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Archives For November 30, 1999

Try out GNOME’s New Window Focus Animation in Ubuntu/Fedora

Last updated: May 7, 2024 — Leave a comment

UPDATE 2024: The Focus Indicator is NO Longer available! See the GNOME Discourse page for more about it.

Gnome, the default desktop environment in Ubuntu & Fedora Workstation, is going to replace the app menu with a new window animation, for indicating window focus.

Meaning it will remove the app menu for current window, in the top-bar beside ‘Activities’ button. Because, it’s always confusing users who are new to GNOME.

Gnome to remove app menu, instead using a window animation

Instead, when switching workspaces, closing a window, or pressing Super + Tab, it will perform a short animation on newly focused window. As the GIF below shows you, it’s a window animation that scales up the window and then scales back, indicating that the window is on focus.

The downside so far is that it’s missing the behavior to indicate the process of launching a large or slow application …

How to Install the new Window Animation

The new function is available so far as a Gnome Shell extension called “Focus Indicator“, for testing purpose in GNOME 43. Meaning users of Ubuntu 22.10, Fedora 37, Arch and Manjaro, etc., can try it out by following the steps below.

1. For Ubuntu 22.10, firstly search for and install Extension Manager from Ubuntu Software.

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+

2. Then open the tool, and navigate to ‘Browse’ tab to search and install ‘Focus Indicator’:

For other Linux, just use ON/OFF switch in this web page to install the extension.

Configure the Window Focus animation

After installed the extension, use either Extension Manager or Gnome Extensions app to open the configuration dialog. Then, you can set the scale up/down delay, animation duration, scale factor, and so forth.

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OBS Studio 29.0 is Out! How to Install via PPA in Ubuntu 22.04 | 22.10

Last updated: January 8, 2023 — Leave a comment

OBS Studio, the popular free and open-source video recording and live streaming software, announced a new major 29.0 today.

The new release came with great improvements for Windows users, including AMD AV1 Encoder for the RX7000 series GPUs, Intel AV1 Encoder for Arc GPUs, and Intel HEVC Encoder.

It also introduced native HEVC and ProRes encoders, including P010 and HDR and Desk View support for macOS.

Other changes OBS Studio 29.0 include:

  • Upward compressor filter
  • 3-band equalizer filter
  • Update channels for opting into receiving beta/release-candidate builds to Windows
  • Websockets 5.1.0
  • Add media key support in Linux
  • Encryption and authentication support for SRT and RIST outputs
  • Support for higher refresh rates in the Video Capture Device source on Windows
  • Apple VT Hardware encoder to the Auto Configuration Wizard

How to Install OBS Studio 29.0 in Ubuntu:

It provides official binary packages for Windows, macOS and Linux in its official website.

For Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Linux Mint 21, and their based systems, there’s also an official PPA repository contains the latest packages.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then, either use Software Updater to upgrade the software package is an old version was installed on your system.

Or, use apt command to install/upgrade the software package:

sudo apt install obs-studio

NOTE: Linux Mint may need to run sudo apt update first to update package cache.

Once installed, search for and launch OBS Studio from ‘Activities’ overview or start menu depends on your desktop environment and enjoy!

Uninstall OBS Studio

To downgrade the software to the stock version that your system repository provides, run command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:obsproject/obs-studio

Or, either open Software & Updates and remove the PPA source line under ‘Other Software’ tab:

or run command in terminal to remove the PPA repository:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:obsproject/obs-studio

Also, remove the OBS Studio if you want by running command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove obs-studio
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How to Compile & Install Pinta 2.1 from Source in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: May 8, 2024 — 1 Comment

For Pinta users who do NOT like the Snap and Flatpak packages that run in sandbox. Here’s how to build the 2.1 release from source tarball in Ubuntu 22.04 & Ubuntu 24.04

Pinta has switch to .NET 6.0 framework since version 2.0, and support .NET 8 via 2.1.2. Which however needs internet connection to fetch something for the first time during the build time. And, most Linux so far still has Pinta v1.x in their system repositories.

