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Install Latest Tomahawk Music Player in Ubuntu 14.04/14.10

Last updated: March 19, 2015

Tomahawk social media player has recently released version 0.8, which features redesigned UI, Beats and Google Play Music support and more.

Tomahawk is a music player that not only plays your local collection, but also streams from SoundCloud, Beats, Spotify, Google Play Music, YouTube and many more. You can even connect Tomahawk with your friends via Jabber / GTalk and share your playlists and collections.

What’s new in Tomahawk 0.8:

Redesigned – Shiny new interface. Simplified. New icons.
Added Friend Feed.
Now Playing notifications (OS X & Windows) – support for OS-level notification systems (e.g. Notification Center) with fallback to its own native notification system.
Many actions now available in context menu – including Favorite and Send to a Friend.
Drag and drop support for iTunes, Deezer, Beats Music, Rdio, Spotify, SoundCloud links (into Tomahawk) for playlists/tracks/artists/album links.
Support for clicking source icon for currently playing track in audio controls to take user to associated page on source’s site
Added Hatchet plug-in.
Added Google Play Music and Beats Music support.
Add links to Support site, Bug Reports and Translations to Help menu.
Add “What’s New” page to display on first launch (or until user dismisses it) – also available from Help menu.
Changed label from “Resolvers” and “Services” to more generic “Plug-Ins”.
Clarified some labels, help text and status messages.
Changed icon color a bit.
Added “Acoustic” and “Electric” songtypes to Stations options.
Removed some stale Chart sources.
Playback Queue now saves its state across sessions.
Queue now moved to sidebar
Added “Inbox” feature, showing incoming song recommendations. Dropping a track on a user in the sidebar sends a recommendation to them.
You will now be asked whether you want to trust invalid SSL certificates.
Improved connecting between Tomahawk peers and support having multiple IPs (including IPv6).
Removed Top Loved from sidebar.
Removed Spotify playlist syncing (will be back in future versions).
HTTP(S) streaming is now done by Tomahawk instead of the Phonon backend (fixed HTTPS streaming on MacOS).
Heavily reduced memory footprint during and after indexing the database.
Retina display and DPI scaling fixes.
New Collection views. Re-added support for tracklist view of Collection.
Added Telepathy support.
Plugin refactoring (and .AXE resolver binaries).
Removed Twitter due to change in Twitter’s API.
Removed auto-playlists.
Improved error messages.
Added basic remote control API.
Add support for Opus codec (requires TagLib 1.9).
Support rtmp:// streams.
Support custom headers in CustomUrlHandler.
Fuzzy search indices for JS Resolvers.
Add metadata retrieval of HTTP(S) streams in JavaScript resolvers.

How to Install Tomahawk in Ubuntu:

While Ubuntu repositories provide an old version of Tomahawk, you can always install the latest release from its official PPA. So far, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10, and Linux Mint 17 are supported.

To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tomahawk/ppa

Then install Tomahawk 0.8 via Synaptic Package Manager or commands below:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install tomahawk tomahawk-dbg

After that, you can receive future updates by running regular updates via Software Updater.

More:

1. You can remove Tomahawk either from Ubuntu Software Center or by running the command below:

sudo apt-get remove tomahawk

To remove the PPA repository run:

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:tomahawk/ppa

2. To remove Tomahawk controls from Sound Menu:

Install dconf-editor from Ubuntu Software Center.
Launch dconf-editor and navigate to com -> canonical -> indicator -> sound
Remove ‘tomahawk.desktop’ from the value of interested-media-players.
To prevent it from showing in Sound Menu again, add ‘tomahawk.desktop’ to value of blacklisted-media-players.

In Howtos tomahawk

Racing Game ‘Stunt Rally’ 2.5 Released [How to Install]

Last updated: November 5, 2014

Open Source racing game Stunt Rally got a new release with new tracks, sceneries, and other features. Here is how to install it in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10.

Stunt Rally is an open source racing game with a track editor. It focuses on closed rally tracks with possible stunt elements (jumps, loops, pipes).

