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Nitrux Icon Theme 3.5 Brings Several New Software Icons

Last updated: April 6, 2015

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Nitrux is a simple, clean and hand crafted icon set for GTK based environments (Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE, LXDE), KDE (Plasma, Plasma 5) and Android.

This icon theme just got a new release a few hours ago which fixed misnamed Bygfoot icon, added back Synaptic package status icons, made icon for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Nitrux 3.5.0 also adds some new icons for:

  • fault milestone one
  • Fading Hearts
  • Narcissu 1st & 2nd
  • Sakura Spirit
  • Serious Sam 3:BFE
  • garry’s mod
  • Team Fortress 2
  • Half-Life Blue Shift
  • Counter Strike-Condition-Zero
  • Ricochet
  • Opposing Force
  • Team Fortress
  • and several action icons for Plasma.

Install Nitrux Icon Theme:

First grab the latest .DEB binary (nitrux-icon-theme_x.x.x_all.deb) from link below:

Download Nitrux Icon DEB

For KDE user, download the below version instead:

Download Nitrux Icon for KDE

Then click open the .deb with Ubuntu Software Center and install the theme.

To apply the theme, you may use Unity Tweak Tool, Gnome Tweak Tool, Ubuntu Tweak, etc.

In News
 

Install Audacity Audio Editor 2.1.0 in Ubuntu From PPA

Last updated: April 4, 2016

A new stable release of the free and open-source Audio Editor and Recorder, Audacity 2.1.0, was announced a few days ago.

The new release brings Real-Time Preview feature and lots of improvements and bug fixes. Here’s the release highlights:

  • For a long time, we have wanted Real-Time Preview for effects. It seemed nearly unachievable without major restructuring. But with Audacity 2.1.0, we have it in LADSPA, VST, and Audio Unit (OS X) effects! Thanks to Leland Lucius for these great new capabilities!
  • Much improved Noise Reduction effect replaces Noise Removal. Thanks to new contributor Paul Licameli!
  • Lots of other improvements to effects, also thanks to Leland, including:
    • VST: FXB preset banks, hosting multiple plugins
    • All effects can now be used in Chains, and can be sorted on name, publisher, or class.
    • Most Nyquist effects now have Preview button.
  • Redesigned Meter Toolbars show a lot more information in smaller area. Thanks, Leland Lucius and James Crook!
  • Spectral Selection in Spectrogram view. Thanks to Paul Licameli!

For more details, see the release note.

Install / Upgrade to Audacity 2.1.0 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint:

Since Audacity Team only provides an daily build PPA with latest development packages and Ubuntu repositories still provide old versions in Software Center, I’ve uploaded Audacity 2.1.0 into this PPA.

So far, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Linux Mint 13 and 17 are supported.

Update: PPA updated with the 2.1.1 packages for 15.10, 15.04, and 14.04! Ubuntu 12.04 is excluded due to the old libsuil library.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity

2. After adding the PPA, you can upgrade the editor using Software Updater (or Updater Manager).

Or just run below commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install audacity

For issue and help, please use Audacity Forum.

In Howtos ,
 

How to Play An Ambient Noise in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: April 4, 2015

ANoise Player is a handy application allows to play some background noises in Ubuntu by simply choosing a noise (e.g., rain, night, wind, sea, storm, fire, forest, and coffee shop) from system tray sound menu. More noises can be added to menu manually.

The player is an open-source project created by Marcos Alvarez Costales, an Ubuntu Member and the developer of Folder Color extension.

If you want to try it in your Ubuntu, run below commands one by one in terminal to get it from PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:costales/anoise

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install anoise anoise-community-extension1

So far, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and Ubuntu 15.04 are supported. Note: For GNOME Shell you’ll need this extension.

If you don’t want to add the PPA, grab the .deb packages of anoise and anoise-media from PPA packages page. And I will recommend to install them via below command because they depend on each other.

cd ~/Downloads; sudo dpkg -i anoise*.deb; sudo apt-get -f install

Once installed, start the player for the first time from the Unity Dash and then you can always play a ambient noise the sound indicator.

To add your own .OGG noises to sound indicator, copy and paste the files into Computer > usr > share > anoise > sounds folder. You may run gksudo nautilus command to open file browser with root and do the copy and paste things.

