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Warpinator – Linux Mint Developed File Transfer App for Linux

Last updated: April 24, 2024

Warpinator is a local network file transfer application developed by Linux Mint. It is written with Python 3 and works on most Linux desktops via Flatpak package.

The software offers a simple clean interface that lists all available network machines with Warpinator running.

To send files, simply select a remote machine and click ‘Send files’ button. File transfer must be first approved by the recipient.

How to Get Warpinator:

For Linux Mint:

Linux Mint users can simply search for and launch terminal from start menu. Then run the command below to install the application from system repository:

sudo apt install warpinator

For Ubuntu based systems

There’s a third-party PPA contains the Warpinator package as well as a few other mint tools Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and their derivatives.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run the command below one by one to add the PPA and install the file transfer:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kelebek333/mint-tools
sudo apt update
sudo apt install warpinator

Install the app for most other Linux

The file transfer app is also available to install in most Linux systems as universal Flathub.

Firstly, follow the setup guide to install Flatpak daemon on your system.

Then, install Warpinator as flatpak package by running:

flatpak install flathub org.x.Warpinator

And if you want to remove the package, run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.x.Warpinator

Other platforms

There are unofficial clients for other platforms. Android user may simply search for and install it in F-Droid or Google Play.

For iOS, an unofficial client is in Beta stage.

And Windows user may download and install the EXE from this github project page.

In App Review
 

Tartube – A GTK+ 3 Front-end for Youtube-DL Video Downloader

Last updated: April 24, 2024

Looking for a graphical interface for the command line youtube-dl video downloader? Tartube is a GTK+ 3 front-end written in Python 3.

Tartube is partly based on youtube-dl-gui and runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and BSD. It’s a free and open-source software that can download individual videos, and even whole channels and playlists, from YouTube and all youtube-dl supported websites.

Besides downloading videos, Tartube can also organize your videos into convenient folders, alert you when livestreams are starting, and more.

How to Get Tartube:

The Ubuntu deb, Windows exe, Fedora rpm, and source code are available for download at the link below:

For Ubuntu users, grab the .deb package and click install either via “Software Install” or “Gdebi” (if installed).

NOTE: To make the software work, you have to install youtube-dl, and in Tartube’s “system preferences” set the path to youtube-dl executable.

In App Review
 

Gcolor3 – A GTK+ 3 Color Selector and Picker for Linux

Last updated: April 24, 2024

Gcolor3 is a color selector and picker written in GTK+ 3. It is much alike Gcolor2, but uses the newer GTK+ version to get better integrate into modern desktop.

Gcolor3 enables you to pick the color from any pixel on your screen. It also offers a palette, so that you can easily mix and match a couple of colors together.

When you have found the perfect combination of colors, naturally you want to save them. Gcolor3 allows you to conveniently save and retrieve colors.

By releasing version 2.4.0, Gcolor3 now is “Color Picker” with a new maintainer, a new icon, lots of new improvements, and many translation updates.

How to get Gcolor in Ubuntu:

The latest Gcolor so far is available as Flatpak package. You can either download the package from the link below:

or open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run following commands one by one to install the package:

sudo apt install flatpak

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

flatpak install flathub nl.hjdskes.gcolor3

To uninstall the software, run command:

flatpak uninstall nl.hjdskes.gcolor3

Prefer deb to the containerized flatpak package?

Gcolor3 has been made into the universe repository of Ubuntu 20.10.

For Ubuntu 20.04, you can grab the .deb package for 20.10 from the launchpad page.

In App Review
 

Free Image Enlarger SmillaEnlarger 0.9.1 Ported to Qt5

Last updated: August 22, 2020

Free open-source image enlarger SmillaEnlarger sees first update in over 10 years.

SmillaEnlarger is small graphical tool, based on Qt, to resize, especially magnify bitmaps in high quality. The used algorithm is an invention of the developer’s own.

SmillaEnlarger 0.9.1 is the first release in over 10 years, features Qt 5 port.

