News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
For Linux, there’s now new “Clipboard Pinner” app called Serigy for GNOME desktop.
It’s NOT a clipboard manager that can save and manage clipboard history. It works by selectively pinning (copy) clipboard content (text, image, URL, etc) into app window, then easily copy back to clipboard when needed with one click.
pinned items in Serigy
Want to get refresh of your desktop background with new wallpapers every day? Here’s a new app to do the job for Linux with GNOME Desktop!
It’s Picture of The Day, a GTK4 application written in Rust programming language. With it, you may get wallpaper images from the following sources:
Remember ‘Typhoon’, the stylish desktop weather widget? It’s revived and works in all current Ubuntu and other recent Linux Distributions!
Typhoon is a free open-source application forked from Stormcloud (no long under active development). It displays current weather conditions and weather forecast in next few days on desktop with widget in custom color background.
Looking for a stateless password manager? There’s now a new LessPass compatible password manager designed for GNOME, though of course works in other Linux desktops.
It’s LPTK, a free open-source application written in Rust and use GTK4 for its user interface. With the app, you can generate and access your passwords, and optionally connect to a compatible LessPass server to read and store password profiles.
Looking for a Cheat Engine like application to search and edit memory in Linux Desktop? Here’s a free open-source app work in process!
It’s MemSed (MEMory Search and EDit), an open-source tool written in C programming language. If you have ever used Cheat Engine to scan & edit memory for computer games, you’ll find that MemSed looks familiar, as it’s heavily inspired by the basic Cheat Engine workflow.
Looking for a digital pet application for your computer? Here’s one that works natively in Linux Desktop.
It’s Shijima, a cross-platform shimeji simulation, desktop pets app works on any device, including Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, and Nintendo Wii.
The is free and open-source (licensed under GPLv3+ since v0.0.3) application. The PC/laptop edition uses Qt6 framework for its user interface. And it works on KDE, GNOME (both X11 and Wayland), and other Linux desktop environments.
Shijima-Qt provides portable executable file and AppImage for Linux. No installation is required. Just run to launch the app window, then, import shimeji mascots by drag’n’dropping the zip/rar/7z archive into app window. Finally, click to add your pets onto desktop and play with them!
The app is available to install in Linux through 2 ways: Flatpak and AppImage. Choose either one that you prefer.
The Shijima-Qt packages for Linux, Windows, and macOS are available to download in Github releases page via link below:
For Linux, select download either the release-linux-x86_64.zip that works on modern Intel/AMD CPUs, or release-linux-arm64.zip for ARM devices (e.g., Raspberry Pi).
Then, decompress and finally run the “Shijima-Qt.AppImage” from extracted folder to launch the app.
To run it, either right-click and select “Run” (after enabled “Executable as Program” permissionin its Properties dialog), or right-click on blank area in the folder that contains the executable files, select “Open in Terminal” and finally run command below in pop-up terminal window.
./Shijima-Qt.AppImage
NOTE 1: Ubuntu since 22.04 does NOT support AppImage out-of-the-box, run sudo apt install libfuse2 in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) first to enable.
NOTE 2: The first time launching the app will ask to log out and back in to apply extension to make it work.
NOTE 3: Since v0.0.2 it has a default mascot. For more, you may to search (e.g., <character name> shimeji) and download from the web. And, here are some Murder Drones shimeji by @PolarSummit on X.
If you don’t like the AppImage, you may run the shijima-qt file in that folder instead to launch the app. It however requires Qt6 >= 6.7 that’s NOT available in Ubuntu repositories until 25.04.
Even in Ubuntu 25.04 (still in development stage), you need to run command to install the required run-time libraries:
sudo apt install libqt6widgets6 libqt6multimedia6 libqt6core6t64
And, finally run command from that folder to launch the executable file:
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb ./shijima-qt
For choice, Shijima-Qt now is available to install as Flatpak package, which runs in sandbox environment.
Linux Mint 21/22 and Fedora Workstation (with 3rd party repository enabled) can directly search for and install the app from either Software Manager or GNOME Software.
While Debian/Ubuntu users may follow the steps below one by one to install the package:
Ctrl+Alt+T to open a terminal window. Then, run command to install Flatpak daemon:
sudo apt install flatpak
For other Linux, follow the official guide to enable Flatpak support.
Next, run command to install the Flatpak package:
flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.pixelomer.ShijimaQt.flatpakref
After install the package, either search for and launch it from start menu or GNOME Overview (log out and back in if app icon is not visible), or run the command below instead to launch from terminal:
flatpak run com.pixelomer.ShijimaQt
For the AppImage, just delete the file/folder to get rid of it from your system.
To uninstall the Flatpak package, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
flatpak uninstall com.pixelomer.ShijimaQt
Also run flatpak uninstall --unused to clear useless runtime libraries.
Remember Plank, the simplest dock on the planet? There’s now a free open-source fork to make it fully functional in recent Linux Distributions.
Plank is a 14 years old application that provides an iOS bottom bar style dock app launcher, that’s great for lightweight Linux Desktops. The goal is to provide just what a dock needs and absolutely nothing more.
Plank seems not in active development, though it still works in recent Linux Distributions. However, it has compatibility issues and broken docklets/applets. For those who’re still using or prefer this dock, there’s now an open-source fork worth a try.
Plank in Linux Mint 22
It’s Plank-Reloaded, a fork of the original Plank project that focuses on Cinnamon desktop compatibility and modernized features.
With the new dock, the Clock docklet will no longer crash. And, it features updated digital clock layout as well as a calendar when clicking on the icon.
The Battery docklet has been updated with modern UPower integration. And, the “Matte” theme has been updated to look better, along with a light variant that based on the Arian theme.
New Plank Matte and Matte-light Themes
Other changes include general code cleanup and bug fixes. If you like it, you may report issues and request features by visiting the project page.
NOTE: Plank so far does NOT work on Wayland.
According to this feature request, the software developer is going to add pre-built .deb packages for Debian/Ubuntu, and Flatpak package for all Linux users.
At the moment, Arch & its based systems can install from the AUR repository.
While Ubuntu & Linux Mint users (tested on Linux Mint 22.1 & Ubuntu 24.04) can run the commands below one by one in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to build from the source (this is the official guide with minor modification).
sudo apt remove plank libplank-common libplank1
sudo apt install git autogen autoconf autopoint libtool make valac libgnome-menu-3-0 libgnome-menu-3-dev libxml2-utils libgee-0.8-dev libbamf3-dev libwnck-3-0 libwnck-3-dev bamfdaemon
git clone https://github.com/zquestz/plank-reloaded.git
cd plank-reloaded
./bootstrap
make -j2
sudo make install
Here, -j2 option in second make command means to start 2 thread in parallel. You may change the number according how many CPU cores you have.
After successfully built the Plank-Reloaded, you may either run plank command in terminal to start the dock, or add it as startup program to auto-start at login.
Until you removed the source folder, you may navigate into that folder in terminal and run command below to uninstall:
sudo make uninstall
For Linux with GNOME, there’s now new configuration tool to tweak advanced settings in this desktop environment.
It’s Refine, a free open-source tool that uses GTK4 + LibAdwaita for a modern UI to tweak desktop settings in Fedora Workstation, Arch, Manjaro Linux, etc with vanilla GNOME Desktop.
NOTE: Ubuntu is marked as “Unsupported Environment”. Some settings MAY not work as intended. User needs to confirm “Accept the Risk and Continue” for using the app in Ubuntu. See this bug report for details.
Remember GNOME Pie or Fly-Pie? There’s now a similar pie menu launcher for most Linux desktops as well as Windows and macOS.
It’s Kando, a free open-source application written mostly in TypeScript programming language.
With it, user can trigger a circular application launcher on desktop, then either use mouse clicks or draw gesture to launch apps, run custom scripts/commands, simulate shortcut key, or open files/websites.
Ubuntu is working on a new desktop security center and prompting-client. Here’s how to try it out in current Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
It’s an experimental new feature that will land in next Ubuntu 24.10. Which, provides graphical interface to make it easier for users to control the file/folder access permission for Snap apps.
For example, when browsing web via Firefox (the preinstalled Firefox is a Snap package). You found a good image and want to save it to local folder, or you just want to download something. Before the downloading process starts, it will pop-up a dialog as the screenshot shows you, asking for user permission to allow writing to the file or folder.
Pop-up for file/folder access permission
