Howtos | UbuntuHandbook

Get Firefox VA-API Hardware Acceleration working on NVIDIA GPU

Last updated: June 11, 2025 — 11 Comments

For Ubuntu machine with NVIDIA graphics card, here’s how to implement hardware acceleration for video playback in Firefox web browser.

Firefox so far only supports VA-API for GPU decoding to offload CPU and save power. Both Intel and AMD GPUs support VA-API. However, NVIDIA so far supports the api only through the open-source Nouveau driver.

If you have only NVIDIA GPU running with proprietary driver, then hardware video acceleration does not work out-of-the-box for Firefox.

For choice, there are libvdpau-va-gl1 driver (h.264 only) or libva-vdpau-driver, but both seems no longer updated. The best choice so far is the free open-source nvidia vaapi driver.
Continue Reading…

In Howtos Firefox, Hardware Acceleration, nvidia

How to Install GNOME’s New Camera App in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: November 25, 2024 — 9 Comments

GNOME introduced new core camera app in the release of version 45, which however not adopted as default in Ubuntu 23.10 or Fedora 39.

If you want to try it out, then here’s how to do the trick in Ubuntu 24.04 and/or Ubuntu 23.10, and workaround “No Camera Found” issue.

The new camera app, aka Gnome Snapshot, is written in GTK4 + Libadwaita. Compare to Cheese, it looks more modern and native in current Ubuntu and Fedora Workstation.

Image from gnome.org

In Howtos camera, webcam

How to Install Latest Nginx in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04 (Step by Step)

Last updated: April 9, 2025 — 2 Comments

This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install the latest version of Nginx web server (either mainline or stable) in Ubuntu 24.04 and Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop or Server. Nginx is a popular free and open-source web server, that can be also used as reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache. For a just working version, user can run command sudo apt install nginx-full to install it from Ubuntu system repository, which however is always old. For the latest version, there are 2 ways to install the web server. Besides building from source, they include Ubuntu PPA and Nginx’s official repository.

In Howtos Nginx, web

How to Install IMSProg (I2C EEPROM programmer for CH341A) in Ubuntu

Last updated: January 25, 2024 — 4 Comments

Got a CH341a series USB programmer? Here’s a graphical free I2C EEPROM programmer tool for Linux Desktop.

There are a number of programs for Windows, such as CH341Programmer, NEOProgrammer, and ASProgrammer, for working with popular “green” and “black” CH341a devices, but it lacks a graphical interface for Linux.

So, Linux IMSProg was born to provides a graphical interface to read, write, erase and test I2C, SPI and MicroWire EEPROM/Flash chips (24xxx, 25xxx, 93xxx, 95xxx series).

It’s a free open-source tool based on Qt5, that uses QHexEdit2 for hex editor widget and a modified set of the SNANDer programmer libraries.

In Howtos CH341a

How to Get Ubuntu Style Layout in KUbuntu 22.04 | 24.04

Last updated: January 23, 2024 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to easily make your KUbuntu desktop layout to be Ubuntu (GNOME) Style, that includes top-panel, left side-bar, and a full-screen launcher.

KDE Plasma is highly customizable. User can manually add new panel, configure its position, add panel items. But, without struggling with configurations, there’s a theme can automate the process, to make your Plasma Desktop look like Ubuntu with default GNOME desktop.

In Howtos kubuntu, Plasma Desktop

UVC Webcam/Camera Software Guvcview 2.1.0 Released (Ubuntu PPA)

Last updated: January 23, 2024 — Leave a comment

Guvcview, the free open-source tool for capturing image/video and dynamically controlling UVC camera and webcam devices, released version 2.1.0.

It’s a GTK3 and Qt5 application that provides both graphical interface and command line options to control your webcam or camera.

With it, you can change the brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, white balance (gamma), sharpness, backlight compensation, etc settings for your webcam.

Besides the dynamic control of UVC (USB Video Class) camera/webcam, it also allows to capture video with control of frame rate, filters such as mirror, invert, pieces, blur, etc. Also, capture audio with sample rate, latency, and filters including echo, reverb, fuzz, wahwah, and ducky.

In Howtos, News camera, webcam

How to Install Enlightenment 0.26.0 (E26) in Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

Last updated: January 21, 2024 — 1 Comment

This simple tutorial shows how to install the last Enlightenment desktop 0.26.0 in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 23.10 via PPA.

Enlightenment announced 0.26.0 release almost a month ago. There’s however no easy way to install it in Ubuntu, besides building from the source.

To make life easier, I’ve built the package into this unofficial PPA. So, you can easily try it out in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and/or Ubuntu 23.10.

Changes in Enlightenment 0.26.0 include:

Add DDC option to backlight settings (for external monitor)
Bigger task previews
Add watermark to wl mode
Support new eet disk sync API to ensure config it stored
Support action desktop files in EFM to add file actions
Add org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver inhibit support
See the official release note for more.

In Howtos Enlightenment

Install XIVLauncher (Custom FFXIV Launcher) in Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04

Last updated: January 18, 2024 — Leave a comment

Play Final Fantasy XIV Online in Linux? There’s a custom launcher for the game for better experience!

It’s XIVLauncher, a free and open-source launcher that provides a customized WINE version for perfect compatibility with FFXIV.

Since the original launcher is slow and cannot save your password, XIVLauncher provides a faster experience, better Linux integration, as well as following QoL features:

Auto-login
Fast patching
Discord Rich Presence
Fast in-game market board price checks
Chat filtering
Chat bridge to Discord
Discord notifications for duties, retainer sales, etc.

In Howtos Final Fantasy XIV Online, game

How to Install VBA-M to Play GBA/GBC Games in Ubuntu

Last updated: January 17, 2024 — Leave a comment

Got GameBoy, GameBoy Advance, or GameBoy Color ROMs? It’s easy to play them in your Linux PC through VBA-M emulator.

There are quite a few game emulators for Linux. You can use PPSSPP to run PSP games, and RetroArch for multiple consoles support. For Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, VBA-M is a good choice.

VBA-M, stands for VisualBoyAdvance-M, is the continued development of the now inactive VisualBoy Advance project, with many improvements from various forks.

It’s a free open-source emulator app that included in system repositories for many Linux, including Fedora, Arch, Manjaro, and so forth.

In Howtos game

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.