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:
For Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora workstation 39/40, Arch, Manjaro, etc, with GNOME desktop 43 ~ 46, there’s now an extension to add “Auto Brightness” toggle button in quick settings (aka system menu).
Meaning user don’t have to open System Settings and go to Power page again and again to turn on/off the function. Just open the top-right corner system tray menu, there’ll be a toggle button to quickly turn on/off auto brightness just like on a smartphone.
NOTE: Your laptop MUST support auto brightness feature and have GPU driver properly installed. To verify, just open System Settings and find out if there’s Automatic Screen Brightness option under Power tab.
How to Install the Auto Brightness quick menu button
The extension so far supports GNOME from version 43 to 46. It is available in EGO, which however lack of update for recent GNOME versions. If you want this quick toggle button, then it’s easy to install from the source tarball.
1. First, click the link below to download the source tarball.
2. After downloaded the source package, do following steps one by one to install it:
Extract the downloaded package, and navigate to the extracted folder.
Open another file window and navigate to .local/share/gnome-shell/extensions directory.
Finally, drag and drop the sub-folder from extracted folder to new opened window.
Tips: .local is a hidden folder, you need to press Ctrl+H to view (and press again to hide) in file manager. The gnome-shell and extensions sub-folders may NOT exist under ‘.local/share‘ if this is the first extension you’re going to install. Just create manually.
3. Next log out and back in.
Install either GNOME Extensions or Extension Manager from App Center (filter by Debian package), and launch it. Finally, turn on the “Auto Brightness Toggle” extension for displaying the new button in top-right system status menu.
Uninstall:
As the last screenshot shows you, in “Extension Manager” window just click the up/down arrow beside the toggle switch. Then, you’ll see the ‘Remove’ button for removing the extension.
Alternatively, you may delete the theme folder under .local/share/gnome-shell/extensions directory, and log out and back in to apply.
The lightweight audacious music player announced the beta release of the next v4.3 a few days ago.
Usually, the final release will be out in next or next few months with mostly no change since beta. So far, this beta release include the following new features.
The new release added plugin support for Pipewire, which is a low latency sound server that is default in Ubuntu since 22.10.
Also, it added a plugin for Opus audio decoding support. Though it previously supports Opus through FFmpeb library compiled with --enable-libopus.
Audacious 4.3 also added again GTK3 as well as Qt6 support. In current v4.2 stable, I prefer to use Qt UI since GTK2 interface looks ugly due to incorrect icon size.
However, Qt UI lacks automatic light and dark mode switch depends on system color scheme in GNOME (default desktop environment in Ubuntu). With the new GTK3 build, it now looks good in my case in Ubuntu 22.04 with better integration.
For all current Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, just open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the commands below one by one to install it:
The Transmission BitTorrent client released version 4.0.0 a few days ago. Here’s PPA repository contains the package for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, Linux Mint 21/20.
According to the release note, transmission 4.0 features new C++ and gtkmm code-base, with much less CPU and memory usage than before. It also adds support for using BitTorrent v2 and hybrid torrents, support for IPv6 blocklists, and more.
How to Install Transmission 4.0.4 via Ubuntu PPA
I’ve built the new release packages into this unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 20.04 and higher. Ubuntu 18.04 is not supported due to dependency library version mis-match.
The new web user interface depends on NPM (Node.js package manager). It requires internet connection while building process, but launchpad build farm does NOT have. Meaning so far the PPA package does not include new web UI via JavaScript, but the old web user interface for remote control is stilling working in my case in Ubuntu 22.04.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. After adding the PPA, you can then launch Software Updater (Update Manager) and upgrade the system pre-installed transmission package to the new 4.0.0 release.
For Ubuntu based system without the BitTorrent client pre-installed, you may run command below to install it:
Ubuntu has an indicator applet to quickly prevent screen goes blank, lock screen, and/or automatically suspend on system idle.
It’s “Caffeine”, a more than 10 years old tool, that’s now available as Gnome Shell Extension. Which is useful when watching movies, or doing automation process that needs screen to keep alive.
Previously, it acts an indicator applet in the system tray on top-panel. By clicking on it will prevent (or allow again) screen blank and auto suspend when system idle.
Now it’s available as an extension for the default Ubuntu Desktop, which adds a button in the upper right system menu, to quickly toggle on/off system idle feature.
Besides prevent screen blank infinitely, there’s now also sub menu options to do the action in just 5, 10, or 30 minutes. Once you enable Caffeine along with one of the time options, it shows the applet with count down timer in the aggregation icons on top-bar.
As well, instead of showing notifications, it now display volume control style OSD in center of bottom screen when toggling on/off Caffeine option.
How to Install Caffeine in Ubuntu:
NOTE: Caffeine works on all current Ubuntu (Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04), Fedora and other Linux with GNOME Desktop. Though, the features mentioned above are only for GNOME 43 so far.
For Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04, search for and install “Extension Manager” from Ubuntu Software (or App Center).
Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu Software/App Center
Then launch it and use the tool to search and install Caffeine extension.
For old Ubuntu 18.04 and other Linux with GNOME, use the ON/OFF switch at the page below to install it:
Transmission, the default torrent downloading app for Ubuntu, announced the new major 4.0.0 release today!
The new release migrated the codebase from C to C++ programming language. And now it uses the gtkmm toolkit instead of GTK for its user interface. With the code improvements, it can even have 50% less CPU and 70% fewer memory usage.
Transmission 4.0.0 introduced support for using BitTorrent v2 and hybrid torrents. In ‘Preferences’ ->’Network’ settings page, there’s option to set default public trackers. And in “Seeding” settings page, it allows to call a custom script when done seeding.
Other changes in Transmission 4.0.0 include:
New version system (v3.00 -> v4.0.0)
Remote control GUI now use RPC API ‘table’ mode, resulting smaller payloads and less bandwidth usage.
Rewrite Web app in JavaScript with fully mobile support.
For Linux user, there’s no package at the moment of writing. But as a lazy man, I use this pre-installed app to download torrents in Ubuntu frequently. If possible, I’ll make a deb package in case no PPA packages available in next few days.
UPDATE: here it is the PPA for Transmission 4.0.0 with Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 22.10 support. Sadly, new WebUI excluded but it seems working with old web interface.