The 2.5 release was announced the day before yesterday, and below is the changelog:

167 tracks (20 New)
5 New sceneries: Surreal, Stone, Space, Alien, BlackDesert
Common
- Renamed all tracks with 3 letter prefixes, showing short name in list
  On Replays tab there is a button to “Rename All Old” replays,ghosts and records
Game
- New challenges and championships
- Solid fluids (e.g. ice, lava, added in editor fluids mode, but solid and flat)
- Rewind cooldown, after rewind 1 sec delay until next use is possible
- Fixed game setup update in multiplayer (before was updated only after track change)
GUI – Tracks list
- Now with short name, difficulty and length ratings (in default short view)
- Selectable columns, and filtering, button Y, Ctrl-F twice to toggle
Common
- Fixed black terrain on ATI/AMD Radeon cards
- Many smaller fixes
- Changed translations, more info for strings, own program to generate .pot, topic, Wiki
- New user log files with errors and warnings only, ogre.err and ogre_ed.err
Editor
- Easier on pipe creating, mark (key 8) now also moves pipe down (ctrl-8 the old way)
- On pipe sections now marked on minimap as orange
- Up/down keys working in pick window and objects lists, buildings groups list
- Checkbox to ignore all “Wrong checkpoint” messages on track (for curly tracks where checks overlap road)
- Better checkpoints in pipe, now in center and radius 1
Tweak
- Reference graph for tires, loading tires
Code
- Reworked Road_Rebuild.cpp, cleaner, data stucts, split to Road_Prepass.cpp
- Split common .cfg to settings_com.h and cpp
- specMap_rgb option in .mat (for rgb only specular maps)
- Check if tracks and cars exist before replay load
- Fixed most CppCheck warnings

How to Install Stunt Rally:

2.5 release will be available in PlayDeb repository very soon, so far it’s Stunt Rally 2.4, available for Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, and Linux Mint 17. Check out the webpage.

1. Enable PlayDeb repository.

For Linux Mint, go to Start Menu -> Software Sources -> Additional repositories -> check out the box that says “archive.getdeb.net”.

For Ubuntu, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu trusty-getdeb games" >/etc/apt/sources.list.d/playdeb.list'

Then get the key by command:

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

2. After checking for updates, you can install Stunt Rally from Synaptic Package Manager. Or run below commands one by one:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install stuntrally

That’s it.

In Howtos stunt rally

Install Latest Release of Exaile Music Player in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: November 6, 2014

Quick tutorial shows that how to install the latest release of Exaile Music Player in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.10 and/or Linux Mint 13/17.

Exaile is a music player that was originally conceived to be similar in style and function to KDE’s Amarok 1.4, but uses the GTK+ widget toolkit rather than Qt. It is written in Python and utilizes the GStreamer media framework.

Exaile incorporates many features from Amarok (and other media players) like automatic fetching of album art, handling of large libraries, lyrics fetching, Last.fm support, advanced tag editing, and optional iPod and MSC device support via plugins.

In addition, Exaile supports plugins that provide features such as ReplayGain support, an equalizer with presets, previewing tracks via a secondary soundcard, iPod support, and Moodbar integration.

So far, the latest release is Exaile 3.4.1 which was released on Nov 1, with below changes:

Works on OSX Mavericks and Yosemite
Fix the bug that Exaile did not work properly because of font issues in GTK
Other minor fixes

Install Exaile in Ubuntu:

Thanks to Web Upd8 Team, you can get the latest Exaile release from the PPA.

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

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

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install exaile exaile-plugin-contextinfo exaile-plugin-ipod exaile-plugin-moodbar

Above command will add the Web Up8 Team Main PPA, update your system package lists, and finally install exaile as well as plugins. After that, you can receive future updates by running regular updates via Software Updater.

For those who don’t want to add the PPA, grab the .deb installer for exaile and plugins from launchpad page.

In Howtos Amarok, Exaile

Pitivi Video Editor 0.94 Released with GTK HeaderBar

Last updated: July 14, 2017

Pitivi Video Editor has reached version 0.94 recently. The new release features Gnome client-side decoration Gtk HeaderBar.

According to the release note, the main toolbar and menubar have been replaced by a headerbar and menubutton, saving a significant amount of precious vertical space and using the horizontal space better.

