Howtos | UbuntuHandbook

Archives For Howtos

How to Install Audacity 3.0.0 in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04 via Flatpak

March 24, 2021 — 2 Comments

The Audacity audio editor 3.0.0 was released a week ago as the new major release. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu / Linux Mint via Flatpak package.

Audacity 3.0.0 features new all-in-one-file aup3 project file format, improved ‘Noise Gate’ effect, new ‘Label Sounds’ analyzer, and over 160 bug-fixes.

Why Flatpak?

The distribution’s build and Ubuntu PPAs are mostly “incorrectly built packages” as they are built against the wrong wxWidgets (3.0.x), however Audacity 3.0.0 requires wxWidgets 3.1.3.

Though I’m not a fan of the containerized Flatpak package, it’s so far the only ‘correctly’ build binary package since the Snap is still under testing.

Install Audacity 3.0.0 via Flatpak:

Firstly open terminal from system app launcher. When it opens, run following commands one by one.

1.) For Ubuntu 18.04, add the PPA for updated version of Flatpak framework:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexlarsson/flatpak && sudo apt update

2.) Install flatpak via command:

sudo apt install flatpak

3.) Add flathub repository that hosts the software packages:

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

4.) Finally install Audacity flatpak package:

flatpak install flathub org.audacityteam.Audacity

The flatpak package won’t replace the classic deb package. If you have more than one app icon in launcher, either remove Audacity installed via apt, or launch Audacity Flatpak via command in terminal:

flatpak run org.audacityteam.Audacity

Remove Audacity Flatpak package:

To remove the software installed via flatpak, simply run command:

flatpak uninstall org.audacityteam.Audacity

In Howtos audacity

How to Install ClipGrab Video Downloader via PPA in Ubuntu 20.04

March 22, 2021 — 2 Comments

Want to install the ClipGrab YouTube video downloader via classic deb package? Here’s a PPA available for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Linux Mint 20.

ClipGrab is a free and open-source downloading and converting application for YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and many other video sites.

Thanks to Youtube-DL and Qt framework, it provides a simple UI with ability to search videos via keywords. By clicking a video from the search result, it automatically inputs the video URL to “Downloads” tab.

You can also copy & paste the video URL directly from YouTube web page, and then select downloads format, MPEG4, MP3, etc, and choose the quality.

Finally click on “Grab this clip!” to start downloading process.

Install ClipGrab via Ubuntu PPA:

The software offers official Linux binary via non-install Appimage package in its website.

If you prefer the classic .deb package with better integration, the “xtradeb packaging” team maintains the software package in an unofficial PPA, which so far supports for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 20.10.

1.) Open terminal from system app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps

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

2.) After adding the PPA, run command to install the tool:

sudo apt install clipgrab

And it will install the most recent YouTube-DL package, if you don’t have it or have an older version, from the PPA repository.

Uninstall ClipGrab:

To remove the Ubuntu PPA, either go to Software & Updates -> Other Software or run command in terminal:

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

To remove the video downloader software, run command:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove clipgrab

In Howtos youtube-dl GUI

Kid3 Audio Tagger 3.8.6 Released with Qt 6 Support [PPA]

March 21, 2021 — 1 Comment

Kid3 audio tag editor 3.8.6 was released a few days ago with new features and important bug-fixes. PPA has updated for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 20.10.

Kid3 3.8.6 adds support for building with Qt 6. And it now provides a nicer default style for Windows users.

The new release features:

adds sub tracks support in Discogs import
Integration test for Amazon import
Removed TrackType.org import.
Fix crash when using id3lib in 64-bit Windows.

How to Install Kid3 3.8.6 in Ubuntu via PPA:

The official Kid3 PPA has made the new packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Linux Mint 20.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ufleisch/kid3

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

2. If an old version was installed, upgrade Kid3 using Software Updater:

or run commands one by one in terminal to install or upgrade to the latest tag editor:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install kid3-qt

You may replace kid3-qt with kid3 in the code for KDE integration, and/or with kid3-cli for the command-line interface.

Uninstall

To remove the PPA repository, either open Software & Updates -> Other Software tab and remove the relevant line, or run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ufleisch/kid3

To remove the audio tag editor, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove kid3 kid3-*

In Howtos audio tag editor

Oracle Java 16 Released, How to Install it in Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, 20.10

March 18, 2021 — Leave a comment

Oracle Java 16 was announced as a short release with 6-month support. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10 via PPA.

New features in the release include:

Vector API (Incubator)
Enable C++14 Language Features
Migrate from Mercurial to Git
Migrate to GitHub
ZGC: Concurrent Thread-Stack Processing
Unix-Domain Socket Channels
Alpine Linux Port
Elastic Metaspace
Windows/AArch64 Port
Foreign Linker API (Incubator)
Warnings for Value-Based Classes
Packaging Tool
Foreign-Memory Access API (Third Incubator)
Pattern Matching for instanceof
Records
Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals by Default
Sealed Classes (Second Preview)

The “Linux Uprising” team ppa has made the installer script, which automatically downloads and installs Oracle JDK 16 package, and sets Java 16 as the default Java version (setting JAVA_HOME, etc.) on 64-bit Ubuntu based system.

1.) Open terminal and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linuxuprising/java

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

2.) After adding PPA, refresh system package cache and install the script:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install oracle-java16-installer

If you don’t want to set Java 16 as default, replace the last command with:

sudo apt install oracle-java16-installer --no-install-recommends

Once the package is installed, you have to accept the license (press Tab to highlight) before starting the download process.

And after installed Oracle Java 16, check via java --version command:

(Optional) To uninstall the PPA repository, run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:linuxuprising/java

And remove Oracle Java 16 if you want by running command:

sudo apt-get remove oracle-java16-installer

In Howtos Oracle Java

How to Remove Top Bar App Menu in Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10 via Extension

March 17, 2021 — Leave a comment

In the default Gnome desktop whenever an app window is focused, a menu button with the app name and icon will be displayed on the top bar next to Activities.

It used to have an option to disable the feature in Gnome Tweaks. The option is however no longer available since Ubuntu 19.10.

If you find the app menu useless, you can remove it in Ubuntu 20.04 / Ubuntu 20.10 via Gnome Shell Extension.

1.) Firstly open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install the chrome-gnome-shell package, which will add Gnome Shell extensions integration for web browsers, if you don’t have it.