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LibreOffice 7.4 Finally Available to Install via PPA in Ubuntu 22.04

Last updated: September 15, 2022 — Leave a comment

For those prefer native .deb packages, LibreOffice 7.4 is finally available to install via LibreOffice Fresh PPA.

Major release packages always take longer time to be published into PPA. And it’s been almost one month for this new 7.4 release.

Features of LibreOffice 7.4 include:

  • WebP image format support
  • New remote grammar checker: LanguageTool API
  • EMZ/WMZ files support.
  • Writer supports clearing breaks from Word.
  • sparklines support for Calc.

Install LibreOffice 7.4 via PPA:

The office suite offers official Flatpak, Snap, and Deb packages for downloading in its website. However, all of them will install another copy, which causes duplicated shortcut icons in Ubuntu.

For all current Ubuntu releases (Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04) and their based systems, the LibreOffice PPA is highly recommended. Since the PPA is maintained by Ubuntu community members, and it will upgrade the system built office packages instead of installing another ones.

1. Add the PPA

Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa

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

2. Upgrade LibreOffice

After adding the PPA, search for and launch “Software Updater” from Activities overview. Or, open ‘Update Manager’ (and refresh) depends on your system.

There you should see LibreOffice packages available to update. Just click install and wait until done.

For choice, you may run the command below in terminal to install or update to Libreoffice 7.4:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install libreoffice

How to Restore:

For any issue, you may restore the packages to stock version in system repository. To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:libreoffice/ppa

This command will first install ppa-purge tool, and use it to purge the PPA which also downgrade all installed packages from that repository.

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Eyedropper – Modern GTK4 HEX, RGB, HSL Color Picker Tool for Linux

Last updated: September 13, 2022 — Leave a comment

Looking for a color picker tool for Linux? Try Eyedropper, a new GTK4 application that looks native in modern GNOME desktop.

It’s a free and open-source tool written in Rust programming language. Which, provides an easy to use interface to pick a color and display in HEX, RGB, HSV, HSL, CMYK, XYZ and CIE-Lab formats, as well as handy “Copy to clipboard” icons to quickly copy the values.

User can either use the header-bar picker icon, or click on color bar to open the template for choosing colors. And, edit color by changing the HEX value.

The preferences dialog has options to toggle which color values to display. By setting “Alpha-Value-Position”, it can enable the alpha channel (opacity of a color). However, it’s only available by editing the HEX value so far.

Depends on Alpha-Value-Position option you set, either the first 2 or last 2 values in HEX code applies the color opacity. Though, the alpha channel so far does not work for other color formats!

How to install Eyedropper

The app is available to install in most Linux via universal Flatpak package.

1. First, follow the setup guide to enable Flatpak support. Ubuntu 20.04 | 22.04 can simply press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run command to enable it:

sudo apt install flatpak

2. Then, go to the Github releases page. Click expand “Assets” section of the latest release and select download the .flatpak package.

Download Eyedropper

Finally, install the package via command:

cd ~/Downloads && flatpak install com.github.finefindus.eyedropper.flatpak

The app is also available in Flathub repository, so you can also run the command below in terminal to install the package:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.github.finefindus.eyedropper.flatpakref

After installation, search for and open it from ‘Activities’ overview just like native applications.

Uninstall Eyedropper

To remove the tool, open a terminal window and run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data com.github.finefindus.eyedropper

Also clean up useless run-time libraries (if any) via flatpak uninstall --unused.

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KeePass2 2.52 Released! PPA Updated for Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

Last updated: September 15, 2022 — 5 Comments

KeePass2 password manager released version 2.52 a day ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, & Ubuntu 18.04 via PPA.

The new release now allows importing 1Password 8.7 1PUX, and Key Folder 1.22 XML files, as well as groups and expiry dates when importing Sticky Password XML.

There are also other password manager files compatibility, such as support for the new encoding of double quotes when importing Steganos Password Manager CSV, and automatically convert time-based one-time password generator settings on Bitwarden JSON import.

KeePass2 2.52 also has some UI improvements, including ‘Copy Initial Password’ option in the tool menu of entry dialog; ‘Alt. item background color’ option that combines the previous ‘Use alternating item background colors’ and ‘Custom alt. item color’.

It now checks the ‘KeePass.exe.config’ file and shows a warning message when finding a problem. Which, causes the following pop-up on every start in my case. Though, it seems working without any issue.

I’m not user of KeePass, and don’t know what’s wrong with the default config file build from source tarball. If you know how to correct it, please leave comment below so I can fix it in the PPA package.

See more about KeePass 2.52 via the official release note.

UPDATE for the “/usr/lib/keepass2/KeePass.exe.config”:

Thanks to Ivan K and gilles, you may manually correct the version number to workaround the issue:

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to get the version number:

monodis --assembly /usr/lib/keepass2/KeePass.exe

2. Next, edit the config file via command:

sudo gedit /usr/lib/keepass2/KeePass.exe.config

Finally, change the “NewVersion” number to match the one you got in last command.