See the comparison -Pitivi 0.93 on the left, 0.94 on the right:

Besides that, Pitivi 0.94 fixed various bugs:

Fixed crashes due to a broken version of CoGL, CoGL APIs has been dropped.
Fixed crashes when running Pitivi outside of GNOME Shell due to Clutter GStreamer video output.
Ported to Python3
Text wrapping in the rendering progress dialog and title editor has been fixed
Effects can now be reordered within a clip’s properties
The default positioning of UI components (when starting from a fresh install) has been improved to be balanced properly
Various issues have been corrected regarding:
- Drag and drop in the media library
- Audio waveforms
- Undo/redo
The user manual is now up to date with the state of the new Pitivi series
Undocked window components do not shift position on startup anymore
Docked window components do not shift position on startup anymore, when the window is not maximized.
The title editor’s UI has been simplified, and now supports decimal font sizes
Educational infobars throughout the UI have been tweaked to make their colors less intrusive
Timeline UI animations have been tweaked
Other fixes and translations updates

How to get Pitivi 0.94:

First you may check out your OS type, 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x86_64), by going to shutdown menu (top-right corner gear button) -> “About This Computer”

Select download the all-in-one-bundle package from the link below:

Pitivi all-in-one-bundle

Extract the package and run the executable from the result folder.

In Howtos pitivi, video editor

Cinnamon 2.4 Released, How to Install in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: November 30, 2014

Cinnamon Desktop 2.4 has been announced recently, which will be featured in Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” planned for the end of November and in LMDE 2 “Betsy” planned for Spring 2015.

According to the release note, the new Cinnamon Desktop brings below new features and improvements:

Little improvements on memory usage and responsiveness to make your experience smoother and more enjoyable.
Similar to Windows, “Super+e” now opens up the home directory.
Single-button touchpads are now supported and actions for 2-finger and 3-finger clicks are configurable.
Compositing in full-screen mode is now configurable and does not require to restart Cinnamon.
The desktop font is now configurable.
It is now possible to give the screensaver a custom date format, but also to change the font and the color of the text.
Theme and Background Settings were completely redesigned, Background Slideshow supported.
A “Slideshow” applet can be added to panel to control background slideshow.
The Network Settings were rebased on GNOME’s latest configuration module.
Add Notification and Privacy Settings.
Nemo now allows quick customization of folder icons with folder-color-switcher.

For details, see the official release note.

Install / Upgrade to Cinnamon in Ubuntu / Linux Mint:

NOTE that Cinnamon 2.4 is released a month earlier than Linux Mint 17.1 for the specific purpose to squash new bugs and to gather feedback. So there’ll be bugs.

Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon final release is out! Ubuntu 14.04 user can install Cinnamon 2.4 stable from an unofficial PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lestcape/cinnamon
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

To help test the new desktop, you can follow below steps to install or upgrade to Cinnamon 2.4 from a nightly build PPA:

For Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04, run commands below one by one in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

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

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install cinnamon

(Optional) To remove it, run:

sudo apt-get remove cinnamon && sudo apt-get autoremove

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

For Linux Mint 17, do:

Launch Menu->Administration->”Software Sources”.
Tick the option “Unstable Packages (Romeo)”.
Carefully read the warning in the dialog that pops up and click “Yes” if appropriate.
Launch the Update Manager and click on “Refresh”.
If a new mintupdate version is shown, apply it.
Apply all updates related to Cinnamon (sort by version, 2.4.0 or 2.4.1, or by update type since they all come from Romeo).

In Howtos, Linux Mint cinnamon

How to Connect to Cisco AnyConnect VPN in Ubuntu

Last updated: November 1, 2014

Many businesses and universities use Cisco AnyConnect as their VPN solution. Although there is a native Linux client offered by Cisco, it is not very well supported, and in some cases the user does not have access to the client. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem – thanks to OpenConnect.

OpenConnect is a client for Cisco’s AnyConnect VPN. It is free software, and is released under the GNU LGPL v2.1 . Getting connected to an AnyConnect VPN is easy with OpenConnect and the TUN/TAP kernel module that is built into the Linux kernel.

1. First run command below to active th TUN module:

sudo /sbin/modprobe tun

2. Install OpenConnect:

sudo apt-get install openconnect

3. Connect to VPN, run:

sudo openconnect yourvpn.example.com

It prompts you to type in username and password. Once these are authenticated, the VPN connection is established.

Keep the terminal window open while the VPN session is active. Network resources such as shared folders, NAS drives, servers, and workstations should now be available. To close the VPN session, press Ctrl+Z in the terminal window. Abruptly killing the terminal window without properly closing out of the VPN session can lead to issues when attempting to reconnect in the future. These issues can typically be resolved by restarting the machine.

For OpenConnect manual, run command man openconnect.

via: Full Circle Magazine, author: Lev, Lazinskiy

In Howtos

Google Cloud SDK Made into Canonical Partners Repository

Last updated: October 31, 2014

Google Cloud SDK has been finally made into Ubuntu Canonical Partners repository, which means you can install it directly from Ubuntu Software Center or by running apt-get command.

Google Cloud SDK is the command line tools for Google App Engine, Computer Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Cloud SQL, and Cloud DNS.

For Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 14.10 and future releases, you can follow below steps to install the Google Cloud SDK:

1. Add Canonical Partners repository.

Open Software & Updates, or Software Sources for Ubuntu 12.04 Precise and navigate to Other Software tab. Check the boxes that says “Canonical Partners”

2. Checking for updates by running Software Updater from the Unity Dash:

3. Finally install Google Cloud SDK via Synaptic Package Manager. Or click the button below to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button.

Click to install Google Cloud SDK

For command line, just run commands below one by one:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) partner"

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install google-cloud-sdk

That’s it. Enjoy!

In Howtos Google Cloud SDK

How to Colorize Folder Icons in Ubuntu, Linux Mint Cinnamon Mate

Last updated: October 30, 2014

Folder Color, simple Nautilus extension to colorize folder icons, now adds support for Cinnamon’s Nemo and Mate’s Caja File Manager.

Folder Color is a simple extension to customize your Ubuntu / Linux Mint folder icon, create colorful and unique folder icons for your computer to classify and manage your folders highly efficient.

The project was originally designed for Ubuntu Nautilus file browser. Now, it supports Caja – default for Mate Desktop in Linux Mint and Ubuntu Mate, and Nemo – default for Linux Mint Cinnamon.

Colorize Nautilus Folder Icons (Ubuntu)

Colorize Nemo Folder Icons (Linux Mint Cinnamon)

Install Folder Color in Ubuntu/Linux Mint:

The developer has made the binary packages into PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint 13/17.

To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, do:

1. Add PPA

Paste the command below into terminal and hit Enter to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:costales/folder-color && sudo apt-get update

Type in your user password when it asks, note that there’s no visual feed back.

2. Install the extension:

Select install below package via your Package Manager or by running the given command:

For Ubuntu Nautilus file browser, install folder-color:
```
sudo apt-get install folder-color
```
For Linux Mint Cinnamon’s Nemo file brower, install folder-color-nemo:
```
sudo apt-get install folder-color-nemo
```
For Linux Mint/Ubuntu Mate’s Caja file browser, install folder-color-caja:
```
sudo apt-get install folder-color-caja
```

Tip: For those don’t want to add the PPA, grab the .deb installer directly from the launchpad page. Note that folder-color-common need to be installed first.

3. Apply changes

Finally restart your file browser by either logging out and back in or running the command below and re-open it:

For Nautilus run: nautilus -q
For Nemo run: nemo -q
For Caja run: caja -q

4. Fix Caja issue

For Mate Caja file browser, if you don’t see the Folder Color in context menu, run command to fix:

For 32-bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/girepository-1.0/Caja-2.0.typelib /usr/lib/girepository-1.0/Caja-2.0.typelib

For 64-bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/girepository-1.0/Caja-2.0.typelib /usr/lib/girepository-1.0/Caja-2.0.typelib

And finally restart caja by running caja -q.

via: tuxfamily.org

In Howtos, Linux Mint Change folder colors

How to Install The Latest Blender Release in Ubuntu

Last updated: July 3, 2015

While Ubuntu repositories provide an old Blender version, you can always follow this tutorial to install the latest release from the official package. Tested in Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 and it should work in Ubuntu 10.04 and higher.

