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Archives For November 30, 1999

[Tips] Quickly Access Source of installed Extensions in Ubuntu

Last updated: October 27, 2023 — Leave a comment

This is a quick tutorial shows you how to quickly access the source of all your installed GNOME extensions in Ubuntu, Fedora Workstation, Debian and other Linux with GNOME.

Gnome extensions are usually installed to “.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/” directory. While, system built-in extensions are available in “/usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/“.

For developing or debugging purpose, you can open that folder every time to access the sources. However, GNOME has a built-in debugger and inspector tool that can also do the trick quickly.

Quick access source of extensions via Looking Glass

1. First, press Alt+F2 on keyboard to launch the ‘Run a command’ dialog box. Then, input lg and hit Enter.

2. The Gnome debugger and inspector tool, aka Looking Glass, will drop-down from the top.
There, just switch to “Extensions” tab, then, you’ll see all the installed extensions, either enabled or disabled.

And, each extension has 3 links:

  • View Source – open the source folder of extension in a new Nautilus window.
  • Web Page – open the extension web page in default web browser.
  • Show/Hide Errors

Looking Glass Indicator

To make life easier, there’s also an extension to add a panel indicator in top-right. So, you can access it easily by a single mouse click. Which, also has a drop-down menu:

  • Restart Shell (Xorg only).
  • Reload Theme.
  • Open Extensions Folder.
  • Open Themes folder.

To install the indicator, first search for and install “Extension Manager” from either Ubuntu Software or App Center.

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+

Then, launch and use “Extension Manager” to search and install “Looking Glass Button” under Browse tab.

The extension so far supports all current GNOME versions. For Fedora, Debian, etc without ‘Extension Manager’, just go to extension web page via the link below:

Looking Glass Button

Then use ON/OFF switch to install it. If you don’t see the toggle switch, click the link in the page to install browser extension then refresh.

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How to Upgrade to Ubuntu 23.10 [Step by Step Guide]

Last updated: October 23, 2023 — 4 Comments

This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows Ubuntu Desktop users how to upgrade to Ubuntu 23.10 from either Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 23.04.

Ubuntu 23.10, code-name, Mantic Minotaur, was released a week ago. It features Kernel 6.5, GNOME 45, new App Center, and has official support until July, 2024.

Before getting started:

Before start upgrading your OS, you have to do some preparations to avoid failure and speed up upgrading process.

  • First, backup, backup, backup! The upgrade process MAY FAIL, due to internet corrupt, hardware issue, and/or package conflict. If the upgrade process failed, your system MAY refuse to boot. So, it’s important to make backup, though, you can mount the disk in another OS to export user data.
  • Remove useless applications. It will try to upgrade all installed packages to the higher versions in 23.10 system repository. So removing useless packages, such as non-default desktop environments, results less downloading to speed up upgrading process. Though, it’s totally OK to skip this step.
  • Restore important libraries. If you’ve installed 3rd party versions of multimedia (e.g., FFmpeg) libraries, it’s highly recommended to uninstall/restore to avoid package conflict.
  • Disable third-party repositories. Third party repositories may contain packages that cause conflict to the packages in 23.10 system repository. It’s highly to disable them by launching “Software & Updates” and removing/un-ticking source lines under “Other Software” tab.

    Remove 3rd party PPAs

  • Disable third-party extensions. Third-party extensions may not work on higher GNOME versions. It’s better to disable them using either ‘GNOME Extensions‘ or ‘Extension Manager’ app (both available in Ubuntu Software.).

    Remove 3rd Party Extensions

  • Restore open-source drivers. If any proprietary driver in use. It’s better to restore the original open-source drivers using “Additional Drivers” utility.

Check Distribution Update

If you’ve done the preparations, now launch “Software Updater“, then install all the available updates:

Then, restart your computer if it prompted to finish updates.

Finally, press Ctrl + Alt + T on keyboard to open terminal, and run command:

update-manager -c -d

This command will launch “Software Updater” again, while checking Distribution updates. Use update-manager -c instead, if the command above does not work.

For Ubuntu 22.04, first launch “Software & Updates” and navigate to “Updates” tab. Then, set “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version: For any new version“. Finally, run update-manager -c to first upgrade to 23.04, and then to 23.10 with same method.

Start upgrading process

If everything’s done properly, you should see the pop-up says: “The Software on this computer is up to date. However, Ubuntu 23.10 is now available (you have 23.04)“. For Ubuntu 22.04, follow the steps to upgrade to 23.04 first, then do it again to upgrade to 23.10.

Just click on “Upgrade” button will open the ‘Release Note’ dialog. Where, you can click “Upgrade” again to start the process.

After that, the “Distribution Upgrade” dialog opens to prepare the upgrade, and setup software sources for Ubuntu 23.10.

When done, it asks again to confirm upgrade.

Once you click “Start Upgrade”, it starts downloading all them required packages and install them.

When done installing all the updates, you have to do one more click to confirm “Remove obsolete packages”.

If everything’s done successfully, it will prompt to “Restart the system to complete the upgrade”.

After reboot, either open ‘Settings’ and go to ‘About’ page, or run command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to verify:

cat /etc/os-release
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Geany 2.0 Released! How to Install in Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, 23.10

Last updated: October 20, 2023 — 5 Comments

Geany, the small and fast IDE, released version 2.0 hours ago! Here are the new features as well as how to install guide for Ubuntu users.

Changes in Geany 2.0 according to the official release note:

  • Split “session data” into session.conf, preferences are written to and read from geany.conf.
  • Re-add ability to scroll over document tabs.
  • Use new tree view as default for the document list in the sidebar.
  • Dark-theme friendly colors for compiler messages
  • Confirm dialog on search & replace for the whole session.
  • Filter entry for symbol tree.
  • Simplify project creation from existing directories with sources.
  • Add option to show symbols in symbol tree without category groups.
  • Add option to only show line endings if they differ from file default.
  • Make tab label length and window title length configurable.
  • Make Go to Symbol commands show signature list.
  • Scintilla 5.3.7 and Lexilla 5.2.7
  • Add “Change history” feature (disabled by default)
  • Sync many parsers from the Universal Ctags project
  • Improved support for the ctags file format
  • Update Kotlin, Nim, PHP, Python filetype config
  • Apply Markdown header style to the complete header
  • Add AutoIt, GDScript filetype
  • Remove Ferite filetype
  • Enable local variables and improve autocompletion for C/C++ and some other languages
  • Use “Prof-Gnome” GTK theme and GTK dialogs on Windows.

How to Install Geany 2.0 in Ubuntu:

Geany does not provide official packages for Linux. Besides building from source code, user can choose to use the universal Flatpak package or an unofficial Ubuntu PPA.

Option 1: Flatpak package

The Flatpak package is an universal package format can be installed in most Linux, however it runs in sandbox.

To install Geany as Flatpak package, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then, run the 2 commands one by one:

  • First, install Flatpak daemon in case you don’t have it: 
    sudo apt install flatpak
  • Then, install Geany Flatpak package: 
    flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.geany.Geany.flatpakref

After installation, search for and launch Geany from either overview screen or start/application menu depends on your desktop environment.

NOTE: For first time installing Flatpak app, needs a log out and back in to make app icon visible.

Option 2: Ubuntu PPA

For those who hate running app in sandbox, I’ve uploaded the package into this unofficial PPA. So far, it supports for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10 on x86_64, arm64/armhf CPU architecture types.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/geany

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

2. Linux Mint users may need to manually refresh system package cache after adding PPA, though it’s done automatically in Ubuntu 20.04 and higher.

To do so, run command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, install Geany 2.0 as well as plugins by running command:

sudo apt install geany geany-plugins

After successfully installed the packages, search for and launch the IDE from overview or application menu and enjoy!

Uninstall Geany 2.0

For Geany IDE installed as Flatpak package, just run the command below to remove it:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.geany.Geany

Also, run flatpak uninstall --unused to clear useless run-time libraries.

For the IDE installed from Ubuntu PPA, remove it by running command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo apt remove --autoremove geany geany-plugins-common

Also, remove the PPA either by running command in terminal:

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

Or, use “Software & Updates” by removing the source line under ‘Other Software’ tab.

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How to Install Plasma Desktop 5.27 in (K)Ubuntu 22.04

Last updated: May 7, 2024 — Leave a comment

For KDE users on Ubuntu 22.04, meaning KUbuntu 22.04, Ubuntu Studio 22.04, etc, the latest Plasma Desktop 5.27 (5.27.11) now is available to upgrade through PPA.

KDE Plasma Desktop 5.27 was originally released in February. After more than 8 months of work, it has received 9 bug-fix updates and finally made into PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

Plasma 5.27 features new window tiling system, that can be enabled “System Settings > Workspace Behavior > Desktop Effects“. It allows to Shift + dragging to tile windows, and Super (Windows logo) + T to edit tiling mode.

The release also features new Welcome dialog, allowing to learn about new features and how to tweak settings, etc, swipe gestures for volume and playback control in Media Player widget, power usage monitor detection for NVIDIA GPUs, new command activate “Do Not Disturb” mode.

Continue Reading…

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How to Install Local .deb file in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: September 1, 2024 — 3 Comments

Since Ubuntu 23.10, there’s no longer “Software Install” option for opening/installing .deb files in your Downloads folder. This is probably due to switch to the new ‘App Center’, that some features are not fully implemented.

When you double-clicking a .deb file from Downloads folder, it will pop-up a dialog saying “Could Not Display ‘file_name.deb’ There’s no app installed for ‘Debian package’ files“. And, neither option will work for installing the package.

UPDATE: App Center in Ubuntu 24.04 finally added back the feature to install local .deb! Just double-click on the package in file manager to launch and install.

So, if you’re trying to install an application using local .deb format package, here are 3 workarounds for you.

Option 1: use Gdebi package installer

Gdebi is a simple tool to view and install local .deb file. It’s a popular application that’s using as default in Linux Mint.

1. First, press Super (Windows logo) key to open overview screen. Search for and launch “App Center”.

2. When ‘App Center’ opens, use it to search and install Gdebi. You may need to select “Filter by Debian packages” to make it visible.

3. Once you installed the tool, right-click on your local .deb file, and click on “Open With…” option.

In next pop-up dialog, find out and select “Gdebi Package Installer” and turn on “Always use for this file type“, finally click Open.

4. After that, you can double-click any .deb file to open with the Gdebi package installer. When the tool opens, you may view the package info and  click “Install Package” to install it into your system.

Option 2: Use apt command

For those who are familiar with Linux command, your local .deb file is easy to install via a single command.

It’s:

sudo apt install /path/to/file.deb

Definitely, you need to replace ‘/path/to/file.deb‘ to yours.

Instead of typing manually, simply open terminal (via either Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut or ‘Open in Terminal’ context menu), then drag and drop .deb file into terminal after typing sudo apt install plus a blank space.

Finally, hit Enter to run the command, type user password (no asterisk feedback) to authentication, and answer y if it asks to confirm.

When installation done, it will output something like ‘N: Download is performed unsandboxed as root as file ‘/path/to/file.deb’ couldn’t be accessed by user ‘_apt’. – pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied)’. Just skip the non-fatal warning. Your app should be properly installed when you see the terminal output message.

Option 3: Use GNOME Software

If you want to restore the new App Center to classic Ubuntu Software, then GNOME Software can be a better choice.

GNOME Software supports Deb, Flatpak, and Snap packages. However, it will be always run in background that takes about 200 MB memory in my case.

If you don’t care about the memory consumption, then press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal, and run command to install GNOME Software:

sudo apt install --install-suggests gnome-software

Skip --install-suggests if you don’t want to enable Flatpak support.

After that, you can right-click on local .deb file, and select “Software Install” from Open With dialog to launch GNOME Software to install it.

Uninstall:

If you don’t use Gdebi or Gnome Software anymore, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to uninstall:

Uninstall Gdebi:

sudo apt remove --autoremove gdebi

Or, uninstall Gnome Software via command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove gnome-software
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How to install Zoom in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: April 28, 2024 — 3 Comments

This simple tutorial shows how to install Zoom video communication client in Ubuntu 24.04 desktop.

Zoom is a popular app for video/audio conferencing meetings and live chat. It works on Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS.

For Ubuntu users, Zoom can be installed either via native .deb package and universal Flatpak package. Choose either one that you prefer.

Continue Reading…

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PPA Updated for VLC 3.0.21 for Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04 & 20.04

Last updated: June 7, 2024 — 8 Comments

For VLC users who prefer installing the player via the classic .deb package, here’s an Ubuntu PPA contains the most recent (3.0.21 updated) for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04.

VLC media player is available in Ubuntu system repository, but always old. For the most recent version, VideoLAN provides Snap package, which however runs in sandbox environment.


Continue Reading…

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How to Install Krita (5.2.3 Updated) via PPA in Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04

Last updated: June 30, 2024 — Leave a comment

Krita announced the new major 5.2.0 release few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 23.10 via PPA.

Krita 5.2.0 introduced some exciting new features, such as synchronized audio playback, FFmpeg bundle, new text layout engine, new Wide Gamut Color Selector, new actions, CMYK for JEPG-XL, and various tool updates. See the official release note for details.

Krita provides official Linux package through AppImage, which is available to download at the link below:

Download Krita 5.2 (.AppImage)

Once you got the package, just right-click on it and go file ‘Properties’, then enable “Allow executing file as program” under Permissions tab. Finally, right-click and select “Run” to launch the painter.

Krita is also available as Snap and Flatpak packages, though they are both NOT updated to v5.2.0 at the moment of writing.

How to Install Krita 5.2.3 via PPA

For users hate running apps in sandbox, I’ve uploaded the package into this unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 (arm64 also supported), Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.

NOTE 1: This is an unofficial package built against Debian upstream rules. It seems working good, but without well testing!
NOTE 2: For Ubuntu 22.04, the PPA also contains a few updated version of dependency libraries, that MIGHT cause conflict to other packages in your system!

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/krita

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

2. Then, either launch Software Updater and upgrade the graphics editor from an old version:

or run the command below in terminal to install/upgrade it:

sudo apt install krita

NOTE: Linux Mint may have to run sudo apt update first.

Uninstall:

To remove the PPA as well as downgrade the Krita package to stock version, run command:

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

Or, open Software & Updates and remove the repository source line under “Other Software” tab (Linux Mint users go to Software Sources -> PPA).

And, remove Krita graphics editor via command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove krita krita-data

That’s all. Enjoy!

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Enable Tiling Window Indicator in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: April 28, 2024 — 2 Comments

The new tiling assistant extension in Ubuntu 23.10 and Ubuntu 24.04 has indicator support! Here’s how to enable it and fix the missing icon.

Ubuntu introduced a new system extension called “Tiling Assistant” since 23.10. With it, user can easily tile window to half or quarter of screen either via mouse dragging or keyboard shortcut.

The extension also has an indicator applet on panel, allows user to select a layout to start tiling with ‘Super + Tab’ look like menu for all opened windows. See the short video:

https://ubuntuhandbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/tiling-indicator.mp4?_=1

The feature is useful, however lack of indicator icon on panel, possibly due to bug or building issue. This tutorial is going to show you how to enable the indicator as well as add back the icon, so it will look like the screenshot below:

Step 1: Enable the Indicator Applet

To enable the indicator, user can either run single command in terminal or use ‘Dconf Editor’ configuration tool.

Option 1: Press ‘Ctrl + Alt + T’ key combination on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run the single command below to do the job:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.tiling-assistant show-layout-panel-indicator true

Option 2: Or, first search for and install “Dconf Editor” from App Center.

Then, launch “Dconf Editor” and navigate to org/gnome/shell/extensions/tiling-assistant. Finally, scroll down, find out and turn on ‘show-layout-panel-indicator’.

Step 2: Fix missing icon issue

As mentioned, the indicator is missing icon on panel. To fix it, you may install the community version of “Tiling Assistant” from EGO (extensions.gnome.org), then copy the icon files to use for system built-in extension.

1. First, open App Center, then search for and install “Extension Manager“.

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu Software/App Center

2. Then, launch “Extension Manager” and use it to search and install “Tiling Assistant” community edition under Browse tab.

3. You do NOT need to turn on the new installed ‘Tiling Assistant’ extension. Here, we just need the icon file from it.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, when terminal opens, run commands:

  • navigate to the user installed extension directory: 
    cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/tiling-assistant@leleat-on-github/
  • after that, just copy the ‘media‘ sub-folder to system extension directory. To do so, run command: 
    sudo cp -R media /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/tiling-assistant@ubuntu.com/

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

Finally, use “Extension Manager” to turn off and turn back on ‘Ubuntu Tiling Assistant’ to apply change. And, remove the user installed ‘Tiling Assistant’ extension. Or, simply log out and back in.

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PPA for Installing gThumb 3.12.4 in Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, 23.10

Last updated: October 10, 2023 — 1 Comment

This simple tutorial shows what’s new in gThumb 3.12.4, and how to install it in all current Ubuntu releases.

gThumb image viewer and organizer has rolled out version 3.12.3 and 3.12.4 recently, while Ubuntu still has v3.12.2 in system repositories.

The new releases introduced some new features as well as various bug-fixes. According to the NEWS file, gThumb now supports transparency for Tiff and TGA files, has a new internal video thumbnailer (/usr/libexec/gthumb/video-thumbnailer), though as a beginner I didn’t figure out how to use it.

For better user experience, the image viewer now has zoom gesture support; Zoom slider can zoom in/out in range of 5% and 1000%; Crop tool has new 1.91:1 predefined ratio; And, there are other changes include:

  • Open the image from clipboard with Ctrl+Shift+V.
  • Sort folders by modification time.
  • Ability to copy the current frame to the clipboard with Ctrl+Shift+C.
  • Drag’n’Drop allow to copy pressing Shift.
  • Image tools allow to use Return to apply the changes.
  • Ability to specify the current time
  • Make keypad keys equivalent to the non-keypad counterpart.
  • Reduce memory usage by keeping in memory only the visible thumbnails.

Zoom 1000%

How to Install gThumb 3.12.4 in Ubuntu:

1. Add the Ubuntu PPA.

The PPA so far provides packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.

Firstly open terminal either from start menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, paste the command below into terminal and hit run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks for sudo authentication, then hit Enter to continue.

2. Update system package cache.

Adding PPA will automatically refresh the package cache in Ubuntu 20.04 and higher. However old versions and some Ubuntu based systems does not. To do it manually, simply run command in terminal:

sudo apt update

3. Install / Upgrade gThumb.

Finally, either run the apt install command in a terminal window to install the image viewer:

sudo apt install gthumb


Or use the Software Updater (Update Manager) utility to receive package updates. Un-check other packages from the PPA if you don’t want them.

Uninstall / Restore gThumb:

You can restore to the stock version of the image viewer and organizer by purging the PPA repository. To do so, simply run command:

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

To remove the gThumb package, simply run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove gthumb gthumb-data

You may also keep the gThumb package but remove the Ubuntu PPA, since it contains many other software packages that you don’t prefer. To do so, either run command in terminal:

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

Or remove the repository line under ‘Other Software’ tab via Software & Updates utility.

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