In Howtos
 

Blender 2.74 Released with Lots of Improvements

Last updated: April 2, 2015

A new stable release of the open-source 3D software Blender 2.74 was released at the end of March with some new features and numerous improvements.

Blender 2.74 release highlights:

  • Cycles got several precision, noise, speed, memory improvements, new Pointiness attribute.
  • Viewport has new cool compositing features, outliner now manages orphan datablocks better.
  • Modeling now allows custom normals, and transferring data layers between meshes!
  • Massive improvements to hair dynamics and editing tools: a big step forward with more to come…
  • A new tool “Cavity Mask” was added to sculpting/painting, along with other improvements.
  • Great memory consumption optimization in Freestyle NPR stroke rendering.
  • Grease pencil and Game engine improvements, and more…

Read the detailed changes at this page.

How to Install or Upgrade to Blender 2.74 in Ubuntu:

While Blender website provides a portable version for download, you can always install the latest release via these steps in another post (You may first remove the previous Blender installation).

There are some guys maintaining the most recent Blender release in PPAs. Below are some of them:

To add a PPA, run below command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository PPA_NAME_HERE

For example, running sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender to add the Thomas Schiex’s PPA.

After adding a PPA, open Software Updater and upgrade Blender after checking for updates.

In Howtos
 

How to Fix Screen Brightness Issue in Ubuntu Laptop

Last updated: April 1, 2015

Running Ubuntu on a laptop? You may found that Ubuntu doesn’t memorize your screen brightness level. Every time you reboot or wake the machine up from sleep, it resets the screen brightness to maximum level.

I’ve written how to save screen brightness level in Ubuntu, but it might not work for all video adapters.

Thanks to Norbert, he made a sysvinit-backlight script that automatically remembers your screen brightness level for all video adapters and loads the backlight levels on boot, reboot, or wake up from sleep.

To install the script:

Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run below commands one by one to get it from Norbert’s PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nrbrtx/sysvinit-backlight

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install sysvinit-backlight

If you don’t want to add PPA, you may grab the script directly from PPA packages page. So far, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 12.04 are supported.

For more you may contact the the script author at launchpad.net.

In Howtos
 

Firefox 37 Released with User Rating System [How-to-Upgrade]

Last updated: March 31, 2015

A new stable release of Mozilla’s web browser, Firefox 37, was released today at the end of March.

According to the release note, Firefox 37 brings a heartbeat user rating system to get user feedback about Firefox. Every day a random subset of users are offered a rating widget. After rating Firefox, an ENGAGEMENT page may open in a background tab.

Users can disable this feature by going to about:config, search browser.selfsupport.url in filter box and set value to “”.

Besides that, Firefox 37 comes with below changes:

  • Yandex set as default search provider for the Turkish locale
  • Bing search now uses HTTPS for secure searching
  • Improved protection against site impersonation via OneCRL centralized certificate revocation
  • Opportunistically encrypt HTTP traffic where the server supports HTTP/2 AltSvc
  • Disabled insecure TLS version fallback for site security
  • Extended SSL error reporting for reporting non-certificate errors
  • TLS False Start optimization now requires a cipher suite using AEAD construction
  • Improved certificate and TLS communication security by removing support for DSA
  • Improved performance of WebGL rendering on Windows
  • Implemented a subset of the Media Source Extensions (MSE) API to allow native HTML5 playback on YouTube (Windows only)
  • Added support for CSS display:contents
  • IndexedDB now accessible from worker threads
  • New SDP/JSEP implementation in WebRT

See the release note for details.

How to upgrade Firefox in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 14.10, Firefox 37 will be available for upgrade very soon through Ubuntu official repositories.

Once the official build of Firefox 37 is available, you can open Software Updater and install available updates after checking for updates.

In News
 

Rhythmbox Music Player 3.2 Released [How-to-upgrade]

Last updated: March 29, 2015

The 3.2 release of Rhythmbox, Ubuntu’s default music player, was announced just a few hours ago with some new features, bug fixes and translation updates.

According the the changelog, Rhythmbox 3.2 brings a Soundcloud plugin, support for disc and track total tags, ability to clear, re-fetch and manually set cover art using the song info window.

