The instant messaging program Pidgin 2.10.9 has been released recently. It mainly fixed problems logging into some servers including jabber.org and chat.facebook.com.
The default Pidgin versions in Ubuntu universe repositories are quite old (See Pidgin changelog history). The Pidgin Developers PPA provides the most recent version of Pidgin for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.10, and Ubuntu 12.04. Here’s how to add the PPA and install / upgrade your Pidgin from it.
To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add Pidgin PPA to your system:
After that, update your system package lists and then you’re able to install packages from the PPA:
sudo apt-get update
Now install the Pidgin:
sudo apt-get install pidgin
That’s it. Enjoy!
For the Off-the-Record (OTR) plug-in, which is designed for use with Pidgin ensures authenticated and secure communications between Pidgin users, just search for and install pidgin-otr from Ubuntu Software Center. Finally enable the plugin from Pidgin menu Tools -> Plugins.
The popular VLC media player has reached version 2.1.x with some fantastic new features, bug fixes and performance improvements. However, the official PPA for Ubuntu 13.10 and earlier is stuck at version 2.0.8.
There’s now a third-party PPA that provides the most recent build of VLC (it’s 2.1.2 so far) to Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 13.04, and Ubuntu 13.10 users. The PPA is maintained by djcj
The PPA is not officially endorsed, supported or otherwise backed by the Videolan team. Use it at your own risk!
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below to add the PPA and install VLC.
Minitube, the YouTube desktop application has just released version 2.1.6 with a fix for the playback of some YouTube videos. A minor change in Minitube’s Browse tab removes some so-called standard feeds like Most Shared, etc.
This simple tutorial will show you how to install or upgrade to the latest build of Minitube in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives via the PPA repository.
What is Minitube:
Minitube is a lightweight and stylish YouTube application. With it you can watch YouTube videos in a new way: you type a keyword, Minitube gives you an endless video stream.
By automatically playing videos one after another, Minitube aims to create a TV-like experience. Stop fiddling, just sit back and enjoy.
Minitube is designed to be very easy to use. This simplicity is great for kids and grandparents. Consider getting Minitube as a gift for the whole family.
Minitube consumes less CPU, preserves battery life and keeps your laptop cool. That’s because Minitube does not use the Flash Player. Minitube plays HD videos up to 1080p. Go full-screen and watch them play smoothly.
With Minitube you can search by keyword, search YouTube channels or just paste a YouTube link. Related videos are always a click away. You can also browse top videos for your favorite category and country. You can subscribe to YouTube channels and be notified of new videos.
Minitube is translated in more than 30 languages including German, French, Italian, Russian, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese.
Install Minitube:
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:
The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support.
As with 12.04.3, 12.04.4 contains an updated kernel and X stack for new installations on x86 architectures.
As usual, this point release includes many updates, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
How to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04.4:(Thanks to h1repp from askubuntu)
The normal software updates will bring your system up to 12.04.4, but the Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE; the *-lts-saucy packages) is not part of those updates (by policy).
You can install the HWE packages manually, but there are some caveats.
To upgrade use this command line only (press Ctrl+Alt+T to open the terminal):
The –install-recommends is important. It makes sure that the xserver will install completely. Without it, xserver will only install partly, and apt will remove most of your system.
When you upgrade like this you may notice that there are configurations left over, among others those of the original xserver-xorg. You can purge them (I always do), but beware: this will remove the symlink /etc/X11/X that is used to start the XServer, so on next boot it won’t start. To prevent this, after purging left over configurations, do the following before the next boot:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg-lts-saucy
This will recreate the necessary symlink and everything is fine again.
You can also download Ubuntu 12.04.4 iso with the new Saucy HWE stack at:
Today, Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the Linux Kernel 3.12.10, Kernel 3.13.2, Kernel 3.10.29 LTS and Kernel 3.4.79 LTS. All users of each kernel series are urged to upgrade as soon as possible.
I’ve written about how to install or upgrade to Kernel 3.13.2 & Kernel 3.12.10. This tutorial is going to talk about Kernel 3.10.29 LTS.
Linux kernel 3.10.29 LTS brings updated architectures, including ARM, s390, PowerPC, and x86, numerous updates drivers (wireless, rtc, scsi, tty, usb, etc.), some filesystem improvements (mainly Btrfs and EXT4), a couple of networking fixes for IPv4 and IPv6, and some sound improvements. See the announcement.
Install / upgrade to Kernel 3.10.29:
The Ubuntu Kernel Team has build the deb packages which are available in this page.
If you’re comfortable with command line, you can also follow the steps below to download & install this kernel:
If you’re using a proprietary video driver, you may need to re-build or re-install to get it work with the new kernel.
If for some reason this kernel release doesn’t work properly for you, reboot into previous kernel (Grub -> Advanced -> select previous kernel) and run this command to remove Linux Kernel 3.10.29:
Greg Kroah-Hartman has also announced the Linux Kernel 3.12.10 and urged users of 3.12 series to upgrade as soon as possible.
Similar to Kernel 3.13.2, Linux kernel 3.12.10 brings updated architectures, including ARM, s390, PowerPC, PA-RISC, and x86, numerous updates drivers (wireless, rtc, scsi, tty, usb, etc.), some filesystem improvements (mainly Btrfs, HPFS and EXT4), a couple of networking fixes for IPv4 and IPv6, and some sound improvements. See the announcement.
Install / Upgrade to Kernel 3.12.10:
The Ubuntu Kernel Team has build the deb packages which are available in this page. Low-latency Kernel packages are also included.
If you’re comfortable with command line, you can also follow the steps below to download & install this kernel:
If you’re using a proprietary video driver, you may need to re-build or re-install to get it work with the new kernel.
If for some reason this kernel release doesn’t work properly for you, reboot into previous kernel (Grub -> Advanced -> select previous kernel) and run this command to remove Linux Kernel 3.12.10:
Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the Linux Kernel 3.13.2 and urged users of 3.13 series to upgrade as soon as possible.
Linux kernel 3.13.2 brings updated architectures, including ARM, s390, PowerPC, PA-RISC, and x86, numerous updates drivers (mmc, wireless, rtc, scsi, tty, usb, etc.), some filesystem improvements (mainly Btrfs, HPFS and EXT4), a couple of networking fixes for IPv4 and IPv6, and some sound improvements. See the announcement.
Install / Upgrade to Kernel 3.13.2:
The Ubuntu Kernel Team has build the deb packages which are available in this page. Low-latency Kernel packages are included.
If you’re comfortable with command line, you can also follow the steps below to download & install this kernel:
If you’re using a proprietary video driver, you may need to re-build or re-install to get it work with the new kernel.
If for some reason this kernel release doesn’t work properly for you, reboot into previous kernel (Grub -> Advanced -> select previous kernel) and run this command to remove Linux Kernel 3.13.2:
If you have a single wired Internet connection, you can easily setup an ad-hoc wireless network with Ubuntu and share the Internet connection among multiple devices. Unfortunately, some devices including Android & Windows Phones may not support ad-hoc wireless networks.
UPDATE 2024: This tutorial is outdated! It may no longer works in current Ubuntu releases!
So this tutorial is going to show you how to turn your Ubuntu laptop into a wireless access point in another way with Android phones support.
To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one to install ap-hotspot.
Ap-hotspot is an open-source project that automatically creates an infrastructure (Access Point mode) wireless hotspot in Ubuntu that should work with Android and Windows Phone devices
Supports for Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04 and Ubuntu 14.04. download & install the ap-hotspot deb for saucy at this page.
For Ubuntu 14.04, due to bug you need to downgrade hostapd to make ap-hotspot work.
First uninstall the buggy hostapd in Ubuntu 14.04 via:
sudo apt-get remove hostapd
Copy and paste the command below into terminal that matches your OS type – check out via System Setting -> Details – and hit run to download, install, and hold the old version of hostapd.While running the commands below, type in your user password in terminal when prompt.
For 64-bit system:
cd /tmp && wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/w/wpa/hostapd_1.0-3ubuntu2.1_amd64.deb && sudo dpkg -i hostapd*.deb && sudo apt-mark hold hostapd
For 32-bit system:
cd /tmp && wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/w/wpa/hostapd_1.0-3ubuntu2.1_i386.deb && sudo dpkg -i hostapd*.deb && sudo apt-mark hold hostapd
Once installed, execute below command to configure your wifi hotspot:
sudo ap-hotspot configure
It will detect the wired & wireless interfaces and ask you to confirm that if they are correct (run ifconfig if you’re not sure). Then you’ll be asked to enter a wifi hotspot name and setup a password.
Finally start the wireless hotspot via:
sudo ap-hotspot start
Now you’re able to connect to wifi hotspot via your Android phone!
To stop the wireless hotspot, execute this command in Ubuntu terminal:
The open-source image converter and resizer converseen has released version 0.6.7. Now it is possible to resize a bunch of pictures with different size keeping the aspect ratio.
As you may know, converseen is a batch image converter and resizer written in c++ with the powerful Qt4 and Magick++ libraries. It allows you to convert, resize, rotate and flip automatically an unlimited number of images. With Converseen you can save your time because it can process more than one image with one mouse click!
With converseen you can:
Carry out a single or a multiple conversion.
Resize one or multiple images.
Compress images for your web pages.
Rotate and flip images.
Rename a bunch of images using a progressive number or a prefix/suffix.
Selecting a resampling filter to resize images.
Converseen 0.6.7 changelog:
Now is possible to resize a bunch of pictures with different size keeping the aspect ratio.
Added a menu item for bug signalation.
Various code improvements.
Install Converseen:
Converseen 0.6.7 has been made into Ubuntu 14.04’s universe repository, which mean Trusty users can easily install the converter from Ubuntu Software Center.
For Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one to install from PPA:
