This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Android Studio 2024.1.1 in Ubuntu 22.04 and/or Ubuntu 24.04.
Android Studio, the official IDE for Android app development, is easy to install in Ubuntu in different ways! They include Snap, Flatpak, and official tarball.
NOTE: All the Android Studio packages below support only amd64 (Intel/AMD) CPU architecture type.
Method 1: Install Android Studio via Snap package
The easiest way to install the IDE is using the Snap package, which however runs in sandbox environment. At the moment of writing, the Snap package is at version 2023.1.1, though the newer 2024.1.1 is in dev channel now. Just install it and wait, it will automatically update to the latest once published.
Simply launch App Center (or Ubuntu Software for 22.04), then search & install Android Studio:
This is beginner’s guide shows how to install and setup Waydroid to run full Android system as well as Android applications in Ubuntu.
I’ve written about this by using Anbox, which is however no longer in active development.
This is a re-write with free and open-source ‘Waydroid’, which is a container-based approach to run a minimal customized Android system image based on LineageOS.
Android OS in my Ubuntu 22.04 desktop
This tutorial is tested and works on Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with default Wayland session (Xorg is NOT supported)! Hardware specs include:
CPU: Intel i5-10400.
GPU: Intel HD 630.
Step 1: Install Waydroid
Waydroid is easy to install in Ubuntu/Debian based systems, through its official apt repository.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to install required packages:
sudo apt install curl ca-certificates
sudo command needs password authentication, but with no asterisk feedback. Just type in mind and hit Enter.
2. Then, run command to download the official script, and run it to add Waydroid repository into your system.
curl https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash
In case the script does not work properly, find out your OS code manually via either lsb_release -sc or cat /etc/os-release command. Then, run command below instead:
curl https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash -s jammy
Replace jammy depends on your system code-name. So far, it supports focal, jammy, noble, bookworm, bullseye, sid
3. Finally, run command to install Waydroid:
sudo apt install waydroid
Try sudo apt update first to refresh cache if the command output package not found
Once successfully installed the app, you should be able to launch it from start menu, applications menu, or any other app launcher depends on your desktop environment.
Step 2: Initialize
The first launch of the app, will launch the “Initialize Waydroid” dialog.
The default options are usually OK. But, you may have to choose Android type before getting start:
VANILLA – as name indicates, it’s vanilla ROM, without Google Services/Apps.
GAPPS – come with Google Services/Gapps.
Next, click Download button will automatically download & install ROM and required packages. In my case, it downloaded & installed Android 11.
When done successfully, it will show you something like the screenshot shows you.
After clicking “Done” button in last step, start Waydroid again will launch an Android screen on your desktop.
However, it by default starts in full-screen (or may-be called maximized) mode.
To change the Android screen size, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) in the Ubuntu host, and run commands:
waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.width 506
waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.height 1000
The 2 commands will set the screen width and height to 506 x 1000. Change the numbers accordingly, and apply by running command to stop current Android session (then re-launch).
waydroid session stop
The Android window is borderless in my case. To move the window, you may either press & hold Super (Windows logo) key then dragging, or press Alt+F7 and then move mouse cursor without mouse clicking.
Step 4: Install & Remove Android Apps
If you selected ‘VANILLA’ while initializing Waydroid, then there’s no app store in the Android to install applications.
In the case, you may download any APK file from the web, or download & install the free open-source F-Droid in the host (Ubuntu in the case) then use it in Android screen to install apps.
To install APK file from host user’s ‘Downloads’ folder, just run command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):
And, verify by listing all installed Android apps:
waydroid app list
Waydroid will create app shortcuts for all installed Android apps, through .desktop files under “.local/share/applications”. Meaning, you can search & launch Android apps directly from host machine (Ubuntu).
Launch ‘F-Droid’ Android app in Ubuntu
And, it supports launching multiple instance of Android apps at the same time out-of-the-box.
To remove an app, either do it in the Android screen, or run command in Ubuntu host:
waydroid app remove packageName
Replace packageName according to waydroid app list output, e.g., org.fdroid.fdroid.
Step 5: Share files between Ubuntu Host and Android
To share files between host and the Android system, simply run single command in Ubuntu host:
sudo mount --bind ~/Documents/vboxshare/ ~/.local/share/waydroid/data/media/0/Documents/share
In the command, you need to replace:
~/Documents/vboxshare/ – ‘vboxshare’ sub-folder in Ubuntu host.
~/.local/share/waydroid/data/media/0/Documents/share – ‘share’ sub-folder of Documents in Android.
