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Ksnip 1.10.1 Add KDE Support for Scale Factor [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: March 16, 2023 — Leave a comment

Ksnip, the popular free open-source screenshot and annotation tool, released 1.10.1 version yesterday.

Ksnip is a Qt based screenshot tool with editing features, that works in Windows, macOS, and Linux on both Wayland and Xorg. It’s one of my top favorite applications for adding annotations in screenshot.

The app just released version 1.10.1 one day ago as the first point release for the 1.10 release series. It’s a small release with a new feature: KDE support for scale factor. Meaning it’s now working better in KDE desktop (such as KUbuntu, Ubuntu Studio) with different scaling factor.

Other changes include:

  • Fix drag and drop issue for Ksnip installed as Snap.
  • Fix sticker resizing issue when bounding rect flipped.
  • Show tab tooltips on initial tabs.
  • Fix for unnecessary scrollbars when a screenshot has a smaller size than the previous one
  • Fix that loading image from stdin single instance client runner side doesn’t work

How to Install KSnip 1.10.1 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

Option 1: Snap package

The easiest way to install the tool in Ubuntu is using the official Snap packages. Simply open Ubuntu Software, then you can search for and install it via few clicks.

Install Ksnip via Ubuntu Software

Option 2: AppImage / Deb

The software project page also provides AppImage and Deb packages, as well as Windows and Mac OS packages for download under ‘Assets’ section:

Download Ksnip

For most Linux, you may download the non-install AppImage package, make it executable via right-click menu “Properties” dialog -> “Permissions” tab, and finally click run the package to launch it.

For Debian and Ubuntu based system, download the .deb package and install it by running command in terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal):

sudo apt install ~/Downloads/ksnip-*.deb

NOTE for Ubuntu 22.04, double-click installing this local deb via “Software Install” option may not work properly. It refers to the Snap package, rather than installing the local package.

Option 3: Ubuntu PPA (unofficial)

For those prefer Ubuntu PPA, here’s an unofficial repository with Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10 and Ubuntu 23.04 support.

Simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run the commands below one by one will add the PPA and install the screenshot tool from it.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/ksnip
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ksnip libkimageannotator0 libkcolorpicker0

Install the OCR plugin:

The OCR plugin is available to install as a separate package. It’s available to download at the link below:

Download OCR plugin

Click to expand the ‘Assets‘ section, download & install the .deb package for Debian and Ubuntu based system.

Uninstall Ksnip

For the snap package, simply click ‘uninstall’ button in Ubuntu Software.

For deb package, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard and run the command below to remove it:

sudo apt remove --autoremove ksnip libkimageannotator0

And, remove the Ubuntu PPA (if added) by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/ksnip
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Transmission 4.0.2 Released with Numerous Bug-Fixes [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: March 16, 2023 — 5 Comments

Transmission BitTorrent client got another bug-fix release for the new major 4.0.0 that was released a month ago.

The new Transmission 4.0.2 fixed the bug that some torrents thought they were magnet links, auto-add watch folder issue for macOS, broken speed limits for utp peers, and using announce-list when creating single-tracker private torrents.

The release also restored support for path.utf-8 keys in torrent info dictionaries, fixed potential crash when downloading from webseeds or receiving malformed piece data from peers.

There are also various other bug-fixes, including:

  • Fixed value of TR_TIME_LOCALTIME environment variable in torrent scripts.
  • Fixed display of IPv6 tracker URLs.
  • Added up / down arrows to upload / download badge info for macOS UI.
  • Fixed “Unrecognized colorspace number -1” error messages from macOS
  • Fixed per-torrent ratio display in main window in QT UI.
  • Fixed 4.0.0 ignoring -m/–minimized command line option.
  • See more about the changes, see github releases page.

How to Install Transmission 4.0.2 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

Transmission does not provide official binary packages for Linux. Besides building from the source tarball, user can either use the universal Flatpak package or an Ubuntu PPA.

For those prefer the classic .deb package, this unofficial PPA has been updated with the latest packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 22.10.

The new web user interface depends on NPM (Node.js package manager). It requires internet connection while building process, but launchpad build farm does NOT have. Meaning so far the PPA package does not include new web UI via JavaScript, but the old web user interface for remote control is stilling working.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/transmission

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

2. After adding the PPA, you can then launch Software Updater (Update Manager) and upgrade the system pre-installed transmission package to the new 4.0.2 release.

For Ubuntu based system without the BitTorrent client pre-installed, you may run command below to install it:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install transmission-gtk

You may replace transmission-gtk with (or add) following package:

  • transmission-qt – Qt user interface for KDE, LXQt, etc.
  • transmission-cli – command line interface.
  • transmission-daemon – the daemon for running in background, and access via webUI

Uninstall Transmission 4.0.2

You can choose to downgrade the BitTorrent client to system pre-installed version, by running command in terminal:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/transmission

Or, remove the software packages instead by running command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove transmission-gtk transmission-qt transmission-cli transmission-daemon

And remove the PPA repository either via “Software & Updates” tool by removing the source line under “Other Software” tab, or by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/transmission

That’s all. Enjoy!

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Liferea News Reader 1.14.1 Released with A Critical Security Fix

Last updated: March 15, 2023 — Leave a comment

For users of Liferea feed reader, new version 1.14.1 and 1.12.10 were released few days ago. All users are urged to upgrade due to an important security fix.

Liferea is a free open-source GTK3 feed reader that brings together all of the content from your favorite subscriptions into a simple interface. It can synchronizes with Reedah, TinyTinyRSS, and Google Reader API.

Just few days ago, it release new point releases for its 1.14 and 1.12 release series with an important security fix.

It’s CVE-2023-1350 Remote code execution on feed enrichment.

If you have enabled “Extract full content from HTML5 and Google AMP” for one or more of your feed subscriptions it is possible for a an attacker to inject a script command that would run any command on your system.

All users are recommended to upgrade to the new release with this bug-fix.

Without the upgrade, user can alternatively disable “Extract full content from HTML5 and Google AMP” for all the feeds via following steps:

  1. Close Liferea
  2. Open ~/.config/liferea/feedlist.opml in an editor
  3. Replace all occurences of html5Extract="true" with an empty string

How to Install Liferea 1.14.1 in Ubuntu:

For most Linux, Liferea is available to install as Flatpak package, that runs in sandbox.

Ubuntu users can also use the unofficial PPA, which so far supports for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Linux Mint 20/21, and their based systems.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

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

2. Then, install the Liferea package by running command:

sudo apt install liferea

Linux Mint user may have to run sudo apt update first to update cache.

Uninstall:

The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it immediately after installed Liferea.

To do so, either run the command below in terminal, or remove the source line under “Other Software” tab in Software & Updates tool.

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

To remove the feed reader package, simply run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove liferea-data liferea

That’s all. Enjoy!

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Kodi Media Center 20.1 Released with Lots of Bug-fixes

Last updated: March 13, 2023 — Leave a comment

The first point release of Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ is out today after almost 2 months of development.

As the title said, the new Kodi 20.1 includes mainly bug-fixes. It introduced a new algorithm to look to overcome some audio issues on Android devices. Fixed DVD playback folder structures over network sources (e.g. SMB/NFS/HTTP, etc.)

Other changes include:

  • Assorted fixes to the new Savestate Manager to improve usability.
  • An assortment of OSD improvements
  • A number of performance improvements (memory reads, faster dialogs/savestates).
  • Input fixes allow resetting multitap controller inputs
  • Sync of some of the common controller types
  • Fixes various overflows when using new chrono infrastructure.
  • A fix for an issue on 32-bit systems that affected the sorting of items.
  • Resolve PVR Channel Groups to correctly show channels ordered as provided by a PVR backend.
  • A couple of fixes for WebVTT subtitles

How to Install Kode 20.1 in Ubuntu

Kodi website provides the downloads for all supported platforms.

For Ubuntu and Linux Mint users, the official PPA repository is one of the best choices to install the media play. So far, it supports Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Ubuntu 23.04, Linux Mint 20/21.

1. First, open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

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

2. Software Updater may not upgrade the media center if an old version was installed in Ubuntu 22.04. Instead it show ‘Partial Updates’ issue.

As a workaround, either run apt install command below:

sudo apt install kodi kodi-bin

Or run sudo apt full-upgrade to install all available updates (you may still need to install kodi-bin manually). For Linux Mint, run sudo apt update before doing updates!

How to Uninstall:

For choice, you can either run command in terminal to purge the PPA, which will downgrade Kodi to stock version in system repository:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

Or manually remove the software package via command:

sudo apt remove kodi kodi-bin --autoremove

And remove the PPA via command as you prefer:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
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Scrcpy 2.0 is out! How to Install & Use this Android Remote Control App

Last updated: March 12, 2023 — Leave a comment

The free open-source Android screen mirroring and remote control application, Scrcpy, released version 2.0 today!

The new release feature audio forwarding support! Meaning it’s not only mirroring your Android screen, but also sending the sound from Android to your PC speaker. The new feature supports Android 11 and higher. It’s enabled by default, though there’s --no-audio flag available to disable it.

Another big change in the release is that the device screen can now be encoded in H.265, or even AV1 if your device supports AV1 encoding.

The release also includes new --list-encoders option to list audio and video encoders available in the device, and --list-displays to list displays available on the device. For more about Scrcpy 2.0, see the official release note.

How to Install & Use Scrcpy in Ubuntu 22.04 to control your Android Phone Wirelessly or via USB cable

NOTE: This tutorial is tested and works in Ubuntu 22.04, though it should also work in all current Ubuntu releases.

Step 1. Prepare your Android device

To use the software, you need to first enable USB Debugging Mode in Android.

1. First, go to Settings in Android. Navigate to “About Phone”, and tap on “Build Number” several times (usually 7 times). It should prompt you something like “You are now in Developer Mode“.

TIP: there’s NO security issue or performance loss with developer mode enabled.

2. Then navigate to “Developer Options” in Settings menu or ‘Additional Settings’ sub-menu, and turn on the option for “USB Debugging“.

Step 2. Install adb

adb (Android Debug Bridge) package is also required for this software. Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run command to install it:

sudo apt install adb

Step 3. Install scrcpy

There are few ways to install scrcpy, choose either one that you prefer.

Option 1: .deb package from system repository

Scrcpy is available in Ubuntu system repository. It’s working good in my case, though a little bit old that lacks new features.

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

sudo apt install scrcpy

Option 2: Snap package in Ubuntu Software

The snap package in Ubuntu Software can be the easiest way to install the app, though it runs in sandbox.

The snap package at the moment is the last 1.25 version, though it will automatically update to v2.0 once maintainer updated the package.

Scrcpy Snap in Ubuntu Software

Option 3: Install Scrcpy from the source

If you can’t wait to use the latest release, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the command below one by one to install it from source:

  • First, run command to install dependency libraries: 
    sudo apt install ffmpeg libsdl2-2.0-0 adb wget gcc git pkg-config meson ninja-build libsdl2-dev libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswresample-dev libusb-1.0-0 libusb-1.0-0-dev
  • Then, clone the source code via command: 
    git clone https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
  • Finally, navigate to source folder and start the installer script: 
    cd scrcpy && ./install_release.sh

    NOTE: After building process it may ask you to type user password for the permission to install files into system directories.

Step 4. Remote control your Android in Ubuntu

Now, connect your Android device into Ubuntu using USB cable. Then, click “Allow” in Android to confirm the “Allow USB Debugging” dialog.

1. First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and start adb in your favorite mode:

  • To remote access via USB cable, run command: 
    adb usb
  • To remote access using wireless network, run commands: 
    adb tcpip 7676
    adb connect 192.168.0.150:7676

    Here, change port number 7676 and the Android’s IP address accordingly! When done successfully, you can then remove the USB cable.

2. If the previous step goes well without any error! You can now start scrcpy:

  • Run scrcpy command in terminal if you installed from system repository.
  • Launch it from start menu (or ‘Activities’ overview) if installed from source. For debugging purpose, use scrcpy(console).

That’s all. Your android screen should appear in the Ubuntu desktop after launching scrcpy. Enjoy!

Uninstall scrcpy

To remove the adb package, open terminal and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove adb

To remove Scrcpy installed as .deb package, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove scrcpy

For the snap package, just use Ubuntu Software again to remove it.

And, for the package installed from source, navigate to the source folder again in terminal window and run command to uninstall it:

sudo ninja -Cbuild-auto uninstall
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