Howtos | UbuntuHandbook

MenuLibre – Advanced tool to Edit App Shortcuts in Start Menu

Last updated: October 12, 2024 — Leave a comment

Need a tool to edit your apps in the start menu, main menu, or Gnome overview search results? Try MenuLibre!

In most Linux, all app icons you see in start menu, dock launcher, and the desktop, are handled by .desktop config files. By editing the file, you can change the app icon, name, hide the app, add right-click menu option, and choose which file types to be associated with.

I’m written about how to configure .desktop file using a single command.

For graphical ways, there are quite a few apps to do the job, and here are 3 of them:

Arronax – well known, but seems not being updated. Though, it’s still working.
AppEditor – Elementary OS style tool to edit desktop menu entries. However, lacks pre-build packages.
MenuLibre – the one I’m going to introduce in this tutorial.

MenuLibre is an advanced tool written in Python and GTK3 toolkit. With it, user can get started by either searching or browsing in left to select app to edit, or click “+” in top left to create new menu entry for your app.

In App Review, Howtos Edit Application Menu

How to Disable Recent Files in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: January 16, 2024 — 1 Comment

This simple tutorial shows how to disable (or auto-delete) “recent” files tab in left side-bar of file manager in Ubuntu 24.04 & 22.04.

GNOME Files, aka Nautilus file manager, has a “Recent” tab in left side-bar, which include all the recent opened photos, videos, and documents.

It’s useful for user or applications to quickly re-open recent edited files. However, when working at a public place, it can be better to disable this feature since it may contain sensitive data.

In Howtos Gnome, privacy

How to Install Ruby in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Last updated: May 15, 2024 — 1 Comment

This is a step by step beginners guide shows how to install Ruby and setup local programming environment in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Ruby is an interpreted, high-level programming language designed with an emphasis on programming productivity and simplicity. It was first released 29 years ago in 1995, by Yukihiro Matsumoto in Japan.

Ruby is available to install in Ubuntu in a few different ways, they include:

Snap package.
Deb package in system repository.
Third-party manager with multiple version support.
Build from source.

And, here’s how to install them in Ubuntu step by step.
Continue Reading…

In Howtos Ruby

Disable Turbo Boost / Set Constant CPU Speed in Ubuntu 22.04/24.04

Last updated: January 13, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to turn off CPU turbo boost, and/or set constant maximum (or minimum) CPU speed in Ubuntu 22.04 and/or Ubuntu 24.04.

Disable turbo boost will limit your CPU speed to prevent running over the base frequency. It’s useful to save power and prevent your computer from overheating. For choice, user can also set constant CPU speed for either minimum power consumption or maximum performance.

Most machine today has option in the BIOS page to enable/disable and even change CPU frequency, however, it’s not flexible.

For Linux, the Kernel has a tool called cpupower can do the job from command line, and user can turn on/off turbo boost through sysfs. Gnome Desktop even has a GRAPHICAL extension (scroll-down to see step 4) to make things easier.

In Howtos power

Install Nicotine+ for Soulseek P2P Network in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: May 5, 2024 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to install Nicotine plus, the graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network, in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04.

Soulseek is an ad-free, spyware free, and plain free file sharing network, make it easy for you to find people with similar interests, and make new discoveries!

And, Nicotine is a lightweight, pleasant, free and open source (FOSS) alternative to the official Soulseek client, while also providing a comprehensive set of features.

The app used to be available in Ubuntu system repository, but removed due to lack of development. It’s later revived and finally added back to Ubuntu 24.04 repository.

For current Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and even Ubuntu 18.04, user can install it from the official PPA.

Nicotine in Ubuntu 22.04

In Howtos network, nicotine, soulseek

How to Install VSCodium IDE in Ubuntu 22.04 & 24.04 [4 Ways]

Last updated: January 10, 2024 — Leave a comment

This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install VS-Codium IDE in Ubuntu, using 4 different ways.

VSCodium is a free and open-source software binaries of VS Code. It’s NOT a fork, but a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VS Code.

The VSCodium project was born due to:

Microsoft’s vscode source code is open source (MIT-licensed), but the product available for download (Visual Studio Code) is licensed under this not-FLOSS license and contains telemetry/tracking.

It’s a good choice as a telemetry-less version of VS Code without rebuilding by programmers themselves.

Codium in Ubuntu

In Howtos IDE, Visual Studio Code

Install Latest libheif 1.18.2 in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: October 17, 2024 — 4 Comments

This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest version of libheif library, for better HEIF and AVIF image formats support, in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and/or Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Libheif is a popular free open-source library for encoding and decoding HEIF and AVIF. Which, also has partial support for JPEG-in-HEIF, JPEG2000, uncompressed (ISO/IEC 23001-17:2023) capabilities.

It supports libde265 and/or ffmpeg for decoding HEIC images, and x265/kvazaar for encoding. For AVIF images, it uses either AOM/dav1d for decoding, and AOM/rav1e/svt-av1 for encoding support.

As well, it has command line tools to convert HEIF/HEIC to other images, and convert images to HEIF/HEIC.

Many popular applications, including GIMP, Darktable, ImageMagick, Krita, and gThumb, use libheif for HEIF and/or AVIF support. And, the library is usually installed as dependency along with them.

gThumb use libheif for AVIF support

In Howtos HEIF, photo

How to Install SABnzbd in Ubuntu 22.04 & 24.04

Last updated: January 4, 2024 — 6 Comments

This simple tutorial shows how to install and setup SABnzbd, Usenet download tool, in Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04.

SABnzbd is a free open-source program to download binary files from Usenet servers. Many people upload all sorts of interesting material to Usenet and you need a special program to get this material with the least effort.

The app makes Usenet as simple and streamlined as possible by automating everything. All you have to do is add an .nzb. SABnzbd takes over from there, where it will be automatically downloaded, verified, repaired, extracted and filed away with zero human interaction.

In Howtos sabnzbd

How to Install Telegram Desktop in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: January 3, 2024 — Leave a comment

This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install Telegram instant messaging app in Ubuntu 22.04 & Ubuntu 24.04.

The popular Telegram Messenger is available in most platforms. For Linux, it available as official tarball, universal Flatpak ans Snap packages. And, Ubuntu has third-party repositories to make it easy to keep updated.

So, as far as I know there are 4 ways to install the app in Ubuntu Linux. Choose any one that you prefer.

Telegram Desktop (image from flathub.org)

In Howtos messenger

How to Install Scribus (1.6.2 Updated) in Ubuntu 24.04 / 22.04

Last updated: June 18, 2024 — 3 Comments

Scribus, the popular free open-source desktop publishing software, announced the new stable 1.6.x release series on the first day of 2024!

It’s been more than 4 years since the last stable 1.4.8, while 1.5.x release series is available as development branch.

The new Scribus 1.6 includes many new features! If you have the default 1.5.8 dev package from Ubuntu system repository, then most of them are already in use.

Features include: