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Linux Kernel 3.13 Released, Install it in Ubuntu & Linux Mint

Last updated: January 20, 2014

Linus Torvalds finally announced the Linux Kernel 3.13 on Jan 19, 2014. In this tutorial you’ll see what’s new in this kernel release and how to install / upgrade to Linux Kernel 3.13 in Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Linux Mint and also Ubuntu 14.04 daily build.

Linus Torvalds wrote on the mailing list (read the announcement):

The release got delayed by a week due to travels, but I suspect that’s just as well. We had a few fixes come in, and while it wasn’t a lot, I think we’re better off for it. At least I hope so – I’ll be very disappointed if any of them cause more problems than they fix..

Anyway, the patch from rc8 is fairly small, with mainly some small arch updates (arm, mips, powerpc, s390, sparc, x86 all had some minor changes, some of them due to a networking fix for the bpf jit). And drivers (mainly gpu and networking). And some generic networking fixes. The appended shortlog gives more details.

Anyway, with this, the merge window for 3.14 is obviously open.

What’s New in Linux Kernel 3.13:

Below exciting new features comes from phoronix.com:

The multi-queue block layer (blk-mq) was merged. It provides better disk (SSD) performance and with lower disk latencies by allowing I/O load to now be balanced across multiple CPU cores, supporting multiple hardware queues, etc. The multi-queue block layer can scale much better and developers have reported improvements in the range of 3.5 to 10 times greater IOPS and a 10 to 38x reduction in latency.

The AMD hardware on the open-source driver now supporting the reading of ELD audio information, 7.1 channel audio support on capable hardware, and DTS HD-MA and TrueHD audio support. The Radeon HDMI driver is now enabling HDMI audio support by default where as on earlier kernels it required a special kernel command-line switch due to some users experiencing problems.

AMD has published open-source Hawaii GPU support to allow the Radeon R9 290 series to work on Linux without Catalyst. Besides needing Linux 3.13, you will also need other new code in user-space.

For users of the open-source Radeon driver there is now dynamic power management being enabled by default. It allows AMD GPUs to dynamically adjust their clock speeds and voltages based upon load, allowing for lower heat output and energy consumption while idling.

There’s now NFTables as the eventual replacement to IPTables.

New power management and re-clocking code for the open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) driver. With the new power management code is now fan management being enabled by default. The re-clocking work does include support for GeForce 400/500 “Fermi” and GeForce 600/700 “Kepler” GPUs, but this re-clocking support isn’t yet ready for use or enabled by default.

There’s now an Armada DRM driver in the mainline kernel along with PRIME and Render Nodes improvements to the MSM driver, overall continuing to improve the open-source ARM graphics landscape on Linux.

There’s ongoing work with Btrfs performance tuning.

Samsung’s F2FS supports new features as the promising Flash-Friendly File-System.

In making the Linux power efficiency and performance competitive, there’s been a number of changes to ACPI and power management, including more hardware having CPUfreq drivers.

While part of the power management work, Linux 3.13 introduces a Linux Power-Capping Framework and Run-Time Average Power Liming driver from Intel. The RAPL driver allows limiting power consumption of certain components from exceeding defined thresholds.

Intel’s open-source Direct Rendering Manager driver now supports HDMI Stereo/3D. This support is for the HDMI specification’s handling of a standardized stereoscopic 3D display format since version 1.4.

Install / Upgrade Kernel 3.13:

The Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the deb packages available in this page. If you’re comfortable with command line, follow below steps to download & install this kernel.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens:

1. Download DEBs for this kernel:

For 32-bit Ubuntu, Linux Mint and alternatives run commands below one by one:

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_i386.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-image-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_i386.deb

For 64-bit Ubuntu, Linux Mint and alternatives run commands below one by one:

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-headers-3.13.0-031300_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.13-trusty/linux-image-3.13.0-031300-generic_3.13.0-031300.201401192235_amd64.deb

2. For both 32-bit & 64-bit install the Kernel via:

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.13.0-*.deb linux-image-3.13.0-*.deb

Once installed, restart your computer and done.