You need to first create the share folder if not exist, or it will show mount point does not exist as the screenshot below shows you.
Uninstall Waydroid:
First, stop the session and container, which maybe useful for reloading settings, run commands:
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. After adding the PPA, you can then launch Software Updater (Update Manager) and upgrade the system pre-installed transmission package to the new release.
For Ubuntu based system without the BitTorrent client pre-installed, you may run command below to install it:
This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install LibreWolf web browser in Ubuntu and its based systems.
LibreWolf is a free and open-source web browser fork from Firefox. The browser focuses on privacy and security, and has uBlocker ad blocker out-of-the-box.
The browser website has an official guide for installing in on Debian and Ubuntu based systems. This tutorial is just a re-write with screenshots and more explanations.
NOTE: This tutorial only works on x86_64 system for modern Intel/AMD CPU architecture types.
Step 1: Install the Key
Adding 3rd party repository in Debian/Ubuntu system needs to first install the key, so your system will trust the packages from that repository.
First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command:
This command will download the key file via wget command line tool, dearmor it so the key will be un-readable, finally save it to /etc/apt/keyrings directory.
You may verify the key by running cat /etc/apt/keyrings/librewolf.gpg. And, it should output unreadable text, like the screenshot below shows you.
Step 2: Add LibreWolf Repository
LibreWolf repository so far supports Debian 11/12, Ubuntu 20.04 & 22.04, Linux Mint 20.3, 21.1, 21.2, and all their based systems. It also works in Ubuntu 23.04/23.10 by using the package for 22.04.
1. Get your system code-name
First, run command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to get the code-name of your system:
lsb_release -sc
The code-name MUST be one of una, bookworm, vanessa, focal, jammy, bullseye, vera, or uma. If NOT, then run command:
cat /etc/os-release
This command will output which version of Ubuntu (and its code-name) is based on.
2. Add LibreWolf repository
Once you got the code-name, run the command below in terminal to create & edit source file:
Replace gedit in command with gnome-text-editor for Ubuntu 24.04, xed for Cinnamon, pluma for MATE, mousepad for XFCE, or nano command line text editor that works in most desktop environment.
When the file opens, paste the line below and save it:
Types: deb
URIs: https://deb.librewolf.net
Suites: jammy
Components: main
Architectures: amd64
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/librewolf.gpg
Here you need to replace jammy with the code-name you got in last step. For Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble) and 23.10 (Mantic), just use jammy which is working good in my case.
Finally save the file. For nano text editor, press Ctrl+S to save, then Ctrl+X to exit.
Step 3: Install LibreWolf web browser
After adding the repository and key, run the command below in terminal to refresh your system package cache:
sudo apt update
Finally, install the browser via command:
sudo apt install librewolf
Once successfully installed the package, search for and launch it from start/application menu or ‘Activities’ overview depends on your desktop environment.
And, when a newer version of the browser package is released, just use Software Updater (Update Manager) to update it:
future version of LibreWolf available in Update Manager
Set LibreWolf as default web browser
For the default GNOME Desktop, open Settings (Gnome Control Center), then navigate to Default Applications in left pane. Finally, select “LibreWolf” from the drop-down box for Web.
For GNOME 46 (Ubuntu 24.04), Default Applications has been moved to “Apps” settings page.
Other desktops may have their own option to do the job. If you don’t know where to find the option, try editing the config file that works in most desktop environments. To do so:
First, open file manager and press Ctrl+H to show all hidden files and folders.
Navigate to .config sub-folder and click edit mimeapps.list file.
Finally, set librewolf.desktop for text/html, x-scheme-handler/http, x-scheme-handler/https and save file.
How to Remove LibreWolf Web Browser
To remove the web browser, also open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
sudo apt remove librewolf --autoremove
Also remove the Key file as well as source repository by running commands in terminal one by one:
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources
sudo rm /etc/apt/keyrings/librewolf.gpg
And, refresh system package cache after making changes to package sources.
Shotwell photo viewer and organizer released new version 0.32.4 a few days ago.
The new release added basic .mpo file support, which is a stereoscopic image consisting of two overlapping 2D images in JPG format.
Besides that, the release also has improved slideshow support. It now supports for shuffled slideshows, allow setting wallpaper slideshows even if videos are selected, though videos are automatically excluded in slideshow in my case. And, fixes left/right navigation and not start issue in slideshow, when video is the first selected item.