Thankfully, building Pinta 2.1 from source is not hard. And, here’s the step by step guide show you how!

1. Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to install .NET 6 as well as dev libraries for building the package.

sudo apt install dotnet-sdk-8.0 debhelper autotools-dev autoconf-archive gettext intltool libgtk-3-dev

2. Next, download the source tarball from github release page (under ‘Assets’ section):

Download Pinta (source)

3. Then, extract the tarball in file manager. Right-click on source folder and select “Open in Terminal”.

4. The last step will open a terminal window and automatically navigate to the Pinta source folder as working directory.

In the terminal window, run command to configure the source:

./configure

And, finally compile and install it via:

sudo make install

NOTE: This step needs internet connection if you’re first time using dotnet to build a package. And, it may fail if you’ve ever installed .NET 7.0 but removed (not completely) and use .NET 8.0 now.

If everything’s done without any error, you should now be able to search for and launch Pinta from system start menu (‘Activities’ overview).

Uninstall:

Until you remove the source folder, you can run sudo make uninstall at any time from in that folder to uninstall Pinta package.

If you’ve removed the source folder, re-do the previous steps and replace the last command with sudo make uninstall.

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Paint.NET Clone Pinta 2.1 Released! WebP & Google Drive Support

Last updated: January 4, 2023 — Leave a comment

The free and open-source Paint.Net 3.0 clone, Pinta image editor got a new major release after 1 year of development.

The new Pinta 2.1 came with some exciting new features, including WebP image support via webp-pixbuf-loader library, and updated icons with improved support for dark theme and HiDPI displays.

The Gradient tool now has a ‘Transparency Mode‘. The release also adds support for loading files from network drive, meaning user can now open pictures from Google Drive folder.

Other changes in Pinta 2.1 include:

  • Update screenshot tool to make it work in Wayland.
  • Support images with unknown extension but valid contents.
  • Improve canvas rendering performance
  • Improve .ora files support.
  • Update to .NET7, though .NET6 also supported.
  • Various bug-fixes.

How to Install Pinta 2.1 in Ubuntu Linux

Pinta offers official Linux package through both Snap and Flatpak package. Choose either one that you prefer.

NOTE: Both packages now do NOT support for WebP images. Try to build it from source by yourself if you like this feature.

Option 1: Snap package

Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 and higher user can easily install the package from Ubuntu Software. NOTE: There are 2 Pinta packages in Software Center, choose the one from Snap Store.

Option 2: Flatpak package

Pinta is also available to install as another universal Flatpak package format. Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, then run commands below one by one to install it.

  1. First, install the daemon package in case you don’t have it: 
    sudo apt install flatpak

    For the old Ubuntu 18.04, add this PPA first before installing Flatpak.

  2. Then, install Pinta as flatpak by running command: 
    flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.github.PintaProject.Pinta.flatpakref

Tip: if you’ve already installed Pinta as Flatpak, run the command below to check updates:

flatpak update com.github.PintaProject.Pinta

Uninstall Pinta:

For the Pinta Snap package, just remove it either using Ubuntu Software app or by running command in a terminal window:

snap remove pina

To remove the Flatpak package, run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data com.github.PintaProject.Pinta

Also run flatpak uninstall --unused to remove useless run-time libraries.

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How to Disable Event Sound in Ubuntu 24.04 & 22.04

Last updated: May 8, 2024 — 2 Comments

Ubuntu by default play a short alert sound when you plug in/out USB drive, power supply, or hit tab function key in terminal.

This is useful for indicating certain type of system messages and events, but it’s easy to mute these type of sounds in case you don’t like them. And, here’s the quick tutorial show you how.

Single command to disable event sound

There’s a dconf database option to toggle on/off this feature for GNOME and Cinnamon desktop.

Simply, press Ctrl+Alt+T key combination on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.sound event-sounds false

Not only for Ubuntu, this command should also work for Fedora workstation, Debian, Arch and other Linux with GNOME desktop.