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:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.13.0-* linux-image-3.13.0-*

In Howtos Linux Kernel, Linux Kernel 3.13 series

ClamTK Virus Scanner 5.03 Released [Download Link Included]

Last updated: January 20, 2014

The native Linux virus scanner ClamTK (ClamAV GUI) has released version 5.03. In this release, the scheduler was re-added by demand, it’s mostly the same as it was in the 4.xx series. It also updated requirement for some distros with gnome-icon-theme and brought lots of clean-up.

ClamTK 5.03 changelog:

Re-add scheduler (Google Issue #1). This adds cron or cronie back as a dependency.
Update requirement for some distros to gnome-icon-theme-full, and gnome-icon-theme for some distros (Google Issue #2); for Fedora, it seems we need gnome-icon-theme-legacy. Depends on the distro.
Remove extra gettext subs
Fix ugly copyright symbol
Update year in multiple places, 2013 -> 2014
Minor help documentation and man page tweaks.
Translation updated

Download ClamTK:

Download .deb packages for Ubuntu and .rpm packages for Fedora from the links below:

ClamTK main packages

ClamTk Thunar plugin

ClamTK KDE Dolphin plugin

ClamTK Nemo plugin

In News ClamAV, ClamTk, Virus scanner

Command Line IRC Client F-IRC 1.31 Released [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: January 20, 2014

F-IRC, an irc client for terminals/command-line/console now is at version 1.31 which brings several improvements.

As you may know, F-IRC aims to be as user friendly as possible with easy navigation and keyboard shortcuts for quick navigation. The learning curve should be as shallow as possible.

The latest version F-IRC 1.31 brings below changes:

rewrites IRC protocol handling (much more stable)
Nicks can now be aligned in a column. You can now add a marker line to see where you left off (this is also automatic when changing channels)
An improved configuration editor
A tab-completion dictionary
Improved scroll-back window navigation. You can now invoke an external program/script when there’s a nick-hit
A “headlines” window has been added. You can now set custom highlight words

How to Install F-IRC in Ubuntu:

I’ve uploaded the latest builds to launchpad PPA, so we can easily install the client by running below commands one by one in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install f-irc

Works for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives.

If you don’t like the PPAs, download the DEBs from launchpad page

F-IRC Homepage

In App Review f-irc, f-irc ubuntu, IRC client, IRC client for command line

How to Install Latest gmusicbrowser 1.1.11 in Ubuntu 13.10, 12.04

Last updated: January 19, 2014

Gmusicbrowser is an open-source jukebox for large collections of mp3/ogg/flac/mpc/ape files. This tutorial will show you how to install the latest version, so far it’s gmusicbrowser 1.1.11, in Ubuntu via PPA.

Gmusicbrowser 1.1.11 was released a few days ago, and here’s the changelog:

improve search responsiveness (improve responsiveness of SimpleSearch)
add auto-update mode that keeps browser lists sorted and filtered (on by default, can be disabled in the songlist/songtree option menu)
picture finder plugin: update google image, add bing and yahoo, various small changes
albuminfo plugin: update and fix parsing of Allmusic’s pages
various improvements to song properties and mass-tagging dialogs
gstreamer : add option to monitor pulseaudio’s volume, off by default as it is unstable due to thread problems with the libraries
close-to-tray option no longer depends on the use-tray option
various improvements and small fixes to error dialogs asking to retry
fix default filters “added today” and “played today” doing the opposite of what they say (only fixed for new users, if you were affected you have to edit them to fix it)
add a new-page button on TabbedLists/Context/NB (can be disabled with newbutton=0)
better handling of vertical scripts in vertical tabs
fix combo boxes for setting artist options in the misc tab of preferences
fix dialog for selecting label icons up-scaling small icons
dbus API: make CurrentSong output more fields
songtree: add $discname group variable
translation updates: Chinese(Taiwan), Finnish, German, Korean, Russian, Spanish

Install gmusicbrowser in Ubuntu:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run below commands one by one. It will always install the latest packages from launchpad PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:andreas-boettger/gmusicbrowser-daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install gmusicbrowser

Currently the PPA supports Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives.

If you don’t like PPAs, download & install the .deb package from launchpad page

In Howtos gmusicbrowser, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 14.04

Manage Your Flickr Photos on Ubuntu Desktop via Frogr

Last updated: January 19, 2014

Frogr is a Gnome app allows to manage your accounts in the Flickr image hosting website. It supports all the basic Flickr features, including uploading pictures, adding descriptions, setting tags and managing sets and groups pools.

You see, the GUI is simple and very easy to use. Right click on an image file allows you to edit the picture details.

How to Install Frogr:

Frogr is available in Ubuntu Software Center by default, but the default versions are old. To install the latest version, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run below commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mariospr/frogr 

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install frogr

This will install the app from its official PPA. So far, it supports Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint, Elementary OS Luna.

In Howtos Flickr, manage flickr, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 13.10, upload photos to Flickr in Ubuntu

How to Install qBittorrent 3.1.5 in Ubuntu 13.10/13.04/12.10/12.04

Last updated: January 23, 2015

The free and open source bittorrent client qBittorrent 3.1.5 has been release a few hours ago. Let’s see what’s new and how to install or upgrade to new version in Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and their derivatives.

qBittorrent 3.1.5 Mainly Fixed below bugs:

Fix compilation with Qt 4.7. Closes #1215.
Third attempt at fixing saving settings on OS shutdown.
Preview now correctly uses the selected file.
Allow to resize the columns in Add New Torrent dialog.
Ensure that at least one column in the tranferlist is always visible.
Ensure that the options window will always be placed onscreen.
Delete temporary files after they aren’t needed.
Correctly detect libtorrent version.
Various code cppcheck fixes
Remove isohunt search engine and update thepiratebay url
Fix rss settings corruption when checking regexp and going to other rule.
Don’t count paused torrents for the autoshutdown.
LINUX: Fix notifications with xfce4-notifyd.
OSX: Added basic retina support. Closes #1251. (Sébastien Lavoie)
OTHER: Sync translations from Transifex.

Install qBittorrent 3.1.5 in Ubuntu:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it open, run below commands one by one will install qBittorrent from its official PPA repository:

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

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install qbittorrent

If you don’t like the PPAs, download & install the .deb packages from launchpad page

In Howtos bittorrent client, qbittorrent, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 13.10

Midori Browser 0.5.7 Released, Install it in Ubuntu Linux via PPA

Last updated: January 17, 2014

Midori, the lightweight, fast, and WebKit based web browser now is at version 0.5.7. As you may know, Midori is also the default web browser of the beautiful elementary OS.

In the new release you’ll find that the session management gets smarter about reacting to crashes by not loading the faulty website and running commands on the command line properly. Private browsing has also benefited from some bug fixing, such as not wrongly attempting to load favicons from disk and enabling the sidepanel.

There’s also a small new feature in Midori 0.5.7: Close Tabs to the Right, which may be useful for those who are opening too many tabs.

See the changelog:

Modify actions and internal items in browser without changing settings
Delay tab loading after Midori crashed
Uncomment failing assertions about view_source in tab test
Fallback to about:home if startup is anything but blank
Don’t try to create formhistory database if config_dir is NULL
Handle url arguments for blank sessions
Execute commands given at start time
Introduce high-level prepare/ DatabaseStatement API
Drop unused GraniteClutter-based animation support
Drop uncommented contractor support
Drop deprecated StaticNotebook used in KatzePreferences
Introduce notebook class converging separate implementations
Work around symbol relocation issue old version of gcc present on Ubuntu LTS
NULL-check treeview in midori_search_action_get_editor
Adjust CMakeList .ico check to not skip nojs icons
Enable sidepanel in private mode
Move Preferences menu entry above About
Set minimum value of 0 on spin button for maximum cache size
Give NextForward its own label for toolbar editor
Correctly disable favicon database in app and private mode
Change preferences to refer to proxy address as a “URI” (not “hostname”)
Add close tabs to right feature
Allow printing without confirmation dialog on kiosk setups

Install Midori Browser:

It’s easy to install / upgrade to this release in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Linux Mint and Elementary OS Luna.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:midori/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install midori

That’s it. Now you can launch the latest Midori browser from Menu or Unity Dash.

In Howtos midori lightweight browser, midori ppa

Liferea 1.10.5 Released, PPA’s Ready For Ubuntu Linux

Last updated: January 16, 2014

Liferea, Linux Feed Reader has just released a new version 1.10.5 with a few bug fixes. Let’s see what’s new and how to install / upgrade it in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint.

