UbuntuHandbook

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.)

In Howtos IRC client, WeeChat

How to Install Cinnamon 2.6 in Ubuntu 15.04/14.04

Last updated: May 14, 2016

The 2.6 release of Mint’s Cinnamon desktop environment has reached feature-freeze. The stable release is planned for the end of this month.

Cinnamon 2.6 brings some exciting new features, include:

support for systemd
panel support for multiple monitors
support for new GTK headerbar (client-side decorations)

Cinnamon 2.6 will be made into the Romeo repositories for Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca and LMDE 2 Betsy.

Install Cinnamon 2.6 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 15.04 users, before it’s made into a stable PPA (I’ll update the PP once a stable PPA is available) you can now try out the new release through the Gwendal LE BIHAN’s nightly build PPA .

UPDATE: For Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04, there’s now a stable PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:embrosyn/cinnamon

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install cinnamon

To add the PPA, open terminal and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-nightly

Then update system package cache and install the desktop environment via commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install cinnamon

Once installed, log out and select login with Cinnamon.

(Optional) To remove this DE, run:

sudo apt-get purge cinnamon* nemo-* cjs muffin* python-nemo

Also remove the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-nightly

In Howtos cinnamon

Avidemux 2.6.9 Release, How to install in Ubuntu 15.04/14.04

Last updated: May 18, 2015

Avidemux, a free and open-source video editor, sees a new release after more than one year since the last.

Avidemux 2.6.9 brings some new features such as:

x265 support
Qt5 support
Compatibility with newer VAAPI.
Simple support for nvenc (linux).

The new release also brings updated ffmpeg libraries, better compatibility with Dash file, Flv., AvsProxy improvements, and plenty of bug-fixes.

How to install Avidemux in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 15.04, the new release has been made into GetDeb repository. To install or upgrade the software, follow below steps:

1. Add GetDeb repository. Open Software & Updates utility and navigate to Other Software tab.

Click on the Add… button and paste below line for 15.04:

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu vivid-getdeb apps

For 14.04, use below line instead:

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu trusty-getdeb apps

2. Open terminal from the Dash or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to get the keyring:

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

3. Finally install the software via Synaptic package manager, or by running below commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install avidemux2.6

Above command installs the GTK version, for Qt version, run:

sudo apt-get install avidemux2.6-qt

That’s it. Enjoy!

In Howtos avidemux video editor, video editor

How to Install Ardour 4 in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: May 16, 2015

Ardour, free digital audio workstation application, has reached the 4.0 release for almost one month. The new release brings many technical improvements, as well as new features and over a thousand bug fixes.

Ardour is a hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation application intended to be suitable for professional use. The 4.0 release has vastly reduced the memory consumption, brings better OS X support, updated user interface, JACK is no longer required, though it’s still usable with Ardour. For more changes, see the official news page.

How to Install Ardour 4 in Ubuntu 14.04:

There’s finally a PPA repository that contains the Ardour 4 packages for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. To add the PPA, and install/upgrade the software, run below commands one by one in a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dobey/audiotools

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install ardour

Or you can directly download the .deb installer from the PPA page.

For help, please go to Ardour forums.

In Howtos ardour 4, audio recorder

Install / Upgrade to qBittorrent 3.2.0 in Ubuntu 15.04/14.04

Last updated: May 13, 2015

qBittorrent, a free and cross-platform BitTorrent client, has recently reached the 3.2.0 release with a huge list of changes.

qBittorrent 3.2.0 brings some exciting new features, including Qt5 supports, option to auto-hibernate computer, Haiku OS support, highlights files when opening containing folder on Windows and Linux(nautilus, dolphin, konqueror).

In addition, this release also features:

Show actual protocol for listen success/failure in the log. Needs libtorrent v1.0.0
Support per tracker re-announce. Needs libtorrent v1.0.0
Support saving in network locations
Code optimizations resulting in a more CPU efficient and snappier qBittorrent.
WEBUI code rewritten, refactored and improved.
Cache preferences in memory. Minimize chance of settings corruption.
Option to disable connections not supported by proxies.
Add a save resume data interval option(useful for SSD).
Add “Last Seen Complete” column
Add “Last Activity” column
Add “Total Size” column
Show current speed limits in the status bar
Episode filtering for RSS
Setting to ignore RSS rule matches for X days
Add hotkeys and buttons for Top and Bottom priorities
Implement peer relevance column.
Show reason why a peer was blocked. Needs libtorrent 1.0.x
Use the ‘fastest_upload’ setting as seed choking algorithm.
Allow to set text options for the toolbar icons
Add ‘Resumed’ torrent filter
‘Add New Torrent` dialog has a button for quickly choosing a location
Copy selected peers as IP:Port format.
Show info hash in the torrent details in ‘Add New Torrent’ dialog.
New feature: Remove empty labels
Add “Copy name” option in right-click menu of torrent list. Closes #2452
Implement tracker list in the side panel. Closes #170.
Implement a ‘Completed’ status. Closes #2326 #2483 #939.
Columns for session-based download and upload statistics

There’s also numerous bug-fixes and other changes, support for Qt <4.8.0 and libtorrent 0.15.x have been dropped. For details, see the official release page.

How to Install/Upgrade qBittorent in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and their derivatives (build for 12.04 failed), the new release is available in its official PPA.

Open terminal from the Dash/Menu (or press Ctrl+Alt+T). When it opens, run command to add qBittorrent PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:qbittorrent-team/qbittorrent-stable

After adding the PPA, you can either upgrade the software via Software Updater, or install/upgrade it via below commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install qbittorrent

In Howtos bittorrent client, qbittorrent

Install .deb File: Use Gdebi Instead of Ubuntu Software Center

Last updated: May 11, 2015

Looking for a lightweight alternative to Ubuntu Software Center to handle .deb files? Well, Gdebi package installer is the best choice!

deb is the extension of the Debian software package format, which is used in Debian and Ubuntu based distributions. Ubuntu opens the .deb file via the Software Center by default and provides an install button to install the software package. But the Software Center is too heavy for old machines with low RAM (<=2GB) and may be "too much" for you to only install a .deb package. Gdebi is a simple tool designed to install local deb packages which also resolves and installs the dependencies. It was the default package installer in Ubuntu (Ubuntu 10.04 or earlier, sorry I forgot it).