Install KeePass2 2.52 via PPA:

Though there are good native password managers such as KeePassXC for Linux, you can use KeePass2 for your choice. And, I uploaded the package into this unofficial PPA for easy installation.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then run the command below to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/keepass2

2. For old Ubuntu 18.04 & Linux Mint, you need to manually refresh package cache though it’s done automatically in Ubuntu 20.04+:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, either run the apt command below to install the package:

sudo apt install keepass2

Or use Software Updater (Update Manager) to update the package if an old version was installed on your system.

Uninstall KeePass2:

To remove the software package, also open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove keepass2

And, remove the PPA, either by going to “Software & Updates -> Other Software” and remove the source line, or run the command below in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/keepass2
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Enable Wayland Support for Firefox/Chrome in Ubuntu 22.04 for Better Experience

Last updated: September 9, 2022 — Leave a comment

Running Ubuntu 22.04 with the default Wayland session? You can switch your web browser’s backend to get even faster and smoother experience.

Firefox, Google Chrome and Chromium based web browsers do have native Wayland support, but they still use X11 as backend in Ubuntu desktop.

Since Ubuntu 22.04 by default logs into Wayland session, user can also change the web browser’s backend to get faster and smoother browsing experiences. I didn’t run any benchmark. But after switching to Wayland, my browser now has:

  • obviously better touchpad scrolling
  • 2-finger spread/pinch gestures to zoom in/out

Enable Wayland for Chrome/Chromium

For Google Chrome, Chromium and their based web browsers, e.g., Edge, Vivaldi, just type chrome://flags/ in address bar and hit Enter.

When the page opens, search for Preferred Ozone platform and use the dropdown menu to set it value to “Wayland“. Finally, click “Relaunch” button to apply change by restarting the web browser.

Chrome enable wayland

Native Wayland for Firefox

For firefox web browser, user need to edit the “/etc/environment” config file.

First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to open the file via gedit text editor:

sudo gedit /etc/environment

Replace gedit with your favorite text editor, such as gnome-text-editor for next Ubuntu 22.10 & Fedora.

When the file opens in text editor, just add a new line:

MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1

As the screenshot shows, you can also add more rules into this config file:

  • MUTTER_DEBUG_ENABLE_ATOMIC_KMS=0 – to fix a slightly laggy, slightly sloppy mouse response issue.
  • CLUTTER_PAINT=disable-dynamic-max-render-time to get a smoother frame rate.

After saving the changes in the config file, restart your computer to take effect!

via: Ubuntu Discourse

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How to Install LXQt 1.1.0 in (L)Ubuntu 22.04 via PPA

Last updated: September 6, 2022 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest LXQt desktop 1.1.0 in (L)Ubuntu 22.04 via its official PPA.

The light LXQt desktop environment has reached version 1.1.0 for a few months, which LUbuntu 22.04 ships the 0.17 version by default.

Changes since LXQt 0.17 to 1.1.0 include:

  • Depend on QT 5.15 LTS.
  • Option to make desktop items sticky by default
  • Add ‘do-not-disturb’ mode.
  • Add “Custom Command” plugin
  • New wallpapers and themes.
  • New component xdg-desktop-portal-lxqt for non-Qt apps to use LXQt file dialog.
  • See more at the releases page.

Install LXQt 1.1.0 via PPA:

LUbuntu announced the official backports PPA few months ago, to provide the latest LXQt desktop stack.

1. Purge third-party PPA (if any)

For those who are using this unofficial PPA for the latest LXQt packages, LUbuntu team recommends to remove it first.

First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to install the ppa-purge tool:

sudo apt install ppa-purge

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) for sudo prompt and hit Enter to continue.

Next, use the tool to purge unofficial PPA which also downgrade all installed packages:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:severusseptimius/lxqt

2. Add LUbuntu backports PPA

Then, run the command below in terminal to add the official PPA instead:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lubuntu-dev/backports

3. Update LXQt Desktop:

Finally, use the command below to update LXQt to v1.1.0:

sudo apt full-upgrade

NOTE: apt full-upgrade is required rather than apt upgrade, or some core libraries will be kept back.

For non-LUbuntu but Ubuntu 22.04 based systems, use the command below to install LXQt 1.1.0:

sudo apt install lubuntu-desktop

In case you want to restore your system later, it’s better to written down what packages it’s going to install via terminal output

Uninstall LXQt 1.1.0 in LUbuntu 22.04

To restore your LUbuntu desktop, run the command below in terminal to install ppa-purge and use the tool to purge the PPA repository:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:lubuntu-dev/backports

Finally, restart your system.

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