Get SmillaEnlarger:

The source tarball as well as Mac OS package are available to download in the link below:

It’s easy to compile the software, simply do:

  • Grab the source tarball, open Downloads folder and extract the tarball.
  • In file browser, navigate to the source “smillaenlarger-0.9.1” folder.
  • Right-click on blank area and select “Open in terminal”

When terminal opens, run following commands one by one to build the image enlarger:

qmake ImageEnlarger.pro
make

Finally launch the software within the terminal window via command:

./SmillaEnlarger

That’s it.

In App Review
 

Kaidan – Modern XMPP Chat Client for Linux

Last updated: April 24, 2024

Kaidan is a simple, user-friendly chat client that uses the open communication protocol XMPP (Jabber) and runs on Linux, Mac OS, Android, Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch.

The software is written in C++ with Qt and the Qt-based XMPP library QXmpp. Unlike other chat apps, you are not dependent on one specific service provider.

Kaidan features: supported XEPs / RFCs and planned XEPs. The latest release so far is Kaidan 0.5 that contains QR code scanning and generation, message search, and more.

Get Kaidan chat client:

Source code, APK, Appimage, and Mac os packages are available for download at the link below:

For Linux, grab the .appimage package, make executable in file’s Properties > Permissions. And finally run it to launch the chat app.

As an alternative, Kaidan is also available in flatpak package:

In App Review
 

FetchCord – Display Your System Info as Discord Rich Presence

Last updated: April 24, 2024

FetchCord is a simple tool grabs your system information and displays it as Discord Rich Presence.

FetchCord is written in Python 3 and relies on Neofetch for your basic system information. With the handy tool, you’ll see your system info inside Discord user’s profile.

How to install FetchCord:

1. In Ubuntu 20.04 and Linux Mint 20, first open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install Neofetch and python3-pip package:

sudo apt install neofetch python3-pip

2. Then install Fetchcord via pip command:

pip3 install fetchcord

Once installed, run fetchcord command while Discord is running and enjoy!

NOTE: while the software is in very early stage, it may have bugs. For any issue report to the Github page.

In App Review
 

Photoflare – Simple Powerful Image Editor Inspired by PhotoFiltre

Last updated: April 24, 2024

Photoflare is an open-source simple and powerful image editing software inspired by PhotoFiltre.

Photoflare is written in C++ with Qt5 framework. It works on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS, and features basic image editing capabilities, paint brushes, image filters, colour adjustments and more advanced features such as Batch image processing.

Besides the community version, the software also offers studio edition requires to pay for packages.

Features of Photoflare include:

  • Simple but powerful, and very fast to do everything.
  • Works on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.
  • Basic image editing capabilities
  • Paint brushes
  • Image filters
  • Color adjustments
  • And more advanced features such as Batch image processing.

How to Install Photoflare in Ubuntu:

Option 1: Ubuntu PPA

The software has a stable PPA which so far contains the latest packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.

1.) To add the PPA, open terminal either from system application launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens,  run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:photoflare/photoflare-stable

2.) After adding PPA, update system package cache and install the image editor via commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install photoflare

Option 2: Flatpak package

For choice, user can install the software as Flatpak runs in sandbox environment. Meaning even the old Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 can install the latest version of this image editing app.

1. (Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 only) First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, run command to add the Flatpak PPA for old Ubuntu that don’t have the package in system repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flatpak/stable

Type user password when it asks (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue. Next, run sudo apt update to refresh system package cache.

2. Then, run command to enable Flatpak support:

sudo apt install flatpak

3. Finally, install the app as Flatpak package by running the command below in terminal:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/io.photoflare.photoflare.flatpakref

Once installed, search for and launch the app either from start menu or ‘Activities’ overview depends on your desktop environment. If app icon not visible, try log out and back in to apply path environment changes.