Blender is a professional free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games.

So far the latest stable release is Blender 2.72b, which was released a week ago. See the new features in its website.

While Blender in Ubuntu Software Center is old and there’s no PPA repository that always provides the latest binaries, follow the steps below to install the latest release with new features and bug fixes:

Thanks to Thomas Schiex, he is maintaining a PPA that contains the most recent Blender packages for all current Ubuntu releases, though there may be a small delay before the new release made into PPA.

To add the PPA and install Blender, run below commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install blender

1. Click the link below to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button to install the package libsdl1.2debian:

Click to install libsdl1.2debian

2. Download Blender for GNU/Linux from the official link below. You may first check your OS type, 32-bit or 64-bit, by clicking on “About This computer” from shutdown menu (top-right corner gear button).

www.blender.org/download/

3. – a). For single use – If you have only one user on the Ubuntu system, just extract the package to user Downloads folder and run the executable from the result folder:

3. – b). To make all users to be able to run the blender release, extract the package to /opt/ directory.

To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal, run command below to open your Downloads folder as root/administrator:

gksudo nautilus ~/Downloads

Install gksu from Ubuntu Software Center if need. Type in your user password when it asks.

When the folder opens, do:

Right click on Blender package and select open with Archive Manager.
When Archive Manager opens, select Extract to computer -> /opt/

When done, you should see the blender folder under /opt/. For shot, I’ve rename it from “blender-2.72b-linux-glibc211-x86_64” to “blender”.

4. Create a launcher for Blender so that we can start it from the Unity Dash or App Menu.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run command to create .desktop file and edit it with Gedit text editor:

gksudo gedit /usr/share/applications/blender-2.7.desktop

When the file opens, paste below into it and save.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Blender-2.7
Name[de]=Blender-2.7
Name[fr]=Blender-2.7
GenericName=3D modeller
GenericName[de]=3D Modellierer
GenericName[fr]=modeleur 3D
GenericName[ru]=Редактор 3D-моделей
Comment=Create and edit 3D models and animations
Comment[de]=Erstellen und Editieren von 3D Modellen und Animationen
Comment[fr]=Création et édition d'objets 3D et animations
Comment[ru]=Создание и редактирование трёхмерных моделей и анимаций
Exec=/opt/blender/blender
Icon=/opt/blender/icons/scalable/apps/blender.svg
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Graphics;3DGraphics;
StartupNotify=false
MimeType=application/x-blender;

Depends on step 3, you may replace path to Exec & Icon (words in red).

When done, you should be able to open Blender from the Unity Dash or App Menu. Enjoy!

Not clear enough? See the video:

In Howtos blender

How to Install Sticky Notes Indicator in Ubuntu 20.04/21.10

Last updated: November 9, 2021

For those looking for a sticky notes app for Ubuntu, indicator-stickynotes is a GTK3 app that works on Gnome, Unity, KDE, and Xfce.

The app provides an indicator menu, allows to create as many notes as possible in your desktop. Notes can be managed in different groups, which allows to set different text / background colors and font.

Though it is almost 10 years old, the software developer still maintains the packages for the latest Ubuntu releases.

Install Sticky Note Indicator in Ubuntu:

The official Ubuntu PPA maintains the latest packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and even the next Ubuntu 22.04.

Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:umang/indicator-stickynotes

Type user password when it asks while no visual feedback, and hit Enter to continue.

Next, refresh the system package cache via command:

sudo apt-get update

Finally, install the app by running command:

sudo apt install indicator-stickynotes

After installation, open it by searching from the activities overview screen and enjoy!

Remove indicator-stickynotes:

And to remove the tool, open terminal and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove indicator-stickynotes

Also, remove the Ubuntu PPA via command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:umang/indicator-stickynotes

In Howtos sticky notes Ubuntu

Archives For jimingkui

Remove indicator-stickynotes:

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