As you may know, Liferea is a news aggregator for GNOME desktop that aims to be fast, easy to use, and easy to install. It supports the major feed formats including RSS/RDF and Atom and can import and export subscription lists in OPML format.

Liferea 1.10.5 brings below bug fixes:

Fixed Honor preferences when opening links
Fixed missing installation of liferea.convert file
Fixed Redhat popup notification only for new items

I’ve updated this build into Launchpad PPA, so we can just run below commands one by one in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to install/upgrade it in Ubuntu:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install liferea

You can also build it from source tarball.

In News liferea, Liferea News Aggregator

How to Install NetBeans IDE 8.0 Beta in Ubuntu Linux

Last updated: March 21, 2014

NetBeans IDE 8.0 Beta has been released recently. The new release provides out-of-the-box code analyzers and editors for working with the latest Java 8 technologies–Java SE 8, Java SE Embedded 8, and Java ME Embedded 8. The IDE also has a range of new enhancements that further improve its support for Maven and Java EE with PrimeFaces; new tools for HTML5, in particular for AngularJS; and improvements to PHP and C/C++ support.

This simple tutorial will show you how to install NetBeans IDE 8.0 Beta in Ubuntu and other Linux distributions.

UPDATE: NetBeans 8.0 Stable is out, see this post about how to install.

To get started:

1. Download the IDE installer with:

Java SE Bundle (89M)

Java EE Bundle (190M)

C++ Bundle (62M)

HTML5 & PHP Bundle (63M)

With All Bundle (202M)

2. Once downloaded, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, run below command to make the installer executable:

chmod +x ~/Downloads/netbeans-8.0beta-*.sh

3. Now start the installer via below command, you may replace netbeans-8.0beta-*.sh with the full file name

cd && ./Downloads/netbeans-8.0beta-*.sh

If you get a blank/gray window, run below command and re-run previous command in the same terminal.

export AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit

Follow the wizard and NetBeans IDE will be finally installed on your system.

NetBeans 8.0 Beta release note

In Howtos NetBeans IDE, NetBeans IDE Ubuntu Installation

Install / Upgrade to Kernel 3.10.27 LTS in Ubuntu Linux Mint

Last updated: January 16, 2014

The Long Term Support Linux Kernel 3.10 now is at its 27th updates. Greg Kroah-Hartman announced this release on January 15 and urged users of this Kernel series to upgrade as soon as possible.

Linux Kernel 3.10.27 is a small release which brings various improvements to x86, ARM architectures and some network fixes. See the changelog for details.

Install / Upgrade Kernel 3.10.27:

The Ubuntu Kernel Team has made the DEB packages available in this page. If you’re comfortable with Linux commands, follow the below steps to download & install them.

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run commands to download the DEBs:

For 32 bit system:

cd /tmp/ && wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.10.27-saucy/linux-headers-3.10.27-031027-generic_3.10.27-031027.201401151935_i386.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.10.27-saucy/linux-headers-3.10.27-031027_3.10.27-031027.201401151935_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.10.27-saucy/linux-image-3.10.27-031027-generic_3.10.27-031027.201401151935_i386.deb

For 64 bit system:

cd /tmp/ && wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.10.27-saucy/linux-headers-3.10.27-031027-generic_3.10.27-031027.201401151935_amd64.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.10.27-saucy/linux-headers-3.10.27-031027_3.10.27-031027.201401151935_all.deb

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.10.27-saucy/linux-image-3.10.27-031027-generic_3.10.27-031027.201401151935_amd64.deb

2. Install the Kernel:

cd /tmp/ && sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.10.27-*.deb linux-image-3.10.27-*.deb

Restart your computer and done.

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 commands to remove Linux Kernel 3.10.26:

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.10.27-* linux-image-3.10.27-*

In Howtos kernel 3.10 series, Linux Kernel

Archives For jimingkui

What’s New in Linux Kernel 3.13:

Install / Upgrade Kernel 3.13:

How to Install F-IRC in Ubuntu:

Install gmusicbrowser in Ubuntu:

How to Install Frogr:

Install qBittorrent 3.1.5 in Ubuntu:

Install Midori Browser:

Install / Upgrade Kernel 3.10.27:

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