And for future versions, use the command to check updates:

flatpak update io.photoflare.photoflare

Uninstall Photoflare:

To remove Photoflare image editor, either use your system package manager or run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove photoflare

And remove the PPA either via Software & Updates under Other Software tab, or by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:photoflare/photoflare-stable

To uninstall the Flatpak package, use command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data io.photoflare.photoflare

Also run flatpak uninstall --unused to remove useless run-time libraries.

In App Review
 

NewFlash – Modern New GTK Feed Reader for Gnome Desktop

Last updated: April 24, 2024

NewFlash, spiritual successor to FeedReader, is a modern feed reader designed for the GNOME desktop.

NewsFlash is a program designed to complement an already existing web-based RSS reader account. It combines all the advantages of web based services like syncing across all your devices with everything you expect from a modern desktop program: Desktop notifications, fast search and filtering, tagging, handy keyboard shortcuts and having access to all your articles as long as you like.

NewFlash so far support for:

  • Miniflux
  • feedly
  • local RSS
  • fever
  • feedbin

How to Install NewFlash Feed Reader:

The software officially is available as flatpak in Flathub repository for most Linux desktops.

Ubuntu 18.04 and higher can install it by running following commands one by one:

1.) Open terminal and run command to install flatpak framework in Ubuntu:

sudo apt install flatpak

2.) Add the flathub repository which hosts the flatpak package:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

3.) Finally install NewFlash via command:

flatpak install flathub com.gitlab.newsflash

When a new release is out, you can update the package by running command:

flatpak update com.gitlab.newsflash

(Optional) To remove the feed reader, run command:

flatpak uninstall com.gitlab.newsflash
In App Review
 

Automatic CPU Speed & Power Optimizer Auto-cpufreq 1.2 Released

Last updated: August 7, 2020

Auto-cpufreq, automatic CPU speed & power optimizer for Linux to improve battery life, released version 1.2 with AMD support.

Different to cpufreq indicator and / or TLP, Auto-cpufreq automatically make “cpufreq” related changes based on active monitoring of laptop’s battery state, CPU usage and system load. Ultimately allowing you to improve battery life without making any compromises.

How to Install Auto-cpufreq in Ubuntu:

Auto-cpufreq is available as Snap package, which can be easily installed from Ubuntu Software:

Don’t like the containerized snap package? You may also download the source tarball which contains an install script:

Extract and go into the source folder, then right-click on blank area and select ‘Open in Terminal’

Finally run the installer via command:

sudo ./auto-cpufreq-installer

How to run Auto-cpufre:

Once installed the tool, you can run it with different flags:

1. Monitor and suggest CPU optimizations by running command:

sudo auto-cpufreq --monitor

2. Run the tool to improve battery life for temporary use (work until reboot):

sudo auto-cpufreq --live

3. Install the daemon so it will work permanently and silently in background.

sudo auto-cpufreq --install

4. Uninstall the daemon to stop the service:

sudo auto-cpufreq --remove

see auto-cpufreq in github

In App Review, News
 

Magnus – A Simple Screen Magnifier for Ubuntu

Last updated: July 31, 2020

Looking for a desktop magnifier? Besides enabling the built-in screen magnifier, there are a few third-party applications can do the job.

Magnus is a very simple desktop magnifier written in Python 3. It shows the area around the mouse pointer in a separate window magnified two, three, four, or five times. Useful for users who need magnification, whether to help with eyesight or for accurate graphical design or detail work.

How to Install Magnus in Ubuntu:

Magnus is available as Snap package, it can be directly installed from Ubuntu Software.

For Ubuntu 20.04 and higher, the software is also available in the main apt repository. Simple open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install it:

sudo apt install magnus

For Ubuntu 18.04, you need to add the PPA repository by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/magnus && sudo apt update

Then run the previous apt install command to install it.

Once installed, launch magnus from system application launcher and enjoy!

Uninstall Magnus:

To remove the software PPA if added, run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:flexiondotorg/magnus

To remove Magnus, simply run command:

sudo apt remove magnus
In App Review, Howtos