Remove app shortcut for “Shotwell Profile Browser”. Add it as an action instead, though also available in ‘Preference’.
Simplified export conflict resolution dialog
New video meta-data handler.
Add dump of available image codecs and meta-data support
Fix showing the original photo with shift if photo was modified externally
Fix crop area jumping on scaled displays
Some crash fixes.
How to Install Shotwell 0.32.4 in Ubuntu:
Shotwell is available to install as Flatpak package, which is however not updated to the latest release at the moment of writing.
For those who prefer the classic .deb package format, I’ve upload the package into this unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, Ubuntu 23.10 on amd64, arm64/armhf CPU architecture types.
1. First, search for and open terminal from your system application menu, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. Next, launch Software Updater (Update Manager), then install the updates for the software package.
Or, run command in terminal to install/upgrade the Shotwell package:
sudo apt install shotwell heif-gdk-pixbuf
NOTE: Linux Mint user may need to run sudo apt update first to refresh package cache.
Finally, either right-click on your photo images to select open with the photo manager, or search for and launch shotwell from ‘Activities’ overview and enjoy!
Uninstall Shotwell 0.32.4
For any issue, it’s recommended to purge the Ubuntu PPA. Which, will remove PPA and downgrade shotwell to the pre-installed version.
To do so, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
I’m using Virtualbox to try out different Linux Distributions in virtual machines. It always has 2 logo icons on Ubuntu dock: one for the manager, and another for VMs.
The VM and VM manager icons on the dock are totally same, causing me to make mis-clicks frequently. And, all the opened VMs are grouped into single icon on the dock.
If you don’t like this default behavior, then it’s easy to make Virtual Virtual Machines to have separate icon per instance.
As the screenshot below shows you, after following this tutorial, every VM will have its own system logo on Ubuntu Dock:
The VM icons for Linux are handled by virtualboxvm.desktop file under “/usr/share/applications” directory. Simply disable that file will make Virtualbox VM (7.0.12 in my test) fall back to separate icon with system/distro logo.
To do so, just create an empty file with same filename under “.local/share/applications”. It will be taken in use instead of the one in ‘/usr/share/applications’ for current user only.
Option 1: Single command to create empty virtualboxvm.desktop
Ubuntu user can press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, then run the single command below to create the empty file:
This command should work in most Linux, though running command mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications may be required first to create the directory. Option 2: Use text editor to create empty virtualboxvm.desktop
For those who hate Linux commands, simply search for and launch a text editor window.
Then, it should by default open an empty file (if not create one). There open menu and select “Save as”.
In next dialog, name the empty file to virtualboxvm.desktop and save it into “Home > .local > share > applications”.
The change will be applied next time you launch a VirtualBox VirtualBox.
Method 2: Edit virtualboxvm.desktop
In case the first method does not work for you, you can configure the file to make it start VM as separate process.
1. First, open 2 “Files” windows. Then drag’n’drop virtualboxvm.desktop to local folder.
In “Files” (aka nautilus), navigate to Other Locations -> Computer -> usr -> share -> applications, then, find out the virtualboxvm.desktop file.
In another “Files” window, press Ctrl+H, then navigate to .local -> share -> applications. Finally, drag’n’drop the file to this folder.
2. Right-click on the virtualboxvm.desktop file in .local/share/applications folder and click “Open with Text Editor”.
When the file opens, add --separate flag to ‘Exec’ line. So it will be ‘Exec=VirtualBoxVM --separate %U‘.
For choice, you can change the icon to Icon=virtualbox-vbox, or replace with /path/to/whatever-icon that your want. However, all VMs will use the same icon on Ubuntu Dock.
How to Restore
To restore the change, simply delete the empty file either in your file manager or by running command in terminal:
Parole, the lightweight media player for XFCE Desktop, released version 4.18.1 few days ago.
The new release updates the app icons with 32px, 64px, 96px sizes support, so it should have a cleaner look in system menus like App Finder, Whisker Menu.
The extensions icons have been updated using newer Xfce palette, and semi-transparent borders giving it a sharper look in dark themes.
The system tray icon now is disabled outside X11. And, it now supports middle click actions to control video playback:
middle click to pause/resume playback.
middle wheel scrolling over tray icon to volume up/down.
Other changes in the release include:
Allow to built without X11 support and therefore whithout XfceSMClient.
Fix critical warning and memory leak
mpris2: Properly disconnect signal handlers
honor gtk-dialogs-use-header as Xfce 4.18 is CSD opt-in.
