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Archives For November 30, 1999

How to Enable Flash for Firefox in Ubuntu 14.10

Last updated: October 10, 2014

Firefox browser does not play flash out-of-the-box in Ubuntu. We need to manually install the Adobe Flash Player and below is how.

As you may know, Adobe abandoned flash for Linux in 2012. For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the “Pepper” API as part of the Google Chrome browser. Adobe will provide security updates for Flash Player 11.2 for five years.

The Adobe Flash Player 11.2.x is still available in Ubuntu repositories and below is how to install it in Ubuntu 14.10.

Click the link below to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button:

click to install Adobe Flash

The package doesn’t contain the actual flash player, it’s only an installer that automatically downloads and installs the source tarball from the Canonical Partners repository.

If you have already enabled Canonical Partners repository, available in Software & Updates -> Other Software tab, you can directly install the Flash Player (the real package) package from Ubuntu Software Center:

Once installed, re-launch your Firefox browser and enjoy!

In Howtos adobe flash, Ubuntu 14.10

How to Install The Classic Gnome Application Menu in Ubuntu 14.10

Last updated: October 9, 2014

Prefer to launch a cascading menu rather than search application from Unity Dash? Well, here is how to install the classic Gnome Menu in Ubuntu 14.10.

ClassicMenu indicator is a notification area applet for the top panel of Ubuntu Unity that provides a simple way to get a classic GNOME-style application menu for those who prefer this over the Unity dash menu.

To install the applet:

The developer has built the indicator binary into PPA. You can download the .deb package from the link below:

Download classicmenu-indicator_xxx_all.deb

Once the download process finished, double-click the package in file browser to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button.

Or install it via command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/classicmenu-indicator_*.deb

When done, you can start the classic Gnome Menu from the Unity Dash, or let it open automatically at next log-in.

In Howtos Classic menu indicator, Ubuntu 14.10

Useful Tools to Customize Your Ubuntu Unity Desktop

Last updated: October 12, 2014

When the beginners want to customize their Ubuntu Desktops, System Settings may be the thing that first come to mind.

System Settings is available in Unity (left) Launcher out-of-the-box, it provides a group of utilities to configure your Ubuntu desktop settings, such as backups, keyboard and mouse properties, displays, network and security settings, and more.

However, there are a few basic desktop settings that are not covered by System Settings, such as GTK / icon / cursor themes, fonts, desktop icons, system cleaning and so forth.

Below I’ll show you three simple tools that may help you customize your Ubuntu Desktop:

1. Unity Tweak Tool

Unity Tweak Tool was started since Ubuntu 13.04. It provides a clean and easy-to-use user interface to configure the default Unity desktop settings.

The open-source tool provides detailed configurations for Unity Launcher (left sidebar), dash (the search box), top panel, web apps, window effects, themes, fonts, and more.

One of the most notable features of Unity Tweak Tool is that each configuration tab contains a “Restore defaults” button allows to revert original settings.

To install Unity Tweak Tool, click the below button to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and click install:

Click Install Unity Tweak Tool

2. Ubuntu Tweak

Ubuntu Tweak was started 6 years ago since Ubuntu 8.04. It’s one of the most popular Ubuntu configuration tools. Unfortunately, it is not made into Ubuntu universe repositories so far.

Ubuntu Tweak features:

a quick overview of your system information
quick install featured applications.
configure themes, fonts, login settings, quicklists (Launcher icons’ context menu), and more
clean browser cache, system cache, and old kernels.
provide online wallpaper HD.

Ubuntu Tweak .deb installer is available for download at the link below:

Ubuntu Tweak Download Page

3. Gnome Tweak Tool

Gnome Tweak Tool is a basic configuration tool specially designed for Gnome Desktop Environment. It’s a good choice if you’re using Gnome Shell session in Ubuntu. But it looks broken in the default Unity DE due to the new client-side decorations.

Gnome Tweak Tool is available in Ubuntu universe repositories, just search for and install it in Ubuntu Software Center.