There are also some bugs has been fixed in the new release:

  • same songs played after reading a playlist
  • no easy way to unselect the browse by album,artist,genre option
  • Unclear string “in” for translation
  • rhythmbox skips one or two songs after playing certain songs
  • configure warning: ‘INCLUDES’ is the old name for ‘AM_CPPFLAGS’ (or ‘*_CPPFLAGS’)
  • Add track count and disc count to the database
  • data: Add Vorbis aliases as supported mime-types
  • Failure to build with tdb 1.3
  • Crash when right clicking the track list in the library
  • Rhythmbox fails to import MP3 files with ID3 v2.4 tags created by PicardQT
  • Tracks with no embedded covert art show a random cover art from the music collection
  • Right click on any file in ‘Tracks list’ clashes the application
  • Duplicate symbol _rb_metadata_iface_xml
  • gdkx.h explicitly included; prevents building on Mac
  • symbolic icon is broken

How to upgrade to Rhythmbox 3.2 in Ubuntu:

The new release is available in fossfreedom’s PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 15.04, and Linux Mint 17.

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

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox

2. After adding the PPA, launch Software Updater (or Update Manager) and install available updates for Rhythmbox after checking for updates.

In Howtos, News
 

Install Free Music Score App ‘MuseScore’ 2.0 in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: March 28, 2015

MuseScore, a free and open-source music composition and notation software, has reached a new major release, MuseScore 2.0, with great new features and improvements.

MuseScore is a scorewriter for Windows, OS X, and Linux. It’s main purpose is the creation, editing and printing of various types of musical scores in a “What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get” (WYSIWYG) environment.

MuseScore 2.0 comes with a brand new start center to simplify score browsing and creation, an inspector window to provide easy access to properties of individual notes and other elements, and customizable palettes to allow you to group your most commonly-used score symbols together.

MuseScore 2 also brings:

  • a new continuous view mode
  • some powerful new editing tools.
  • New notation styles and elements
  • layout, playback, import and export improvements.

For more, see what’s new in MuseScore 2.

How to install/upgrade MuseScore 2.0 in Ubuntu:

The new release has been made into its official PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 15.04.

To install it, open terminal from the Dash/Menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run below commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:mscore-ubuntu/mscore-stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install musescore
In Howtos ,
 

Ubuntu 15.04 Final Beta Available for Download

Last updated: September 29, 2017

The beta 2 release of Ubuntu 15.04 Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products was announced today, codenamed “Vivid Vervet”.

Ubuntu 15.04 comes with Linux Kernel 3.19. The default desktop Unity 7.3 brings many bug-fixes and locally integrated menus for unfocused windows. This release also ships Compiz Window Manager 0.9.12 with Nvidia fixes, fully MATE desktop support.

Before Ubuntu 15.04 final to be released on April 23, there will be also a RC release on April 16.

Download Ubuntu 15.04:

This beta release includes images from not only the Ubuntu Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, but also the Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, and a new official flavor Ubuntu MATE.

Here are the download links for:

Ubuntu Desktop, Server, Cloud, Core: releases.ubuntu.com/vivid/

KUbuntu 15.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/vivid/

LUbuntu 15.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/vivid/

Ubuntu Gnome 15.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/vivid/

UbuntuKylin 15.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/vivid/

UbuntuStudio 15.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/vivid/

Xubuntu 15.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/vivid/

Ubuntu MATE 15.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/vivid/

Ubuntu 15.04 Beta2 official release note is here.

In News
 

Valentina – Open Source Pattern Making Software for Clothing

Last updated: March 26, 2015

Valentina is an open source pattern making program for clothing. It allows pattern creation using either standard sizing tables or an individual’s set of measurements. It blends new technologies with traditional methods to create a unique pattern making tool.

Currently, there is a lack of affordable software tools designed for creating patterns. Some people faced with this problem resort to using CAD tools or graphical editors designed for other purposes. However, these tools are inadequate when performing certain pattern making tasks (e.g. adding seam allowance, truing a dart, walking a seam). Moreover, these programs are good enough to create a pattern in a single size, but when you want to make changes for another person, you can’t do it quickly. You need to create the pattern from scratch. This is where traditional methods of pattern drafting can be very useful. Why can’t you tell a program how to change the pattern so you don’t need to do it ever again?

How to install Valentina in Ubuntu:

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dismine/valentina

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install valentina

Or you can download the .deb binary from PPA packages page and install it via Ubuntu Software Center.

Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17 are supported so far!

In App Review ,