Small UI Improvements and many translation updates
How to Install Parole 4.18.1:
At the moment of writing, there’s no binary package of Parole 4.18.1 for Ubuntu.
But it’s not hard to compile the package from the source (tested in XUbuntu 22.04):
First, open terminal and run command to install the build dependency packages:
Extract the source tarball, then right-click on the new generated folder, and select “Open in Terminal”. Finally, run the 3 commands below one by one to compile it from source:
./configure
make -j4
sudo make install
NOTE: It by default installs the parole executable to /usr/local/bin without overriding the pre-installed one. Meaning you’ll have 2 versions of the media player installed in your system, while the app icon in menu will launch the newer 4.18.1 version.
(Uninstall) By opening the source folder in terminal, you may also uninstall the media player by running command:
This simple tutorial shows how to install the Waterfox web browser from its official tarball & create app shortcut in Ubuntu Linux.
Waterfox is a free open-source fork of Firefox, claims to be ethical and user-centric, emphasizing performance and privacy.
The browser provides official Linux package through the portable tarball package, though a community maintained Flatpak package is also available to run it in sandbox.
Step 1: Download Waterfox Tarball
To download the package, simply go to its website via the link button below and click the “Download” button:
Once you got the package, just extract it, and run the executable file (waterfox or waterfox-bin) in the new generated folder, will launch the web browser.
Extract, and Launch Waterfox web browser
Step 2: Create App Shortcut for Waterfox
If you want to make the app icon visible in the ‘Activities’ overview search result (or application/start menu depends on your desktop environment), then follow the steps below to create app shortcut for it.
1. Move the source folder
Before creating app shortcut, it’s better to move the ‘waterfox’ folder for long time use.
For current user only, you may put the folder to anywhere in your user home. I usually create a custom folder in user home (e.g., bin, apps) or put portable apps into .local (it’s hidden, press Ctrl+H to view/hide).
In the screenshot below, I moved the waterfox folder into the custom “MyApps” folder:
For global, it’s good choice to move the folder to “/opt“, so all users in the system can launch the web browser.
In the case, right-click on blank area of the folder that contains “waterfox” sub-folder, and click “Open in Terminal”. In pop-up terminal, run command to move or copy it to opt:
sudo cp -R waterfox /opt
2. Create App Shortcut
In most Linux, the app shortcuts are handled by .desktop files located in either /usr/share/applications or .local/share/applications.
First, search for and launch your system text editor from overview or application menu depends on your DE:
When it opens with an empty document, paste following lines:
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Waterfox Web Browser
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
GenericName=Web Browser
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer
Exec=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/waterfox %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/ftp;x-scheme-handler/chrome;video/webm;application/x-xpinstall;
StartupNotify=true
Actions=new-window;new-private-window;
[Desktop Action new-window]
Name=Open a New Window
Exec=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/waterfox -new-window
[Desktop Action new-private-window]
Name=Open a New Private Window
Exec=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/waterfox -private-window
Depends on where you moved the ‘waterfox’ folder, change the value of “Exec” and “Icon” accordingly! Meaning replace /home/ji/MyApps to yours.
When done pasting file content and changing Exec/Icon path, press Shift+Ctrl+S to open the “Save as” dialog. Then, do:
press Ctrl+H to show hidden folders in the pop-up dialog.
navigate to home -> .local -> share -> applications. Create ‘applications’ if it does not exist.
type waterfox.desktop as the file name.
finally click Save button.
If you did the previous steps correctly, it should now show ‘waterfox’ icon in the start/application menu or ‘Activities’ overview depends on your desktop environment.
Uninstall Waterfox
To uninstall the web browser installed via the previous steps, first remove the ‘waterfox’ folder depends on where you saved it. Then, remove the waterfox.desktop file from .local/share/applications.
digiKam, KDE’s photo management software, released version 8.2.0 this Sunday.
The new release includes most recent Libraw library, updates runtime libraries to Qt 5.15.11, KDE frameworks 5.110, Exiftool 12.70, and Exiv2 28.1.
For Windows user, digiKam now has new Windows installer compiled under Windows with VCPKG tool-chain and based on Qt6 and KF6 frameworks.
Besides toolkit updates, digiKam 8.2.0 also has about 250 bug-fixes. They include slow Geolocate, tags not saving on exit, failed to database creation on MariaDB, slideshow does not prevent monitor turning off, various crashes, and other bugs. See NEWS file for more details.
Get digiKam 8.2.0
The software provides official packages for Linux, Windows, and MacOS, available to download at the link below:
