Peek, the popular animated GIF screen recorder application, has been discontinued!
It was one of my most favorite applications, that provides an easy to use interface for recording rectangle screen area into animated GIF.
The software developer announced that “With this announcement I officially declare the Peek project deprecated. This is something I should have done for a while now, but I always told myself that I will eventually do a last release, fixing some issues. As you know this never happened.”
The big reason is because of Wayland. Peek is working good in Ubuntu 20.04, though it cannot record the top-bar. But Ubuntu 22.04+, Fedora Workstation and other Linux with recent GNOME have switched to Wayland that cause problems.
Wayland session does not provide the classic way that Peek uses to determine the recording area. It’s even not working properly when running as X11 app in Wayland via XWayland. The issue can’t be resolved unless completely rewritten the app in different UI in different way, but the developer is not interested in it.
However, Peek is still working in classic Xorg session that is default so far in most other desktop environments, and optional in GNOME. Though, it may have bugs and won’t receive fixes!
Alternative apps for recording animated GIF
As far as I know, Kooha is a good alternative that can record screen as GIF and supports Wayland session. And it’s available to install as Flatpak in Flathub repository.
The lightweight DeaDBeef music player got an update recently. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04.
Just like Audacious did in v4.3, DeaDBeef 1.9.5 added the low-latency PipeWire sound server support. Meaning Ubuntu 22.10+, Pop! OS 22.04 and all current Fedora Linux users can select use the new sound output in ‘Preferences’ settings page.
The release also added new LibRetro resampling plugin, updated DUMB plugin with Chiptune voice muting support. Other changes include $itematindex(index,value) function to title formatting, improved drawing of spectrum analyzer, and various bug-fixes. See release note for details.
DeadBeef custom layout
How to Install DeadBeef 1.9.5
The music player website provides official packages for Linux, Windows, and macOS, available to download at the link below:
However, I personally prefer using the PPA repository, which provides both GTK3/2 and Qt5 user interface, as well as a few more plugins. Sadly, the PPA so far supports only Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and their based systems.
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:spvkgn/deadbeef
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
After adding PPA, update system package index by running command below, though it’s done automatically in Ubuntu 20.04+.
sudo apt update
Finally, install the music player with your favorite UI interface (GTK3 for example):
sudo apt install deadbeef-gtk3
As you see in the screenshot, you may also install the mpris2 plugin, Qt5 UI, file browser plugin, etc.
Audacious music player finally announced the release of version 4.3 after a few weeks of beta testing.
As you may already know, the new release features PipeWire output plugin. Meaning Ubuntu 22.10 + users can switch sound output using the new low-level multimedia framework.
Pop! OS 22.04 (have PipeWire support out-of-the-box) and Ubuntu 20.04 that have switched to Pipewire to replace PulseAudio are also supported.
The release also added GTK3 support again, which has much better appearance in my case compare to the old GTK2 interface. It now has a new set of tool-bar icons with both light and dark mode support. Though, the icons in the Settings page are still too big.
Native Opus decoder plugin, previously done via FFmpeg plugin.
Qt6 support goes mature, though still defaults to Qt5.
Meson built system support
Allow copying file path in song info dialog.
Support Ogg FLAC audio streams
Support reading embedded lyrics tags.
Account for album artist in Search Tool.
Support new song length database format in SID plugin.
Support Publisher and Catalog Number tags
Add file filter to Export Playlist file dialog
Remove alarm plugin.
Add Romanian translation.
How to Install Audacious 4.3 in Ubuntu:
Without building from the source, Ubuntu users can install the audio player in 2 ways: Flatpak and Deb.
1. Flatpak
Audacious 4.3 is available to install as Flatpak package, though it runs in sandbox. Linux Mint user can easily search for and install it from Software Manager.
Ubuntu user can press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run the 2 commands below one by one to get it.
For those who prefer the classic .deb package, I’ve upload the new package into this PPA repository.
It now supports the package for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, and Ubuntu 23.04. Besides the modern PC and laptop with x86_64 architecture type, arm64/armhf devices such as Raspberry Pi are also supported!
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) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. Then, update system package index in Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint via the command below. For Ubuntu 20.04+, it’s done automatically while adding PPA.
sudo apt update
3. If you have an old version of the music player installed, you can now update the package to the latest using “Software Updater” utility.
Or, run the command below in terminal to install or upgrade the package:
sudo apt install audacious audacious-plugins
Uninstall Audacious
Remove the Flatpak package
To remove the audio player installed as Flatpak, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and use command:
Also clean up runtime library via flatpak uninstall --unused.
Remove Audacious installed from PPA
If you want to restore the music player to the stock version available in system repository. Run command below to purge PPA as well as downgrade installed packages:
Darktable, the free open-source photography application and raw developer, released version 4.2.1 a few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 22.10.
Darktable 4.2.1 is a new point release. There’s no big features but minor changes. It now uses magic bytes to identify JPEG files, so even JPEG image with incorrect file extension is supported. Also, it adds ability to assign shortcuts to the “quick access” style and preset menus at the bottom of the darkroom view.
The release also added base support for Canon EOS Kiss X10/X10i, Leica M9 (dng), Nikon Z 30 (12bit-compressed, 14bit-compressed), OM System OM-1/OM-5, Panasonic DC-G95D/DC-G99D (4:3), Ricoh GR IIIx (dng).
It also adds White Balance Presets for Nikon Z 9, and noise profiles for Fujifilm GFX100S, Fujifilm X-H2/X-H2S, OM System OM-1, Sony ILCE-7SM3, Canon EOS 250D / Kiss X10 / Rebel SL3 / 200D Mark II, Canon EOS R7.
For more about Darktable 4.2.1, see the release note in github.
How to install Darktable 4.2.1 in Ubuntu via PPA
The software website refers to the OBS repository that contains native packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and SUSE.
For choice, here’s an unofficial Ubuntu PPA contains the packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10.
NOTE: There’s no JPEG-XL support, since the library is not available in Ubuntu repository until 23.04. And, the new release requires libheif >= 1.13.0, so HEIF support excluded in Ubuntu 22.04 and earlier. Please leave comment if you do need them.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
2. Linux Mint use may need to run command to manually refresh package cache:
sudo apt update
3. Finally install the photography software either via the command below:
sudo apt install darktable
Or by installing package updates via Software Updater. NOTE: You are strongly advised to take a backup first.
Darktable is also available as universal Flatpak package that works in most Linux systems.
Fix no window border issue
Darktable seems not rendering its window border in Ubuntu with default Wayland session. As a workaround, either switch back to classic Xorg session, or run Darktable using X11 backend.
To do so, either open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to launch Darktable from command line:
GDK_BACKEND=x11 darktable
Or, modify the shortcut icon file via following steps:
1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy the shortcut file to local folder by running command:
For Ubuntu 22.10 +, replace gedit with gnome-text-editor.
4. Finally, find out the line started with Exec and change it into Exec=env GDK_BACKEND=x11 /usr/bin/darktable %U. Also remove the line start with TryExec.
Uninstall:
To remove darktable, simple run command in a terminal window:
sudo apt remove --autoremove darktable
And, remove the Ubuntu PPA by either removing source line in ‘Software & Updates’ utility under ‘Other Software’ tab, or running command:
If you would like to revert back the stock Darktable package in system repository, just purge the PPA instead of removing it as well as the software packages and install old version back.
The popular FFmpeg multimedia library announced the new major 6.0 (updated to v6.1). Here are the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04.
FFmpeg 6.0, code name “Von Neumann”, features new decoders support, including Bonk, Micronas SC-4, APAC, ViewQuest VQC, RKA, Radiance, WavArc, CBD2 DPCM and a few ADPCM formats.
There are also QSV and NVenc AV1 encoding, VAAPI and QSV decoding and encoding for 10/12bit 422, 10/12bit 444 HEVC and VP9.
New audio and video filters, such as adrc, afdelaysrc, corr, showcwt, backgroundkey, a3dscope, ddagrab, ssim360, hstack_qsv, vstack_qsv and xstack_qsv filters
Radiance HDR image support
Add new mode to cropdetect filter to detect crop-area based on motion vectors and edges
WBMP (Wireless Application Protocol Bitmap) image format
LAF, SDNS demuxer
DTS to PTS reorder bsf
backgroundkey filter, showcwt multimedia filter
hstack_vaapi, vstack_vaapi and xstack_vaapi filters
MediaCodec decoder via NDKMediaCodec and encoder
oneVPL support for QSV
ffmpeg CLI new options: -stats_enc_pre[_fmt], -stats_enc_post[_fmt], -stats_mux_pre[_fmt]
media100 to mjpegb bsf
ffmpeg CLI new option: -fix_sub_duration_heartbeat
CrystalHD decoders deprecated
RKA, WavArc, XMD ADPCM, WADY DPCM decoder and demuxer
filtergraph syntax in ffmpeg CLI now supports passing file contents as option values
NOTE: Upgrade FFmpeg library in Ubuntu may break other apps and/or run into dependency issue!! You must know how to restore. And don’t do it in production machine!!
How to Install FFmpeg (6.1 Updated) via PPA in Ubuntu:
As many users reported, the Rob Savoury’s PPA seems broken due to dependency issue.
So, I upload the FFmpeg 6 and its dependency libraries into this unofficial PPA for those need FFmpeg 6.
NOTE: 1. The PPA so far is for Ubuntu 22.04 only! NOTE: 2. The packages seem working good in my case. But it may or may not work for you! Use it at your own risk!
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
Want to display your username in the top panel? It’s easy to do this job in Ubuntu, Fedora Workstation and other Linux with GNOME Desktop via an extension.
After following this tutorial, you’ll see your username appear in the far right corner in top panel, just like the screenshot below shows you:
1. First, open Ubuntu Software, search for and install Extension Manager app.
Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu Software/App Center
2. Then, press Super (Windows Logo) key on keyboard to open the overview screen. Search for and launch Extension Manager.
3. When the tool opens, navigate to ‘Browse‘ tab. Finally, search for and click install “Add Username to Top Panel” extension. The extension so far supports for GNOME from v3.12 to 46. Meaning almost all Linux with recent GNOME are supported!
After installation, your username should appear immediately on top panel. To remove it, go back “Installed” tab, then either turn off or remove the extension.
For other Linux, e.g., Fedora Workstation, Arch, Debian, RockyLinux with GNOME, go to this page in web browser and use the ON/OFF switch to install it.
Another Choice: The extension mentioned above, so far does NOT support placing user-name to the extreme right. As workaround, you may search & install “Whoami in top bar” extension instead. Which, supports GNOME 45/46 so far (Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora Workstation 39/40).
After installed the extension, switch back to “Installed” tab, then you may click the setting icon for that extension to configure the position to left, center, or right, as well as relative position.
GIMP image editor released a new update for the 2.10 series few days ago! Here are what’s new and how to install guide for Ubuntu Linux users.
GIMP 2.10.34 is a new stable release features a lot of bug-fixes and a few enhancements. The official announcement is NOT ready somehow at the moment, though it’s released in gitlab project age. And, the source code is available to download at FTP web page.
For macOS, the DBus is now fully disabled as it in some cases could even cause app freeze. Open With feature still work fine, but other features using dbus (such as opening files or running batch commands from a separate GIMP process) won’t work. As well, check for updates function in macOS now works again.
The release also has some backports from the 2.99.x development releases. The “Canvas Size” dialog has been redesigned to use more horizontal space. And, it has new Template selector in resize dialog.
For PDF with transparent area, there’s new “Fill transparent areas with white” option which enabled by default on file import. And export dialog has “Fill transparent areas with background color” option to decide whether use transparent background.
Other changes in GIMP 2.10.34 include:
Symmetry dockable contents is now shown, yet deactivated, when no images are opened
Color scale preferences are now remembered across sessions.
Import JPEG-XL metadata support.
Export JPEG-XL support, always in 8bit lossless.
New header with “visible” and “link” icons in item dockables
Clipping layers better supported when importing PSD files
Paths are now exported to PSD
New option “Show reduced images” when loading TIFF images
16-bit per channel export for raw image data
How to Install GIMP 2.10.34 in Ubuntu Linux
Option 1: Flatpak
GIMP provides official Linux packages through universal Flatpak package, though it runs in sandbox environment.
Ubuntu user can press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run the following 2 commands one by one to install it:
Make sure the flatpak daemon installed by running command:
Once installed, start it either from app launcher or run flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP in terminal.
Option 2: Ubuntu PPA
For those prefer the classic .deb package format. I’ve uploaded the package into the unofficial PPA, with support for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10.
First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/gimp
Then either upgrade GIMP using Software Updater, or run command in terminal to install it:
sudo apt install gimp libgegl-0.4-0 libbabl-0.1-0
For Linux mint, you may need to run sudo apt update to update package index first.
Uninstall GIMP:
For GIMP package installed as Flatpak, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to remove it:
flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.gimp.GIMP
Also run flatpak uninstall --unused to clean useless runtime.
For .deb package from PPA, open terminal and run command:
Want to control screen brightness, color preset, contrast etc for your external monitor connected in Desktop PC or laptop? Here’s how to do the trick in both graphical and command line ways in Ubuntu & other Linux!
I know there are physical buttons to do the job. But for lazy men and/or software developers, few mouse clicks and/or a single command can be more effective. And ddcutil is the tool for Linux users.
ddcutil is a free and open-source tool that uses DDC/CI protocol to control settings for most external monitors. It also support some monitors (e.g. Eizo ColorEdge, Apple Cinema) through USB.
NOTE: Most modern monitors support DDC/CI protocol, but it may NOT enabled by default. Check the menu via the physical buttons.
Step 1: Install ddcutil & ddcui
The ddcutil package is available in most Linux’s system repositories, including Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Fedora, Debian. User can directly search for and install it from system App Store (Software App, Package Manager)
The package in Ubuntu repository is however always old. For the most recent version, there’s an official PPA maintained by the software developer, so far with support for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04.
First, 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:rockowitz/ddcutil
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
After adding PPA, update system package index via command:
sudo apt update
Finally, install the command line utility and graphical interface by running command:
sudo apt install ddcui ddcutil
Step 2: Control brightness & other monitor settings via Graphical tool
After installation, search for and open “ddcui” from Activities overview or start menu depends on your desktop environment.
NOTE: for “error access: permission denied” issue, either start the app via sudo ddcui command, or run command to add current user to i2c group (need system restart):
sudo gpasswd --add $USER i2c
When the app starts, choose your monitor (if more than one available) from the drop-down box.
Then go to menu View -> Features. There you’ll see the options to control screen brightness, color preset, contrast, RGB colors, clock, restore factory, etc settings!
Step 3: Control Monitor Settings from Command line
For those who are familiar with Linux commands, things can be done via following steps. NOTE: sudo is NOT required after adding user into i2c group and reboot.
1. First, open a terminal window and run command to report all connected monitors:
sudo ddcutil detect
In my case, I have built-in laptop display and external “Display 1”.
2. Then query the monitor’s capabilities string, for display 1 (-d 1) in my case:
sudo ddcutil -d 1 capabilities
In the screenshot, I added grep option to filter the ‘Brightness’ and the output code 10 is what I need.
3. Get the current value of feature code 10 (“brightness” in the case) for display 1:
sudo ddcutil -d 1 getvcp 10
3. Set the brightness level (code 10) to 60 for example:
sudo ddcutil -d 1 setvcp 10 60
Besides settings brightness to custom level, you may also increase or decrease brightness via ‘+’, ‘-‘ options. For example, increase brightness (code 10) with level 5 up.
ddcutil -d 1 setvcp 10 + 5
Or decrease brightness with level 5 down:
ddcutil -d 1 setvcp 10 - 5
This can be useful for binding to keyboard shortcut for controlling your monitor brightness. For more options, read the man page by running man ddcutil command in terminal.
Linux Kernel 6.2 was release this Sunday. Linus Torvalds announced it at lkml.org:
So here we are, right on (the extended) schedule, with 6.2 out.
Nothing unexpected happened last week, with just a random selection of small fixes spread all over, with nothing really standing out. The shortlog is tiny and appended below, you can scroll through it if you’re bored.
Wed have a couple of small things that Thorsten was tracking on the regression side, but I wasn’t going to apply any last-minute patches that weren’t actively pushed by maintainers, so they will have to show up for stable. Nothing seemed even remotely worth trying to delay things for
…
What’s New in Kernel 5.16
Initial support for NVIDIA RTX 30 “Ampere” GPU accelerated graphics with Nouveau open-source driver.
Intel Arc graphics support being stable and enabled out-of-the-box!
Raspberry Pi 4K @ 60Hz display support.
New PlayStaion driver with Sony DualShock 4 controller support.
Added OneXPlayer senser and fan driver.
Dell Data Vault WMI driver.
Google Chrome OS Human Presence Sensor support
RealTek RT1318 and Rockchip RK3588 support.
If you want to learn more features about Kernel 6.2, read this blog post.
How to Install Kernel 6.2 in Ubuntu 22.04+/Linux Mint 21
NOTE: The Mainline Kernel packages are not appropriate for production use. Only install it for testing purpose or for specific drivers.
The Mainline Kernel PPA has built the packages for Ubuntu and its based systems with modern 64-bit (amd64), arm64/armhf mobile, ppc64el and s390x CPU architecture types support.
User can select download the packages from the link page below:
Once installed, restart your computer and verify by running uname -a command in terminal!
Uninstall Linux Kernel 6.2:
Restart your machine and select boot with the previous kernel in boot menu under ‘Grub2 -> Advanced Option for Ubuntu’. Then run command to remove Linux Kernel 6.2:
Xfce’s Parole media player announced the 4.18.0 released a day ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10 and their based systems.
Parole is a modern simple video player based on the GStreamer. It’s an free opensource app fit well in the lightweight XFCE desktop, though also works in other Linux desktops.
The new version 4.18.0 was released last night. It’s been more than 2 years since the last release, there’s however NO big changes but only bug-fixes, minor improvements, and translation updates.
Changes in Parole 4.18.0 according to the NEWS file:
Hovering mouse wheel over a speaker icon can also increase volume now.
Reduce playback control panel to stay 2 seconds when in full-screen mode.
Fix memory leak when loading cover image.
Some icon updates and translation updates.
How to Install Parole 4.18.0 via PPA in Ubuntu:
The project does not provide official binary packages. Besides building from the source tarball, XUbuntu, Linux Lite, Linux Mint, and of course other Ubuntu based systems can get it from this unofficial PPA.
NOTE: Parole seems not working good in GNOME desktop with Wayland session. Meaning Ubuntu and Fedora workstation with default desktop environment need to switch to classic Xorg for this app.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or search for and open terminal window from start menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue. The PPA support for Ubuntu 20.04 and higher with both amd64 and arm64/armhf cpu architecture types.
2. Some Ubuntu based systems may need to manually update package index after adding PPA. To do so, run command:
sudo apt update
3. Finally, either upgrade the media player from an existing version (if any) using Software Updater (Update Manager), or run command in terminal to install it:
sudo apt install parole
Uninstall Parole or Restore original package
To restore the original version, run command in terminal to purge the PPA as well as downgrade the package:
