Want to make some ambient sounds? Try Blanket, an open-source tool with modern user interface.

Blanket is a GTK application allows to play some ambient sounds including:

• Birdsong
• Summer night
• Rain, storm, wind.
• Coffee shop, fireplace.
• White noise, pink noise.
• Train, boat, and city.

Each sound has a volume control, so that you can get mixed sounds.

And the app supports playing even more sounds by adding your own audio files.

How to Install Blanket in Ubuntu:

The software has an official Ubuntu PPA, which so far offers packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Ubuntu 21.04.

1.) Open terminal from your system app launcher. When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/blanket

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

2.) After that, run apt command to install it:

sudo apt install blanket

Once installed, open it from system app launcher and enjoy!

Uninstall Blanket

To remove the PPA, either go to Software & Updates -> Other Software or run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:apandada1/blanket

To remove the ambient noise player, run command:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove blanket

Quiet Audio Fade (aka Quite AF) is a small applet slowly reduces the volume on your computer over time, letting you find the quietest level that works.

It’s f.lux for your ears!

The tool is written in Go programming language, and it works in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.

It works as a system tray indicator with only a few menu options. The first option shows the current tool status (ACTIVE or PAUSED) along with the volume level in number.

When it’s in ACTIVE mode, it slowly decreases your system volume bit by bit with time interval set in “Speed” option. Higher intervals mean a longer, more subtle decrease.

Eventually you’ll notice the sound is a tad too low and you’ll increase the volume, which will disable Quiet AF and leave your volume at the perfect level – not too loud, not too quiet!

How to Get Quiet Audio Fade in Ubuntu:

Besides building from source tarball, the applet offers single executable file in its project page:

Quiet AF Releases

Grab the package for Ubuntu, and give executable permission in file’s Properties dialog.

You’re finally able to start it via command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

./Downloads/QuietAF_Ubuntu

If you prefer the applet, you can move the executable file to /usr/local/bin, manually create app shortcut, or add it as startup application.

CPUFetch is a simple command line tool, a bit similar to Neofetch, but for fetching CPU architecture in Linux, Windows, macOS, and Android.

The tool outputs the manufacturer logo (e.g., Intel, AMD) along with basic CPU info, including:

• CPU name.
• Micro-architecture.
• The semiconductor technology in nanometer (nm).
• Max frequency.
• Number of cores and threads.
• Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)
• Fused-Multiply-Add (FMA)
• L1, L2, L3 cache sizes.
• Peak performance.

It supports custom colors and offers a few styles (themes). With it, you can easily take screenshot of the CPU information and share with your friends.

How to Install CPUFetch in Ubuntu:

CPUFetch so far do not offer an Ubuntu binary package. However, it’s easy to compile it in Linux.

1.) Firstly open terminal from system app launcher. When it opens, run command to clone the source:

git clone https://github.com/Dr-Noob/cpufetch

Install git via sudo apt install git command if you don’t have it.

2.) Then navigate to the source folder via cd command, and compile it via make:

cd cpufetch && make

3.) You are finally be able to run the tool via ./cpufetch command in this directory!

To be able to run via cpufetch command anywhere in terminal, copy the executable file to /usr/local/bin:

sudo mv ~/cpufetch/cpufetch /usr/local/bin/

Uninstall:

To remove the source folder, run command:

rm ~/cpufetch -rf

And remove the executable file via command:

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/cpufetch

Czkawka is a simple, fast and easy to use software to remove unnecessary files from your machine.

Czkawka is a free and open-source software written in memory safe Rust. It works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Due to advanced algorithms and multi-threading, it is amazingly fast!

With it, you can scan your specified folder directories for:

• Duplicates files based on file name, size, hash, first 1 MB of hash
• Empty folders / empty files.
• Big files.
• Temporary files
• Similar images.
• Zeroed files
• Invalid symbolic links
• Broken files.

And it offers a few select buttons to select and remove your desired files from the output.

How to Get Czkawka in Ubuntu Linux:

The software offers official binary packages available to download at the github releases page:

Download Czkawka (Appimage)

For Linux users, grab the .appimage package. Make it executable from file properties dialog, and finally run it to launch the software.

UPDATE: Install Czkawka via Ubuntu PPA:

There’s now an unofficial PPA that contains the software packages for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 20.10 so far.

Open terminal and run following commands one by one to add the PPA and install Czkawka via apt:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps

sudo apt install czkawka

Macchina is another command line tool to fetch basic system information in Linux, similar to Neofetch, but focus on performance and minimalism.

The software is written in Rust, and it displays basic system information, including hostname, manufacturer, kernel version, uptime, desktop environment, processor, memory / battery status, and more. Macchina is pretty fast, it runs 8.53 ± 0.72 times faster than neofetch!

Macchina is a new project in active development. By adding --theme or -t flag, you can specify one of the supported themes. They are so far: default, alt, and long.

And you can specify the key color (--color / -c), the separator color (--separator-color / -C), let it show palette (-p) and display memory usage and battery percentage as bars (-b).

It also has options to change left padding and spacing.

How to Install Macchina in Ubuntu:

The software so far is available to install via crates.io.

1. Firstly open terminal and run command to install cargo:

sudo apt install cargo

2. Then install the tool via command:

cargo install macchina

Once installed, you can run ~/.cargo/bin/macchina with your desired flags.

If you prefer to use command macchina instead, run command to edit user’s profile:

gedit ~/.profile

And add following lines to add “.cargo/bin” directory to your PATH:

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/.cargo/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"
fi

Log out and back in to apply the new PATH.

Uninstall Macchina:

To remove the software via cargo, run command:

cargo uninstall macchina

If you don’t use cargo, simply remove it via command:

sudo apt remove --purge cargo