In Howtos configuration tool

QupZilla 1.8.1 Released, How to Install it in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: October 7, 2014

QtWebKit web browser QupZilla 1.8.1 has been released recently. Here is how to install / upgrade it in Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and their derivatives.

QupZilla is a free and open source browser that uses QtWebKit engine. Additional effort was put into seamless integration of the browser with the native look and feel of users’ desktops. Some additional features of the browser include the integration of history, web feeds and bookmarks in a single location, the ability to take a screenshot of the entire page, and Opera-like “Speed dial” home page. It is reported to consume fewer system resources than the major general purpose browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

QupZilla 1.8.1 is the first bugfix release since v1.8.0. It fixed:

reverted setting DNT header by default
autofill not working for some frames
saving speed dial in case of crash
open file in download option on windows
Internet Explorer bookmarks importer
building on Mac

Install / Upgrade QupZilla in Ubuntu:

The latest binaries have been made into PPA available for Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one to add the PPA and install the browser:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:nowrep/qupzilla

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install qupzilla

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

After that, you can launch the browser from Unity dash and receive future updates by running regular update via Software Updater.

In Howtos Qupzilla web browser

Install/Upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.17 in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: October 6, 2014

Linus Torvalds finally announced the stable release of Linux Kernel 3.17. He wrote on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (lkml.org):

So the past week was fairly calm, and so I have no qualms about releasing 3.17 on the normal schedule (as opposed to the optimistic “maybe I can release it one week early” schedule that was not to be).

However, I now have travel coming up – something I hoped to avoid when I was hoping for releasing early. Which means that while 3.17 is out, I’m not going to be merging stuff very actively next week, and the
week after that is LinuxCon EU…

What that means is that depending on how you want to see it, the 3.18 merge window will either be three weeks, or alternatively just have a rather slow start. I don’t mind getting pull requests starting now
(in fact, I have a couple already pending in my inbox), but I likely won’t start processing them for a week.

Anyway, back to 3.17. Nothing major happened during the last week, as you can see from the appended shortlog. Mostly drivers (i915, nouveau, ethernet, scsi, sound) and some networking fixes. With some misc
noise all over.

Go out and test,

Linus

What’s New in Linux Kernel 3.17:

Radeon R9 290 “Hawaii” GPUs finally play nicely with the open-source AMD Linux driver.
Microsoft Xbox One controller support.
Improvements to the Sony SIXAXIS support
Toshiba “Active Protection Sensor” Support, a driver to detect if Toshiba laptops are in a free-fall.
New ARM hardware support: Rockchip RK3288 SoC, Allwinner A23 SoC, Allwinner A31 Hummingbird, Tegra30 Apalis board, Gumstix Pepper AM335x, and the AM437x TI evaluation board.
Open-source NVIDIA driver improvements.
DMA-BUF cross-device synchronization support
Broadcom BCM7XXX-based board support
ACPI 5.1 activity and other power management improvements.
Audio support includes Wildcatpoint Audio DSP on Intel Broadwell Ultrabooks.

Install / Upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.17 in Ubuntu:

Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the binary packages, available for download in the link below:

Download Linux Kernel 3.17 (Deb)

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

linux-headers-3.17.0-031700_xxx_all.deb
linux-headers-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.xxx_i386/amd64.deb
linux-image-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.xxx_i386/amd64.deb

For Ubuntu server that does not have a graphical session, you can download and install the kernel by running below commands one by one:

For 32-bit system, navigate to /tmp, download the debs and finally install them via below commands:

cd /tmp/

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_i386.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-image-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.17.0-*.deb linux-image-3.17.0-*.deb

For 64-bit system, run:

cd /tmp/

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-headers-3.17.0-031700_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-utopic/linux-image-3.17.0-031700-generic_3.17.0-031700.201410060605_amd64.deb

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.17.0-*.deb linux-image-3.17.0-*.deb

When done, restart your computer.

Tip: If you’re using a proprietary video driver, you may need to re-build (or re-install) the driver to get it work with new kernel.

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 3.17:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.17.0-* linux-image-3.17.0-* && sudo update-grub

That’s it. Enjoy!

In Howtos Linux Kernel, Linux Kernel 3.17 series, Ubuntu 14.04

Deluge BitTorrent Client 1.3.9 Released, Install it in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: October 5, 2014

Deluge Team has recently announced its BitTorrent client v1.3.8. Later the same day, Deluge 1.3.9 was released with a quick fix that was missed in the previous release.

Deluge is a full-featured BitTorrent client for Linux, OS X, Unix and Windows. It uses libtorrent in its backend and features multiple user-interfaces including: GTK+, web and console. It has been designed using the client server model with a daemon process that handles all the bittorrent activity. The Deluge daemon is able to run on headless machines with the user-interfaces being able to connect remotely from any platform.

Changes in Deluge 1.3.9:

Fix every torrent is displayed twice in classic mode

Changes in Deluge 1.3.8:

Core:

Emit FinishedEvent? after moving storage complete
Fixes to mitigate fastresume corruption

GtkUI:

Fix application startup failing with ‘cannot acquire lock’ error
Fix the Queued Torrents ‘Clear’ button not properly clearing the list of torrent
Fix updating core_config before setting default options
Fix TypeError? if active workspace is None
Nautilus window opens behind current window
Fix showing the open_folder menuitem
Suppress unimportant gnome warnings
Optimized the updating of the torrent view
Fixed Indicator icon label issue
Fix listview error with new config

Other changes:

WebUI: Ensure values are updated from config upon showing a plugin page
Extractor: Add WebUI plugin page
Extractor: Find 7-zip application path on Windows via registry
Execute: Add a TorrentRemoved? event option
Scheduler: Fix an ‘undefined this.scheduleCells’ error in javascript console
Blocklist and Notifications: Add WebUI plugin page
Console: Fix console parsing args

Install / Upgrade Deluge in Ubuntu:

The latest packages has been made into the Deluge Team PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 10.04, and derivatives.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run commands below one by one:

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

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install deluge

Above commands will add the Deluge Team PPA and install the GTK version in your Ubuntu system. Once installed, start it from Unity dash or menu.

If you want to install the web UI, run the command below to install the daemon after added the PPA:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install deluge-web deluged

Start the daemon by running deluge-web & in terminal and go to localhost:8112 (or http://serverip:8112) in your web browser. The default password is deluge.

Also, you can install the console ui by installing the packages deluge-console and deluged.

In Howtos bittorrent client, deluge

Install The Latest Quassel IRC Client in Ubuntu via PPA

Last updated: October 4, 2014

This quick tutorial shows you how to install the latest release of Quassel IRC client in Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and derivatives via PPA.

Quassel is a modern, cross-platform, distributed KDE / Qt IRC client. One (or multiple) client(s) can attach to and detach from a central core. It’s much like the popular combination of screen and a text-based IRC client such as WeeChat, but graphical.

While Ubuntu 14.04 Software Center provides Quassel 0.10, the latest release has recently reached 0.11. See what’s new:

changes in v0.10.1:

Fix buffer hotlist sorting
Split CTCP messages if they’re too long
Make database problems more obvious
Fix backlog loading for QuasselDroid
Properly save the toolbar state on Mac OSX
Fix a crash with KDE’s network detection
Various other fixes

changes in v0.11.0:

New build requirements: C++11 capable compiler (gcc 4.7+, clang 3.3+, MSVC 2013+), cmake 2.8.9+
Full support for Qt 5.2+ in addition to Qt 4.6+
Completely revamp the build system, making use of “new” CMake features

Install Quassel IRC Clien via PPA:

Thanks to Michael Marley, a PPA repository has been created with the latest stable builds of Quassel packages for Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and derivatives.

1. 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:mamarley/quassel

Type in your user password when it asks. Note that there is no visual feed back when you’re typing a password.

2. Then update and install the client:

For KDE build, run:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install quassel

For Qt build, run:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install quassel-qt4

Once installed, open the irc client from Unity dash or application menu and you can receive future updates by running regular update via Software Updater.

In Howtos IRC client, Quassel, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10

Install Latest Nvidia Driver 340.46 via PPA in Ubuntu

Last updated: May 8, 2016

The latest NVIDIA Linux driver has reached 340.46 with a few bug fixes. Here’s how to easily install it in Ubuntu 14.10 or Ubuntu 14.04 via PPA repository.

What’s new in NVIDIA 340.46:

Fixed an OpenGL issue that could cause glReadPixels() operations to be improperly clipped when resizing composited application windows, potentially leading to momentary X freezes.
Fixed a bug that could prevent the GLSL compiler from correctly evaluating some expressions when compiling shaders.
Fixed a bug that could cause nvidia-installer to crash while attempting to run nvidia-xconfig on systems where that utility is missing.
Added option UseSysmemPixmapAccel to control the use of GPU acceleration for X drawing operations on pixmaps allocated in system memory.

Release note and supported GPUs are available in the Nvidia page.

Install Nvidia 340.46 via PPA:

Besides using the official installer, we can easily install the driver from a Launchpad PPA.

To add the PPA & install Nvidia 340.46, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:

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

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install nvidia-340

When done, restart your computer.

If for some reason the driver does not work properly for your machine, remove it via:

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-340

sudo apt-get autoremove

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

Press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get into console (or boot into recovery mode) if the new driver mess up the graphical session.

In Howtos Nvidia Driver

Timeshift Adds ‘Clone Ubuntu’ Option & BTRFS Filesystem Support

Last updated: December 10, 2022

TimeShift, Linux system restore application, now is at v1.6. The new release supports cloning your Ubuntu to another device. BTRFS filesystem support is also available in a fork release.

TimeShift is an open source application for Linux that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS.

The utility takes incremental snapshots of the system using rsync and hard-links. These snapshots can be restored at a later date to undo all changes that were made to the system after the snapshot was taken.

The latest Timeshift v1.6 was released recently with below new features:

A “Clone” button to clone your current system to another device. You can clone your Ubuntu install to a portable device and boot on another machine.
Improved First Snapshot Size Estimation
Backups can now be saved on LUKS-encrypted partitions.
The terminal output was cleaned up. Only important messages will be displayed

The developer has also announced Timeshift BTRFS, a fork release that supports for Linux system installed on BTRFS filesystem. It features:

Super-fast snapshot creation
Snapshots takes ZERO space initially
Super-fast restore

Install Timeshift in Ubuntu:

Both rsync (normal version) and BTRFS version are available in the developer’s PPA for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.10 and derivatives.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and run one by one to add the PPA and install Timeshift packages:

To install TimeShift:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:teejee2008/timeshift

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install timeshift

~~To install TimeShift BTRFS version:~~

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

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install timeshift-btrfs

Once properly installed, start it from Unity Dash, and you can receive future updates by running regular updates via Software Updater.

In Howtos system restore

Ubuntu 14.04 Tip: Remove Unwanted Players From Sound Menu

Last updated: October 2, 2014

Have tried multiple media players in Ubuntu and found that the sound menu is full of player controls? Well, below I’ll tell how to clean it up by removing unwanted players from the menu.

Remove unwanted players from sound menu

To get started, we need a simple tool called dconf-editor. If you don’t have it on your system, click the link below to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button.

click install dconf-editor

Once you have it installed, open the tool from Unity dash or left launcher. When dconf-editor opens, navigate to com -> canonical -> indicator -> sound.

Double click the closed brackets next to ‘interested-media-players’ and remove the names of the players ended with .desktop.

For me, after removing ‘tomahawk.desktop’, ‘pragha.desktop’, ‘gnome-music.desktop’, ‘rhythmbox.desktop’, ‘pithos.desktop’, ‘nuvolaplayer.desktop’, only VLC media player is left under the sound menu.

If you later launch a player after you “removed” it, it will be added back to the sound menu automatically. To prevent this happens, add it into blacklisted-media-player.

In my case, pragha and gnome music player will be never listed in the sound menu, even you’re listening with one of them.