Notable is an open-source Markdown-based note-taking application that works in Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.
Notes are written and rendered in GitHub Flavored Markdown, no WYSIWYG, no account required, no proprietary formats, and the app isn’t bloated.
Notable has a pretty user interface and it features:
Markdown editor, the same one VS Code uses.
Notes and attachments stored locally on your disk
Dark theme support.
Zen mode that provides a minimalistic editing and reading experience
Import Evernote and Boostnote notes
Export notes to Markdown, HTML or PDF.
Fuzzy search, attachments, synchronization with Dropbox, and more.
How to Install Notable in Ubuntu:
Although Notable Snap package is available in Ubuntu Software, it’s recommended to download the .deb from the link below:
Scroll down a little, click download the ‘notable_x.x.x_amd64.deb‘ packages, then install it either via Gdebi package installer or simply double click on the deb.
Finally open the software from your system application menu and enjoy!
Remote Touchpad is an open-source utility allows to remote control the mouse and keyboard connected to your computer from the web browser of a smartphone or any other device with a touchscreen.
Remote Touchpad supports Flatpak’s RemoteDesktop portal (experimental), Windows and X11.
Simply run the utility on your machine. It outputs an URL along with QR code in a terminal window. To take control open the displayed URL or scan the QR code in your phone.
The utility is available as Snap package. You can simply search for and install remote touchpad in Ubuntu Software:
It also available to install via Flatpak package, see the Flathub repository.
Once installed, launch the utility from your system application menu.
Then go to the displayer URL or scan the QR code in your phone and enjoy!
UPDATE: Ephemeral DISCONTINUED since 2022. And, it’s no longer available in Ubuntu Software as Snap package.
Ephemeral, a private-by-default, always-incognito browser for elementary OS, now can be easily installed in Ubuntu 18.04 and higher via Snap package.
Ephemeral is a stripped down private browser that’s perfect for avoiding persistent cookies or web trackers. Close the window and all traces of your browsing are removed from your device.
Ephemeral is developed by Cassidy James Blaede, co-founder & CXO at elementary, Inc. It is designed and developed on and for elementary OS. And the community build Snap package made it available to install in Ubuntu.
To install Ephemeral web browser in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, Ubuntu 20.04, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
snap install ephemeral
The software package should also be available in Ubuntu Software, though I don’t see it in my case.
Once you installed the web browser, launch it from system application menu and enjoy!
Want to install Ubuntu on your computer but don’t have an USB drive on your hand? An open-source tool Tunic may help.
Tunic is a tool that can install Ubuntu or Linux Mint over or alongside an existing Windows install, straight from Windows, without requiring to boot from external media like a flash drive or making BIOS configuration changes.
The software asks all questions at beginning, so you don’t have to babysit the install. It supports Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and most official Ubuntu flavors. And all the process is automated, it downloads the iso image, installs Grub with Secure Boot support, alculates Linux equivalent values for your Windows locale and user account, and finally reboots and runs the installer.
Features of Tunic include:
Shrink C: volume to make space for Linux, so you can dual boot them.
Disables Windows fast start.
Provide tools to assist with freeing up space for Linux.
And, requirements include:
64-bit Windows 10
Single drive hosting the C: volume
4 GB RAM or higher.
At least 15 GB of free disk space
UEFI
Administrator user permissions
Internet access for downloading iso image.
As a new project, it may have bugs! BACKUP your data before getting started! For more about Tunic, as well as the download link, go to its project page in Github.
Gotify Indicator is a simple tool in the system tray area to send and receive messages via your own Gotify server.
Gotify is a server that can send and receive messages. It works as a push notifications server. It’s a free open-source tool written in Go language, and features a web UI, allowing to sending messages via a REST-API, subscribing/receiving messages via a web socket connection, and managing users, clients and applications.
Gotify also features iOS and Android app, a command line tool for pushing messages. While, Gotify-Indicator is a third-party indicator for Gotify in the Linux Desktop. With it you can send and receive messages directly from your computer. So you can send messages to other devices that are connected to the same server.
How to Install Gotify indicator in Ubuntu:
NOTE: The PPA package support until Ubuntu 22.04, check the PPA link below.
The developer maintains the software packages in the PPA repository for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 22.04.
1.) Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or by searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
Type user password when it prompts and hit Enter to continue.
2.) Then install the tool via command:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gotify-indicator
Once installed, open it from your system application launcher and you’ll see the indicator in system tray area. Setup the notification sending and receiving service (see top picture) and enjoy!
Uninstall:
To remove the PPA as well as the software package, run commands in terminal one by one:
Urban Terror, free multiplayer first person shooter, now can be installed easily via Snap package in Ubuntu 18.04 and higher.
Urban Terror is a freeware multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by FrozenSand. It can be described as a Hollywood tactical shooter; somewhat realism based, but the motto is “fun over realism”. This results in a very unique, enjoyable and addictive game. It is available for Windows, Linux and Macs.
To install Urban Terror Snap in Ubuntu:
The game now can be easily installed as Snap (runs in sanbox) in Ubuntu 18.04 and higher. Simply search for and install Urban Terror from Ubuntu Software (or App Center in 24.04).
or run single command to install the game in Ubuntu:
snap install urban-terror
Once installed, launch the game from system application menu and enjoy!
This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Photoflare, simple but powerful image editor inspired by PhotoFiltre, in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, and Ubuntu 19.10.
Photoflare is an open-source, cross-platform image editor written in C++ with Qt5 framework. It features:
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:
The image editing software is available in Ubuntu universe repositories since Ubuntu 19.04, though it may be old as Ubuntu does not offer the software updates.
To install the latest version, and receive future updates via Software Updater utility, the official Photoflare stable PPA maintains the packages with support for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, and Ubuntu 19.10 so far.
1.) Open terminal by either pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, or searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
Open Surge, a fun 2D retro platformer inspired by Sonic games, available to install in Ubuntu Software easily via Snap package.
Open Surge is also a game creation system that lets you unleash your creativity! It’s free, open-source, and written from the ground up in C language, using the Allegro game programming library.
You can play the using a keyboard or a joystick.
Arrows: Move
Space: Jump
Enter: Pause
Esc: Quit
Left Ctrl: Switch character
Equals: Take snapshot
F12: Open the editor
And the game features:
A base game called Surge the Rabbit
A built-in level editor
Ready to use items, scripts, and more
Free to use game assets under Creative Commons licenses
Open Surge has been made available as Snap package (runs in sandbox), Ubuntu 18.04 and higher users can easily install it from Ubuntu Software or App Center:
For choice, you may press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, run the command below instead to install the game package:
After installation, either search for and launch it from overview screen (or start menu depends on your desktop environment):
Or run snap run opensurge command to start game from terminal.
Uninstall Open Surge:
To uninstall the game, either use Ubuntu Software (App Center) or run command below in terminal:
Nutty is a free open-source network utility made for Linux. It monitors the devices on your network and check bandwidth and speed details.
Nutty is made for elementary OS and it works on Ubuntu. The software features:
Display basic and detailed information for the device network card
Provides network data usage in two views: historical usage and current usage
Check Upload and Download speeds and get route times to a host
Provides information on active ports and application using them on the local device
Monitors, alerts and provides information on the other devices connected on the network
To install Nutty in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 22.04, open terminal from application launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run following commands one by one.
Cozy is an open-source audio book player with a modern user interface. It’s written in Python programming language. Since version 1.3.0, the app is ported to GTK+ 4 and LibAdwaita for its user interface, and works in Linux and Mac OS.
Cozy automatically scans media library and imports your audiobooks in one directory. You can also drag and drop and audiobook into the app window to import it.
As a GTK app, it’s well integrated in Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux with Gnome Desktop. And dark mode is available to work at night. With libhandy library, it has an adaptive user interface that works well in different screen sizes, e.g., on PC, laptop, and mobile.
audio-book player features:
Sort audio books by author, reader & name
Remembers playback position
Sleep timer
Playback speed control
Offline Mode
Support for DRM free mp3, m4a (aac, ALAC, …), flac, ogg, wav files
Mpris integration (Media keys & playback info for desktop environment)
Option 1: How to Install Cozy in Ubuntu via Official PPA:
Cozy has an official Ubuntu PPA that so far contains packages for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04.
NOTE: Due to this bug, copy has package conflict to Gnome Extension Manger app. If you want to install both apps in your system, use the Flatpak package (See Option 2) instead!
Though Ubuntu 20.04 is not supported due to outdated libraries, it still can be installed via little modification.
1. Add Cozy PPA
Firstly press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or search for and open ‘terminal’ from start menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cozy-team/cozy
Type user password, no asterisk feedback, when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. Install dependencies and modify PPA for Ubuntu 20.04 ONLY!
For Ubuntu 20.04 and Linux Mint 20, you can either tweak PPA and install mismatched dependency libraries manually, or install Flatpak package (see next step) instead.
a.) Open “Software & Updates” utility, and navigate to “Other Software” tab. There choose and edit the Cozy PPA repository, and change value focal to hirsute for Distribution so it will install the package for Ubuntu 21.04 Hirsute instead.
b.) Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run commands to download & install updated python3-peewee and python3-mutagen libraries.
Navigate to the Downloads folder via cd command:
cd ~/Downloads
Download python3-peewee via wget network downloader:
NOTE: since the command download & install 64-bit packages for Desktop PC/Laptop. For mobile or other devices, you can grab them by searching the package name in packages.ubuntu.com.
c.) Add PPA for Libhandy-1 library.
Ubuntu 20.04 also lacks libhandy-1 library, which can be installed from another PPA via the maintainer. Open terminal and run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/libhandy-1
You don’t have to run a individual command to install the library, because the next apt command will automatically install it as a dependency package.
3. Install Cozy via apt command.
Finally, run command in terminal to install Cozy audiobook player:
sudo apt install cozy
Option 2: How to Install Cozy in Ubuntu 18.04 & Higher via Flatpak:
Cozy audio book player is available as Flatpak package which runs in sandbox. It’s an universal package format that installs on most Linux distributions.
Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu. When it opens, run following commands one by one.
1. Copy and paste the command and run to install flatpak framework:
sudo apt-get install flatpak
2. Add flathub, the official repository hosts most Flatpak packages:
For Cozy installed via Ubuntu PPA, remove it via command:
sudo apt remove --autoremove cozy
NOTE: the command may also remove libhandy-1 as well as Gnome Tweaks. Don’t worry, just install Gnome Tweaks back and it will re-depends on libhandy 0.x in Ubuntu 20.04.
To remove the Ubuntu PPAs, either open “Software & Updates” and go to “Other Software” tab, or run command:
