes, including, for the first time, The Resene Total Colour System (TCS) Master Palette.
Many translation updates and improvements.
Usability improvements.
Better application icons.
New templates.
The OS X application bundle is now code signed (version 1 code signing, due to the OS X 10.5 Leopard build), and now contains the path tools for mesh distortion again.

Complete change log, installer for Windows, Mac, and Linux (RPMs) are available at wiki.scribus.net

How to Install Scribus 1.4.5 in Ubuntu:

Since there’s no official Ubuntu packages for the new Scribus release, I’ve made it into my personal PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04(64-bit failed), and Linux Mint 17/17.1.

NOTE: Please back up all project files before you doing below steps.

To add the PPA, open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command:

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

Then you can upgrade Scribus via ‘Software Updater’, or by running below two commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install scribus

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

(Optional) To downgrade scribus, run:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/ppa

That’s it. Hope this will help!

In Howtos scribus, scribus ppa

How to Upgrade to Inkscape 0.91 in Ubuntu 14.04/12.04/14.10

Last updated: January 30, 2015

The free, open-source, and professional quality vector graphics software Inkscape 0.91 has been released recently with quite a lot of changes.

According to the official release note, Inkscape 0.91 features:

cairo rendering for display and PNG export
OpenMP multithreading for all filters
C++ code conversion
type design features
a new measure tool
cross platform WMF and EMF import and export
symbol library and support for Visio stencils
improved support for Corel DRAW documents, Visio importer
support for real world document and page size units, e.g. millimeters
numerous usability improvements

For a full list of changes, see this page.

How to Install or Upgrade Inkscape in Ubuntu:

Since Ubuntu repositories provide the old 0.48 release, Inkscape 0.91 (renamed from ver 0.49) is available in its official PPA repository for Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 15.04, and Linux Mint 17/17.1.

Just open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:inkscape.dev/stable

After that, open Software Updater utility and click install the updates for Inkscape:

Or you can run below commands one by one to install or upgrade it in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install inkscape

That’s it. Enjoy!

In Howtos Inkscape, Inkscape PPA

How to Upgrade to LibreOffice 4.4 in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: January 30, 2015

LibreOffice, the open-source office suite, has reached the 4.4 release. Here’s how to upgrade it in Ubuntu 14.04 and/or Ubuntu 14.10.

According to the official release note, the new release brings user-interface and OOXML file formats support improvements, source code fixes thanks to Coverity scans, a new OpenGL framework, digital signing of PDF files on exporting, and many other changes. See more at libreoffice website.

Install or Upgrade LibreOffice 4.4 in Ubuntu:

~~Since the official LibreOffice PPA does not yet update the new release for Ubuntu 14.04 users,~~ you can always follow below steps to install or upgrade a new LibreOffice release in Ubuntu via the official DEBs.

LibreOffice 4.4 has been made into PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10 and derivatives. Simply run below commands one by one in terminal to install / upgrade it:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:libreoffice/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

1. Before getting started, you may remove the previous installation by opening terminal from the Dash (or press Ctrl+Alt+T) and running command:

sudo apt-get purge libreoffice*

You can skip this step, but you’ll have two LireOffice versions on your system after this tutorial.

2. Download LibreOffice installer from the official link below:

LibreOffice Download Page

Depends on your OS type, 32-bit or 64-bit (check out via System Settings -> Details), scroll down and select download Linux x86 (deb) or Linux x64 (deb).

After clicked the link in below picture, you’re redirected to the download page (similar to previous link, but url changed.). Just click download the Main Installer.

The downloaded package looks like “LibreOffice_4.4.0_Linux_*.*_deb.tar.gz”.

3. Once downloaded, open your file-browser and extract the package from its context menu.

In the result folder, there are a number of .deb packages. What you have to do is install all of them.

4. Open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run below command to navigate to the LibreOffice package folder:

cd Downloads/LibreOffice_4.4.0.3_Linux_x86_64_deb/DEBS

Depends on the downloaded package, you may replace LibreOffice_4.4.0.3_Linux_x86_64_deb with the folder name to yours. Or type LibreOffice and hit Tab key to auto-complete its name.

5. Finally run one command to install all the .deb packages in that directory:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Now start LibreOffice from the Dash and enjoy!

If you don’t see the shortcut icons like me, restart your computer.

In Howtos LibreOffice, LibreOffice 4.4

Selene Media Converter Adds VP9 and H265/HEVC Support

Last updated: January 29, 2015

Selene, a free and open-source batch media converter, has recently reached ver 2.5 with VP9 and H265/HEVC encoding support.

For the new encoding supports, there are some points noted in the official release note:

For VP9 encoding support using ffmpeg or avconv:

VP9 encoder is very slow compared to VP8. Use the ‘speed’ slider to adjust the encoding speed. Lower values will give better quality video at expense of encoding speed. Higher values will speed-up encoding at the expense of quality. You need to find a balance that you are comfortable with.
The ‘constant quality’ rate control method seems to be broken in the VP8/VP9 encoder. Both ffmpeg and vpxenc tools ignore the –crf/–cq-level parameter and produce bad quality video. So currently only ‘variable bitrate’ mode is available in the application.
Output format is WebM (*.webm). Other containers currently do not support VP8/VP9 video formats.
Ensure that the version of ffmpeg/avconv on your system was compiled with VP8/VP9 support. As of now, the version available in the Ubuntu repositories for 14.04 and above, have support for VP8/VP9 encoding. You can verify this by running the command: ‘avconv -codecs | grep libvpx’

Selene with VP9 Encoding support

For H.265/HEVC encoding support:

x265 encoder is very slow compared to x264. Change the ‘preset’ option to ‘fast’ or ‘fastest’ to speed-up the encoding at the expense of compression (output file size).
Only MP4 container is supported for output. MKV output is not yet available since both ‘mkvmerge’ and ‘ffmpeg’ are yet to add support for muxing h265 streams.

Selene with H265 encoding support

How to Install / Upgrade Selene in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, and Linux Mint 17/17.1 users, the latest packages for this converter are available in the developer’s PPA.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install selene

Or you can directly grab the .deb installer from the ppa packages page.

via: TeeJee Tech

In Howtos batch converter, media converter, selene

How to Install / Upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.18.4 in Ubuntu

Last updated: January 28, 2015

The latest Linux Kernel 3.18.4 has been released. All users of 3.18 kernel series are urged to upgrade as soon as possible.

The kernel 3.18.4 is a big release that brings architecture updates for x86 and ARM, driver updates for i915, radeon, wireless, and ethernet, various USB fixes, and more. For details, see the release note.

Upgrade to Kernel 3.18.4 in Ubuntu 14.04/ 14.10:

Ubuntu Kernel team has made the binary packages of this kernel release, available for download at the link below:

DOWNLOAD KERNEL 3.18.4 .DEBs

First check out your OS type, 32-bit (i386) or 64-bit (amd64), then download and install the packages below in turn:

linux-headers-3.18.4-031804_xxx_all.deb
linux-headers-3.18.4-031804-generic_3.18.4-031804.xxx_i386/amd64.deb
linux-image-3.18.4-031804-generic_3.18.4-031804.xxx_i386/amd64.deb

If you need a low latency system (e.g. for recording audio) then download and install the packages below in turn:

linux-headers-3.18.4-031804_xxx_all.deb
linux-headers-3.18.4-031804-lowlatency_3.18.4-031804.xxx_i386/amd64.deb
linux-image-3.18.4-031804-lowlatency_3.18.4-031804.xxx_i386/amd64.deb

For Ubuntu Server edition without a graphical session, run below commands one by one to download & install the kernel debs:

For 64-bit system, run:

cd /tmp/

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.4-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.4-031804-generic_3.18.4-031804.201501271243_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.4-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.4-031804_3.18.4-031804.201501271243_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.4-vivid/linux-image-3.18.4-031804-generic_3.18.4-031804.201501271243_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.18.4-*.deb linux-image-3.18.4-*.deb

For 32-bit system, run:

cd /tmp/

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.4-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.4-031804-generic_3.18.4-031804.201501271243_i386.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.4-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.4-031804_3.18.4-031804.201501271243_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18.4-vivid/linux-image-3.18.4-031804-generic_3.18.4-031804.201501271243_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.18.4-*.deb linux-image-3.18.4-*.deb

Once done, restart the machine. For proprietary graphics driver, you may have to re-install/re-built your driver.

If for some reason, the new kernel does not work properly for you, reboot with the previous Kernel (Grub boot loader -> Advanced -> select previous kernel) and run below command to remove Linux Kernel 3.18.4:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.18.4-* linux-image-3.18.4-* && sudo update-grub

In Howtos Linux Kernel, Linux Kernel 3.18 series

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