I don’t remember when’s the last time auto-save session feature works correctly in my Ubuntu machine. While, enabling hibernation could be the best choice now to save and restore all open app windows in Ubuntu.
But for those who really like the auto-save session feature, here’s an Gnome Shell extension can do the job partially.
It’s ‘Another Window Session Manager’, an extension which adds an indicator icon on top panel system tray area. It provides an option to manually save all open windows, then allows to restore either manually via menu button or automatically at login.
Save open windows
Not only for classic Xorg, but it also supports Wayland session. Also, it remembers window size, position, and workspace. The downsides are that it does not restore the window workspace correctly sometimes, and restores some apps in empty window rather than last open files or URLs.
The extension is not perfect so far, but anyhow it’s better than nothing!
How to Install this session restore extension:
The extension so far support for Gnome 40, 41, 42 and 43. Meaning not only for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, it also works in Fedora 35/36/37 workstation, Rocky Linux 9, Arch, and other Linux with recent GNOME desktop.
For Ubuntu 22.04+, first search for and install “Extension Manager” app from Ubuntu Software.
Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+
Then, use the tool to search and install “Another Window Session Manager” under Browse tab.
For Fedora 35/36/37 and other Linux with GNOME, visit the extension web page and use ON/OFF switch to install it.
Enable Restore open windows at login
The feature to restore all open app windows on startup after user login is not enabled by default.
You can need to do following steps one by one to enable the function:
First, go to ‘Installed’ tab in Extension Manager. Then open the configuration dialog for the extension, by clicking on the gear button. (or install Gnome Extensions app and use the tool to open the settings).
Next, navigate to “Restore Sessions” tab and:
enable ‘Restore at startup’ toggle option.
enable ‘Restore at startup without asking’ to skip the confirm dialog on each login (optional)
Finally, open the indicator menu, and turn on the ON/OFF switch for your saved session, so it will restore automatically at next login.
When first time logging in a user account, it always pop-up an initial setup dialog to setup online account, livepath, privacy, etc in Ubuntu.
It’s quite annoying if you create new user accounts regularly, since all options in that dialog are also available in system settings. In this case, you can follow this tutorial to disable this function in Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04.
Tip: run /usr/libexec/gnome-initial-setup --existing-user command in terminal can manually launch Welcome dialog if need in Ubuntu.
Welcome dialog in user first login
Here I’ll show you how to disable the initial setup dialog in 3 ways. Choose one of below methods that your prefer:
Method 1: Remove the software package.
Method 2: Add a rule in the service file, so it will never meet the condition to pop-up the dialog.
Method 3: Auto-generate gnome-initial-setup-done file, so it think you’re already done the initial setup
Method 1: Remove the Welcome package
The Welcome to Ubuntu dialog is handled by the gnome-initial-setup package. It’s safe to remove the package, as no other packages depend on it.
So, the most stupid and simple way to disable this feature is press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run command to remove the package:
sudo apt remove --autoremove gnome-initial-setup
Method 2: Disable welcome by editing the service (NOT Work for 24.04)
Without removing the package, you may also disable the feature by adding a rule into the systemd user service.
The old method by editing the “gnome-initial-setup-first-login.desktop” file under auto-start config folder (‘/etc/xdg/autostart‘) does no longer work in Ubuntu 22.04, due to rule X-GNOME-HiddenUnderSystemd=true. Meaning, the XDG Autostart config is overridden by a systemd service.
The key is the systemd service “gnome-initial-setup-first-login.service“. However, it’s running in per user level automatically at login. It’s easy to disable or mask the service for current user by running command:
But, I can’t figure out how to disable the service for all users, especially for non-exist user before you creating it, because you know it runs only on first login for new user (exactly until you done the welcome dialog that auto-generates gnome-initial-setup-done file in user’s .config folder.).
As a workaround, you can add a rule into the service file to skip Welcome dialog automatically for all users:
1. Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When terminal opens, copy the service file into “/etc” directory.
It works by editing the service file under ‘/usr/lib’, but changes will be overridden once Ubuntu published an update for it. So, it’s better to copy and paste it into ‘/etc’ which has higher priority.
3. When the file opens, add following lines under [unit] section:
# Only run when ‘file-name-never-use’ file exist, meaning disable this service
ConditionPathExists=%E/file-name-never-use
It means only start the service when “file-name-never-use” file exist in user’s .config folder, while the first line started with # is description line.
Finally, save the file. For nano command line text editor, press Ctrl+S to save, then Ctrl+X to exit.
4. (skip this step if you’ve never edited the file) In case you’ve changed the XDG auto-start for gnome-initial-setup, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
When file opens, make sure there’s a line X-GNOME-HiddenUnderSystemd=true, so it won’t run because of the service you configured in previous steps.
That’s all, you can now try creating a user account and logging in to see the magic!
Method 3: Generate ‘gnome-initial-setup-done’ file on user creation
As you see in the last screenshot, the first login service contains a line ConditionPathExists=!%/gnome-initial-setup-done. Meaning it only launches the initial setup dialog when ‘gnome-initial-setup-done‘ file does NOT exist in user .config folder.
And, on user creation, Ubuntu and many other Linux automatically copy all the files in /etc/skel directory to the home directory of new user account. They are usually hidden .bashrc, bash_logout, .profile files run automatically at login (or log out) to setup PATH variable, command aliases, tab completion, etc.
By creating a .config sub-folder, that includes gnome-initial-setup-done file, under /etc/skel, will make all new created users include that sub-folder as well as that file in their home directory. So, at every login it thinks the initial setup has done and won’t pop-up the dialog.
To so do, simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then, run commands (thanks to @smart caraxabill):
First, create the .config sub-folder under /etc/skel:
sudo mkdir -p /etc/skel/.config
Then, create the gnome-initial-setup-done file and input yes as it content.
printf yes | sudo tee /etc/skel/.config/gnome-initial-setup-done >/dev/null
Restore the Initial Setup Dialog
Depends on which method you chose, undo the change by:
For method 1, just install the package back by running command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):
sudo apt install gnome-initial-setup
For the method 2, just remove the service file under /etc so the original one will be in use:
For those who want to try out the latest Linux Kernel 6.1.x, the Mainline Kernel PPA finally works again.
Ubuntu developer team maintains the Mainline Kernel PPA with latest Kernel packages. It however failed to build for all the Kernel releases since v6.0.10.
After more than a month until the release of Kernel 6.1.4, the maintainers finally fixed the issue and built the kernel packages correctly for Ubuntu 22.04 +.
How to Install Kernel 6.1.x in Ubuntu 22.04
NOTE: Mainline Kernels are built for testing purpose! They are not supported and are not appropriate for production use. Use them at your own risk
Unlike normal Ubuntu PPAs, there’s no need to add the Mainline PPA into system repository. Just download the .deb packages from the repository page and install them.
1. At the moment of writing, the latest version is Kernel 6.1.6, available to download at the link below. For other versions, go to this page.
For modern 64-bit computer/laptop, select download the top 4 amd64/build packages. For arm64 devices, download the 3 of next 6 packages (either with or without 64k). There are as well the packages for armhf, ppc64el, and s390x available to download.
Or, user can run commands below one by one in terminal to download the packages (64-bit only):
2. After downloading the packages, install them via apt command.
If you downloaded the packages via web browser link, you may first open the Downloads folder in file manager. Then, right-click on blank area and select “Open in Terminal” first to open that folder as working directory in terminal.
Finally, run command to install all .deb packages in the folder:
sudo apt install ./*.deb
3. When done, restart your machine and verify your kernel via command:
uname -a
NOTE: Mainline Kernels are not signed. You may need to disable Secure Boot in BIOS to make it work.
Uninstall Kernel 6.1.x
For any reason, you can easily remove the Kernel by doing following steps.
1. Firstly, reboot and select the old Kernel in boot menu under “Advanced Options for Ubuntu”.
2. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), and run command to remove Kernel you just installed (change version number accordingly):
Kodi media center finally announced the new major 20.0 release! Here are the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu/Linux Mint based systems.
Kodi 20, code-name ‘Nexus’, is a big release with 4,600 commits since the last v19. It features AV1 media decoding support for several platforms. As well, it allows add-ons using inputsream.adaptive to play AV1 streams.
For Windows user, the release has implemented the full HDR support, though it’s not available in non-Desktop, i.e. UWP Store (Xbox) versions. As well, Kodi v20 has implemented NFSv4 support.
Ability to load multiple instances of a binary add-on
Rework subtitles with option to change border and background colors, subtitle position.
Save game state at any time, even if games do not provide native savestate features themselves.
Improved right-click/long-press context menu
stability, performance improvements, and more.
There are so far 2 official ways to install Kodi in Ubuntu Linux. They are Ubuntu PPA contains the native .deb packages and Flatpak package works in most Linux.
Option 1: Install Kodi via Ubuntu PPA
Kodi website provides the downloads for all supported platforms.
For Ubuntu and Linux Mint users, the official PPA repository is one of the best choices to install the media player. So far, it supports Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Linux Mint 20/21 on Intel/AMD platforms.
UPDATE: The Ubuntu PPA packages lag behind a bit. It contains Kodi 20.2, while the latest so far has reached v20.4. And only a few plugins have ported to v20.x.
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 may not 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!
Option 2: Install Kodi using Flatpak package
For most Linux on amd64 (Intel/AMD), and arm64 (Apple Silicon, Raspberry Pi, etc), Kodi also is available to install as Flatpak package, though runs in sandbox.
Fedora 38/39 (with 3rd repository enabled) and Linux Mint 21 can directly search for and install it from either GNOME Software or Software Manager.
While, Ubuntu users can press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run 2 commands one by one to get it:
First, run command to enable Flatpak support:
sudo apt install flatpak
For other Linux, see the official setup guide to enable Flatpak.
Then, install Kodi as Flatpak package by running command:
Kid3, the free and open-source Qt app for editing audio tags, now is 20 years old!
It was January 12, 2003, exactly 20 years ago, when the first version 0.1 of Kid3 was released. And, it’s the first app that I used to edit music tags in Ubuntu when in 2008.
To celebrate it, the developer team announced the new 3.9.3 release, but with only following changes:
Add user action script to fix ID3v2 standard violations.
Accept letters in track numbers when setting tags from filename.
Embed lyrics: Use letras.com instead of lyrics.wikia.com.
Fix crash upon termination when qml and qmlview actions have been used
Abort when invalid keys are used for FLAC Vorbis comments.
Use of non-BMP Unicode characters with TagLib.
Fix error description when saving files fails.
Fix Discogs import.
Windows: Handling of common path in multiple command line arguments.
How to Install Kid3 via PPA in Ubuntu:
The software offers official binary packages available to download at the sourceforge page.
For all current Ubuntu releases (Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 22.10), there’s an official PPA repository contains the latest package.
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:ufleisch/kid3
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. For the old Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint, you have to manually update the package cache by running command in terminal:
sudo apt update
3. Finally, either update Kid3 using Software Updater (Update Manager) if an old package installed on your system.
Or, run command in terminal to install the tag editor.
sudo apt install kid3-qt
Uninstall Kid3
To remove the PPA repository, either open ‘Software & Updates‘ and remove the source line under ‘Other Software’ tab:
Or, open terminal and run the command instead to remove the PPA:
KeePass password manager released new 2.53 version a few days ago. Here are the new features as well as PPA packages for Ubuntu users.
The new release enhanced the History tab in Edit Entry. When editing an entry, the History tab contains the ‘Dialog (unsaved)’ to represent all data entered in the current dialog, and ‘Current (TIME)’, for currently stored in the database.
As you see in the screenshot above, when selecting 2 history entries, user can click “Compare” button to get a detailed comparison between them in a new “Compare Entries” dialog.
As well, there’s now a ‘History’ option in the ‘Find’ main menu, allows to get a overview of all edit histories.
The release also added filter box, Print and Export buttons to most report dialogs (see the last 2 screenshots), including last modified entries, history, large entries, similar password clusters, password quality, history entry comparison, database file search.
Add access keys in the ‘View’ -> ‘Sort By’ menu, entry templates menu, ‘Perform Auto-Type’ menu, and
Ctrl+T for the ‘Copy Time-Based OTP’, and Ctrl+Shift+T for the ‘Show Time-Based OTP’ entry data command
Enhance Password Depot XML import module to support the new format
Improvements to integrate with Edge browser.
How to Install KeePass 2.53 in Ubuntu:
For native Linux password manager, I would recommend KeePassXC. Though, it’s always good to have more choices!
There’s an unofficial PPA maintains the software package, for all current Ubuntu releases (Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, 22.04, and 22.10) and their based systems.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then run the command below to add the PPA:
2. For old Ubuntu 18.04 & Linux Mint, you need to manually refresh package cache though it’s done automatically in Ubuntu 20.04+:
sudo apt update
3. Finally, either run the apt command below to install the package:
sudo apt install keepass2
Or use Software Updater (Update Manager) to update the package if an old version was installed on your system.