For Linux Mint cinnamon desktop, use the command below instead:

gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.sound event-sounds false

Disable event sound via Dconf Editor (graphical way)

In case for those who hate Linux commands, there’s an advanced configuration tool Dconf Editor, that provides a graphical interface to do the job.

1. Firstly, search for and install Dconf Editor from Ubuntu Software (or App Center for 24.04).

2. Then launch Dconf Editor, and navigate to org/gnome/desktop/sounds. Finally, turn off the option for ‘event-sounds’.

Similarly, navigate to org/cinnamon/desktop/sounds or org/mate/desktop/sounds and set the key depends on your desktop environment.

That’s all. Enjoy!

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QQ for Linux 3.0 is out! Wine no longer Required for this Chinese Chat App

Last updated: January 1, 2023 — 1 Comment

For Chinese users or those who have friends or business in China, native QQ app is finally working well in Linux by releasing the 3.0 version!

QQ is one of the top popular instant messaging apps in China. It has an official Linux client since 2019, which was however old, crash often, and not suitable for daily use.

By releasing 3.0, QQ for Linux finally got a modern UI powered by its QQNT framework. Similar to the Windows app, it has the user avatar and a few navigation buttons in far left pane, friends and group chats in center, and messages in right.

QQ for Linux 3.0

Except for voice and video chat, it includes the most common used features, such as emoji picker, Ctrl+Alt+A screen capture, send files/images, chat history, add, remove, and search friends, as well as most group chat functions.

As well, there’s light and dark mode support, and system tray indicator to toggle app UI and online status.

In short, if you rarely do voice/video chat, the new official QQ client for Linux is now really great for daily use! Though, it seems available in Chinese language only.

Download QQ for Linux 3.0

The app is available for both modern 64-bit PC and ARM devices. Just click the link below to go to its website:

QQ for Linux

Select x64 for modern PC/laptop or arm64 for mobile devices, deb for Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint, or rpm for Fedora, Rocky Linux, openSUSE, etc. And, just double-click on the package should open the installer in today’s Linux.

The universal AppImage package is also available for choice. Grab it, add executable permission (in file ‘Properties’ dialog), and finally click run the package will open the QQ chat app.

That’s all. Enjoy!

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This Extension Adds Audio Visualizer on Desktop in Ubuntu 22.04

Last updated: May 8, 2024 — Leave a comment

Want to display audio/music visualizer on the desktop? This extension can do the job for Ubuntu 22.10, Fedora 37, Arch/Manjaro Linux with GNOME.

It’s “Sound Visualizer” extension for Gnome Shell based on Gstreamer specially for Wayland. And, it’s working good in my case in Ubuntu 22.04, though it’s said for Gnome v43.

Besides for music playback, it works when any sound play from your computer. And, it has a right-click menu to switch between input/output audio sources. Meaning, it supports sounds input from microphone.

How to Install this “Sound Visualizer” desktop widget

1. (For Ubuntu 22.04 only) As mentioned, the extension supports GNOME v43 at the moment of writing. If you want to try it out in 22.04, first disable extension version validation.

To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command (no longer required):

gsettings set org.gnome.shell disable-extension-version-validation true

2. Next, open Ubuntu Software. Search for and install ‘Extension Manager‘ tool for installing and managing Gnome Shell extensions. Or, run command in terminal in case the Software App does not work.

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-manager

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+

3. Finally, launch ‘Extension Manager‘, and navigate to ‘Browse‘ tab. Search for and install the ‘Sound Visualizer‘ extension. (For Ubuntu 22.04, just click on Unsupported button)

For Fedora 37, Arch and Manjaro Linux with GNOME, visit this page in web browser and use the ON/OFF switch to install it.

4. After installation, try playing some sounds and see your desktop for the result. To move the widget, you have to temporarily disable “Desktop Icons NG (DING)” under ‘Installed’ tab in Extension Manager.

You can also adjust the visualizer size by opening the extension preferences either via widget’s context menu or by clicking the gear button for that extension in Extension Manager.


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HandBrake 1.6.0 Released! How to Install in Ubuntu 22.04 | 22.10

Last updated: December 29, 2022 — 1 Comment

HandBrake video transcoder and DVD ripper announced new major 1.6.0 release today. Here are the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu Linux users.

HandBrake 1.6.0 is a big release with new AV1 video encoding support. They are SVT-AV1 (software) and Intel QSV AV1 (hardware) video encoders.

This release as well introduced high bit depth and color depth support to various encoders and filters, including VP9 10-bit, NVENC HEVC 10-bit, and VCN HEVC 10-bit encoders.

Other change include:

  • 4K AV1 General, QSV (Hardware), and MKV (Matroska) presets
  • 4K HEVC General presets
  • H.264 levels 6, 6.1, and 6.2 for the x264 encoder
  • H.264/H.265 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 profiles for the x264 and x265 encoders
  • H.265 4:2:2 profile for VideoToolbox encoder on Apple Silicon
  • Support for Intel Deep Link Hyper Encode
  • Fixed longstanding issue where slowest NVENC encoder preset caused encoding failures
  • Bwdif deinterlace filter
  • Remove VP8 presets, the VP8 video encoder is now deprecated
  • Remove support for Intel CPUs older than 6th generation (Skylake) when using Intel Quick Sync Video
  • Require .NET 6 for Windows.
  • See more details in the project releases page.

How to Install HandBrake 1.6.0 in Ubuntu:

NOTE: Please backup custom presets and preferences first if you’re trying to upgrade the software from an existing package.

HandBrake offers official Linux package through Flatpak, an universal package format runs in most Linux. For Ubuntu, simply follow the steps below one by one to install it.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to make sure the daemon package installed:

sudo apt install flatpak

For the old Ubuntu 18.04, add this PPA first.

2. Then, either run command to install the video transcoder as Flatpak from Flathub repository by running command:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/fr.handbrake.ghb.flatpakref

The package in this repository is not updated to v1.6.0 at the moment of writing, check the link page to before running the command.

Or, download the flatpak package file from the official website:

Download HandBrake

Finally, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), navigate to ‘Downloads folder’ via command:

cd ~/Downloads

And, install the local Flatpak file (change file-name in command accordingly) via:

flatpak install ./HandBrake-1.6.0-x86_64.flatpak

NOTE: If it refuses to install due to old version already installed. Remove it first via description below.

Duplicated shortcut icons:

The Flatpak package won’t override the native Deb package installed from Ubuntu Software. If you have both versions installed, you’ll have duplicated app icons.

As a workaround, either remove the old Deb package via Ubuntu Software, or launch HandBrake as Flatpak using the command in terminal:

flatpak run fr.handbrake.ghb

Uninstall HandBrake

To remove the video transcoder installed as Flatpak, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data fr.handbrake.ghb

Also remove the QuickSync plugin (if installed) via command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data fr.handbrake.ghb.Plugin.IntelMediaSDK

Finally, clear unused run-time libraries via flatpak uninstall --unused.

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This App Enhance your Photo Images to 4K Resolution or Higher

Last updated: December 27, 2022 — Leave a comment

Got photo images but not clear enough? Or you want to convert them into 4K resolution without losing quality? This app can help!

It’s upscayl, a free and open-source app for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It uses AI modules to upscale single or batch of photo images into 7680×5120 (or double resolution 15360×10240). Supported AI modules so far include:

  • Real-ESRGAN
  • REMACRI
  • ULTRAMIX BALANCED
  • ULTRASHARP

The app has a quite easy to use user interface, which has a few buttons in left pane and image preview in right. Just follow the steps in the UI to select your Photo Image/Images, choose AI module, where to save output image, and finally click upscale.

There are as well advanced options to choose output image format: PNG, JPG or WEBP, change the app theme, and specify GPU ID for machine with multiple graphic cards. As you can see in screenshot above, output image and original one will be displayed side by side when process done, allowing to see the difference intuitively.

How to Install Upscayl in Ubuntu & other Linux

NOTE: The app needs Vulkan compatible GPU to upscale images. And, the upscale process can take long time depends on your machine.

The app offers official packages in it Github releases page available to download at the link blow:

Download Upscayl

For Linux, either download the non-install AppImage package. Right-click and go to file ‘Properties’, and enable ‘Allow executing file as program’ in Permissions tab. Finally click run AppImage at anytime to launch it. NOTE: Ubuntu 22.04+ need to enable AppImage support first by running sudo apt install libfuse2 in terminal.

For Debian/Ubuntu based systems, grab and click install the .deb package for choice. And, Fedora based systems can download and install the .rpm package instead.

Uninstall Upscayl

In case you installed the app using .deb or .rpm package, and you can’t find it in the Software app. Open a terminal window, and run command to remove it in Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt remove upscayl

For Fedora, just replace apt with dnf, so the command will be:

sudo dnf remove upscayl
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Kodi 19.5 Released! How to Install in Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04 | 22.10

Last updated: December 25, 2022 — Leave a comment

Happy Christmas and happy new year to my dear readers! Kodi, the popular home media center software, release 19.5 version to celebrate the holidays.

It’s the last point release for the 19.x release, while Kodi 20 now is in RC2 stage. And, this release mainly include bug-fixes and improvements backport from dev release. They are:

  • Update controller add-ons.
  • Fix wrong player playlist with playlist files.
  • Prevent crash on app quit in macOS.
  • Fix memory leak while zapping from channels to channels on live streams.
  • Expands the use of PasswordManager so that it is used for dav://, davs://, http://, https://, ftp://, and ftps:// protocol schemes.
  • Fix Ubuntu PPA packaging for Matrix.
  • Fix CC condition for valid captions [subtitles].
  • Fix refresh rate not switch back to 60Hz/GUI after HDR toggle in Windows.
  • Fix incorrect window position for Windows, which switching from full-screen.
  • Fixe some specific H265 Full HD videos crashes because needs more decoding surfaces.
  • Fix Xbox needs 10 bit swapchain to output true 4K resolution.
  • Fix bluray playback start from the simplified menu.
  • Fix adjust refresh rate start/stop settings behavior.
  • Fix subpar quality HQ convolution scalers.
  • Let the context menu action propagate through window.
  • Fix audio player to correctly start playback at given offset or percentage of track duration.
  • Fix incorrect colors in some AMD graphics when used 10bit in SDR
  • Fix last character corruption on AMD RX 6000 series.
  • Add support for ppc64le.
  • Fix EPG search genre matching.
  • Limit max width for long text cases.
  • Make sure we populate playerstate when it’s available from db.
  • Fix crash related to DXVA2 decoding of H264 SD interlaced videos
  • Fix window origin in multiscreen setup for macOS.
  • Fix crash when resuming from contextmenu and close contextmenu on playback started
  • Fix crash on open of Guide window.
  • Improves/fix 48000 Hz sample rate detection.
  • Fix colour management ICC profile/3DLUT parameters are not applied for Windows.
  • Fix GUI controls not loading if cloned after window load.
  • Remove unused function.

Install Kodi 19.5 in Ubuntu via PPA

If you found there’s important fixes for you, you can easily install or update to the new release by using its official PPA.

So far, the PPA contains the latest packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10 and Ubuntu 23.04. Though Ubuntu has include the new 20 RC release in the official repositories for 22.10+, the PPA should update your package into 19.5 due to higher packaging version.

1. First, open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Software Updater won’t upgrade the media center if an old version was installed in Ubuntu 22.04. Instead it show ‘Partial Updates’ issue.

As a workaround, either run apt install command below:

sudo apt install kodi kodi-bin

Or run sudo apt full-upgrade to install all available updates (you may still need to install kodi-bin manually). For Linux Mint, run sudo apt update before doing updates!

How to Uninstall:

For choice, you can either run command in terminal to purge the PPA, which will downgrade Kodi to stock version in system repository:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

Or manually remove the software package via command:

sudo apt remove kodi kodi-bin --autoremove

And remove the PPA via command as you prefer:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
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