4. Since KeePass 2.52, it checks ‘KeePass.exe.config’ file on every app startup. And, it will pop-up a warning dialog due to version mis-match. The exe version number (the last 5 numbers in 2.53.0.13788) auto-generates depends on when you build the package. It cannot be totally same to the one in KeePass.exe.config file, unless it happened to build at exact same time when the official KeePass team compiled the package.
I can’t figure out this issue due to poor bash scripting skill, but you can workaround the issue by checking version number via command:
monodis --assembly /usr/lib/keepass2/KeePass.exe
Then edit the KeePass.exe.config file via command:
sudo gedit /usr/lib/keepass2/KeePass.exe.config
Replace gedit depends on your DE, or use nano that works in most Linux.
In the pop-up text editor, replace “newVersion” value with the one you got in the monodis command out.
Finally, save the file and enjoy! For nano text editor, press Ctrl+X, type y and hit Enter to save.
Uninstall:
To remove the software package, also open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
sudo apt remove --autoremove keepass2
And, remove the PPA, either by going to “Software & Updates -> Other Software” and remove the source line, or run the command below in terminal:
Converseen image converter announced 0.9.10.0 release few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu via PPA.
Converseen is a free and open-source tool for converting or resizing a large quantity of photo images to another format with a few mouse clicks.
The new 0.9.10.0 release redesigned the Images Settings dialog. Previously, it automatically removes the metadata (information including date & time, device, and even location you capture the photo image) in output images, and replaces with only modified date and other non-sensitive data.
Now, it provides a “Remove image’s metadata” check-box. So, user can manually choose to either to remove the metadata information about the photo images in output files.
As you can see in the screenshot above, it now supports configuring the compression level and image quality for WebP images. As well, it fixes a bug that inhibits the overwrite feature when the Rename option is checked.
How to install the new Converseen 0.9.10.0 in Ubuntu
The image converter is available to install in different package formats: AppImage, Snap, and Deb. Choose either one that you prefer.
1. AppImage
The software website provides the universal AppImage for downloading via the link button below:
It’s a non-install package. Just grab it, right-click and go to ‘Properties’ dialog to add executable permission. Finally, click run the AppImage will launch the tool.
2. Snap
For Ubuntu 20.04+, the snap package is the easiest way to get converseen, though it runs in sandbox. Just open Ubuntu Software, search for and install the package marked as ‘Snap Store (snap)’.
3. Ubuntu PPA (.deb)
For those who prefer the classic .deb package format, there’s unofficial PPA that contains the package for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 22.10.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.
2. Then, install the software package by running command:
sudo apt install converseen
Linux Mint user may have to run sudo apt update first to update cache.
Uninstall:
The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it immediately after installed Liferea.
To do so, either run the command below in terminal, or remove the source line under “Other Software” tab in Software & Updates tool.
Liferea, Linux Feed Reader, finally announced the new stable 1.14 release series! Here’s how to install it via PPA in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 22.10.
Liferea is a news aggregator that brings together all of the content from your favorite subscriptions into a simple interface for easy organizing and browsing. It features offline reading, HTML 5 support, sync with Google Reader API, Reedah, and TinyTinyRSS.
The new 1.14.0 was released today as a new stable release, after more than 2 years of v1.13 series unstable development.
New Features in Liferea 1.14.0
For the built-in browser, it has finally implemented support for Webkits Intelligent Tracking Protection. Youtube videos from media:video can be embedded now with a click on the video preview picture. And, there’s a new ‘Reader mode’ preference that allows stripping all web content.
The UI now is adaptive, that switches automatically between ‘Normal’ and ‘Wide’ mode when resizing the window width. Though, I personally prefer the old layout a bit more.
Allow converting TinyTinyRSS subscriptions to local subscriptions
Add generic Google Reader API support
New plugin: ‘add-bookmark-site’ and ‘getfocus’.
New search folder rules.
New hot keys.
Remove support for CDF channel, Atom 0.2/0.3 (aka Pie), blogChannel namespace, photo namespace.
How to Install Liferea 1.14.0 in Ubuntu:
For most Linux, Liferea is available to install as Flatpak package, though NOT updated at the moment of writing.
Ubuntu users can also use the unofficial PPA, which so far supports for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Linux Mint 20/21, and their based systems.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.
2. Then, install the Liferea package by running command:
sudo apt install liferea
Linux Mint user may have to run sudo apt update first to update cache.
Uninstall:
The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it immediately after installed Liferea.
To do so, either run the command below in terminal, or remove the source line under “Other Software” tab in Software & Updates tool.
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.
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.
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:
