Archives For Howtos

This simple tutorial shows how to install Firefox Beta, Firefox Developer Edition, or Firefox Nightly in Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, using the new official repository.

Mozilla announced new official apt repository for Debian and Ubuntu users few months ago, which contains the .deb package for Firefox Nightly build.

Now, the repository also contains packages for Firefox Beta and Firefox Developer Edition! And, here’s step by step guide shows how to use it to install the latest packages in your system.

NOTE 1: Ubuntu also has an official PPA contains Firefox Beta package. Though, it’s maintained by members from Ubuntu Team.
NOTE 2: This tutorial is tested and works in Debian 12, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04.

Step 1: Install the Repository Key

To add the new repository, you need to first download & install the key, so your system will trust the packages from it.

First, open terminal either from start menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard.

When terminal opens, run command to make sure ‘/etc/apt/keyrings’ exist for storing the keys.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings

Then, download & install the key by running the single command below in terminal:

wget -q https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg -O- | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc > /dev/null

If ‘wget’ command not found, run sudo apt install wget to install it.

After that, you can verify the new key file by listing the content of that directory: ls /etc/apt/keyrings.

Step 2: Add Mozilla’s Official Repository

Also in a terminal window, run the single command below will create a config file and write the source repository.

echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc] https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list > /dev/null

This command creates mozilla.list file under /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory, then writes the content under double quotes into it.

When done, you may verify by running cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list to print the source file content.

Step 3: Install Firefox Stable, Beta, Dev, or Nightly

After adding the apt repository and key, run the command below to refresh system package cache:

sudo apt update

Finally, install Firefox Beta by running command:

sudo apt install firefox-beta

The repository also contains Firefox Stable, Development, and Nightly versions! Replace firebox-beta in last command with firefox, firefox-devedition, or firefox-nightly according which version you want to install. For STABLE version,  you however NEED to set higher PPA priority.

Non-English user may also install the language package by running command:

sudo apt install firefox-beta-l10n-xx

Replace xx with the shortcode for your language. Also, replace beta for dev or nightly version accordingly.

Step 4: (Optional) Change the App Name to Differ from Firefox Stable

The new Firefox Beta uses same logo to Firefox Stable, and it also displayed as “Firefox” in start menu.

If you have more than one edition of Firefox packages in system, then you may have to differ them from each other by changing the name.

To do so, first launch terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to copy the .desktop config file from system to local directory:

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/firefox-beta.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Then, change the app name to “Firefox Beta” by running command:

desktop-file-edit --set-name="Firefox Beta" ~/.local/share/applications/firefox-beta.desktop

The change should apply automatically in few seconds. If not, run sudo update-desktop-database to update the database manually.

If you also want to differ the icon, use --set-icon='/path/to/new/icon' in last command.

 

For people who are hard-of-hearing, and/or for better understanding audio, here’s a live captions app that provides real-time automatic subtitles on Linux desktop.

The app displays a wide flat window on desktop, showing real-time (may have few hundred milliseconds delay) subtitles for voice come from either speaker or microphone.

It’s free and open-source, and captioning locally without network permission with the power of deep learning. And, there’s no API keys, no proprietary services/libraries, no telemetry, no spying, no data collection.

The only thing you need is a somewhat-decent CPU that can perform real-time captioning. It’s tested and working good in my i5-10400, and following CPUs mentioned in project page:

  • Intel i7-2670QM
  • Intel i7-7820HQ
  • Intel i5-8265U
  • AMD Ryzen 5 1600
  • Steam Deck

How to Install the Live Captions app

The Live Captions app is available as Flatpak package that works in most Linux desktop!

Linux Mint 21 and Fedora 38+ (with 3rd party repository enabled) can directly search for and install “Live Captions” from either Software Manager or Gnome Software.

1. For Ubuntu, first press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to enable flatpak support:

sudo apt install flatpak

Other Linux can follow this official setup guide to enable Flatpak.

2. Then, run command to install the app through Flatpak package:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/net.sapples.LiveCaptions.flatpakref

As running in sandbox, it may have hundred MB downloads for run-time libraries.

After installation, launch it from start menu or ‘Activities’ overview depends on your desktop environment.

If you’re first time installing an app through Flatpak, then you may need to log out and back in to make app icon visible. Or, run command below to start it from terminal:

flatpak run net.sapples.LiveCaptions

Start Live Captions

The first launch of the app will guide you to perform a short benchmark for your CPU. You need at least 1.0 score for running this app.

As it noticed, the live captions may not be accurate. It may make mistakes, including when it comes to numbers. Please do not rely on the results for anything critical or important.

When done, it starts into a blank window. There click the gear button to open ‘Preferences dialog’ to configure the window width, background opacity, text font, etc.

The built-in model so far support only English. Though, there are few more models available to download, which makes it work for Polish and French language.

To make the window always on top, just right-click on it and click “Always on Top” option.

When done configuration, just start live chat, or play something with voice, the app window should automatically show you the real-time subtitles in few seconds.

 

This simple tutorial shows how to edit .desktop files, the config files for your apps shown in start menu (app launcher), in Linux via single command.

In most Linux, the app icons (and their names) you see in dock & launcher are handled by .desktop files. If need, user can edit them by using either text editor or even third-party apps.

For software developing, scripting, or editing multiple .desktop files at the same time, there’s a command line tool that can help!

What you can do by editing .desktop file for your app:

The .desktop files are usually stored in following locations:

  • /usr/share/applications – for system wide.
  • $HOME/.local/share/applications – for current user only.
  • /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications – for Flatpak apps (system wide).
  • $HOME/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications – for Flatpak apps (current user).
  • /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/ – for Snap apps.

By editing a .desktop file that is associated with your app can do following things:

  • Change app icon
  • Change the app name in start menu.
  • Hide app
  • Group app icon in different categories.
  • Associate with different file types.
  • And more.

Find out the .desktop file for your app

If you don’t know where is the .desktop file, then try following steps to find it out.

First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install plocate (or mlocate for old Ubuntu):

sudo apt install plocate

Then, update the database by running command:

sudo updatedb

Finally, try searching the desktop file for your apps (Firefox for example):

locate "*firefox*desktop"

In last command replace firefox with the keyword for yours (case sensitive). And, copy the path-to-file for the one in the location mentioned above.

Single command to edit the .desktop file

As far as I know, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, and their based systems have desktop-file-edit tool out-of-the-box for edit .desktop entries.

Option 1: To change app name, use command:

desktop-file-edit --set-name=NEW_NAME /path/to/file.desktop

In command, sudo is required for .desktop file in system directories.

For example, change the pre-installed Firefox (Snap version) in Ubuntu to “My Web Browser”:

sudo desktop-file-edit --set-name="My Web Browser" /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/firefox_firefox.desktop

Option 2: To change app icon, use command:

desktop-file-edit --set-icon=/path/to/icon /path/to/file.desktop

For icon file under /usr/share/icons, or .local/share/icons, just replace /path/to/icon-file with file-name without extension (e.g., .png, .svg).

For example, change the icon for my Firefox browser:

sudo desktop-file-edit --set-icon='/home/ji/Pictures/icons/myfirefoxicon.png' /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/firefox_firefox.desktop

Option 3: To add/remove category or mime type, use command:

desktop-file-edit --add-category=VALUE_HERE /path/to/file.desktop

Replace --add-category with one of the options below depends on which action you want to do:

  • --remove-category
  • --add-mime-type
  • --remove-mime-type

See list of well known categories.. And, right-click on a file and go to its ‘Properties’ to check “Type”.

Option 4: To add/edit other keys.

Use “–set-key=KEY_NAME –set-value=KEY_VALUE” option. You can add more than one pair of the options in single command.

For example, hide Firefox from app launcher by setting “NoDisplay=true“. It will add the key ‘NoDisplay’, if not exist.

sudo desktop-file-edit --set-key=NoDisplay --set-value=true /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/firefox_firefox.desktop

Option 5: To remove a key, use “–remove-key=KEY_NAME” option.

For example, un-hide Firefox by deleting “NoDisplay=true” from the .desktop file:

sudo desktop-file-edit --remove-key=NoDisplay /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/firefox_firefox.desktop

Option 6: Edit multiple desktop files

You can edit more than one files using for loop.

For example, hide all the Waydroid Android app icons associated with the .desktop files under .local/share/applications directory.

for file in $Home/.local/share/applications/waydroid.*.desktop; do desktop-file-edit --set-key=NoDisplay --set-value=true $file; done

In addition, the desktop-file-edit command will automatically validate the .desktop file after done editing it. It will output errors if validation not passed. For more, see its man page.

 

This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Android Studio 2024.1.1 in Ubuntu 22.04 and/or Ubuntu 24.04.

Android Studio, the official IDE for Android app development, is easy to install in Ubuntu in different ways! They include Snap, Flatpak, and official tarball.

NOTE: All the Android Studio packages below support only amd64 (Intel/AMD) CPU architecture type.

Method 1: Install Android Studio via Snap package

The easiest way to install the IDE is using the Snap package, which however runs in sandbox environment. At the moment of writing, the Snap package is at version 2023.1.1, though the newer 2024.1.1 is in dev channel now. Just install it and wait, it will automatically update to the latest once published.

Simply launch App Center (or Ubuntu Software for 22.04), then search & install Android Studio:


Continue Reading…

 

This is beginner’s guide shows how to install and setup Waydroid to run full Android system as well as Android applications in Ubuntu.

I’ve written about this by using Anbox, which is however no longer in active development.

This is a re-write with free and open-source ‘Waydroid’, which is a container-based approach to run a minimal customized Android system image based on LineageOS.

Android OS in my Ubuntu 22.04 desktop

This tutorial is tested and works on Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with default Wayland session (Xorg is NOT supported)! Hardware specs include:

  • CPU: Intel i5-10400.
  • GPU: Intel HD 630.

Step 1: Install Waydroid

Waydroid is easy to install in Ubuntu/Debian based systems, through its official apt repository.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to install required packages:

sudo apt install curl ca-certificates

sudo command needs password authentication, but with no asterisk feedback. Just type in mind and hit Enter.

2. Then, run command to download the official script, and run it to add Waydroid repository into your system.

curl https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash

In case the script does not work properly, find out your OS code manually via either lsb_release -sc or cat /etc/os-release command. Then, run command below instead:

curl https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash -s jammy

Replace jammy depends on your system code-name. So far, it supports focal, jammy, noble, bookworm, bullseye, sid

3. Finally, run command to install Waydroid:

sudo apt install waydroid

Try sudo apt update first to refresh cache if the command output package not found

Once successfully installed the app, you should be able to launch it from start menu, applications menu, or any other app launcher depends on your desktop environment.

Step 2: Initialize

The first launch of the app, will launch the “Initialize Waydroid” dialog. If it somehow does not launch, try running waydroid first-launch command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to see what’s going wrong.

NOTE: Non-default Kernels (e.g., Mainline Kernels) may cause Waydroid launch issue due to missing driver. See HERE for more.

The default options are usually OK. But, you may have to choose Android type before getting start:

  • VANILLA – as name indicates, it’s vanilla ROM, without Google Services/Apps.
  • GAPPS – come with Google Services/Gapps.

Next, click Download button will automatically download & install ROM and required packages. In my case, it downloaded & installed Android 11.

When done successfully, it will show you something like the screenshot shows you.

Tips: If you messed things up, try running the commands below one by one to delete local data, so it will look like newly installed:

sudo rm -r /var/lib/waydroid
sudo rm -r /home/.waydroid
sudo rm -r ~/waydroid
sudo rm -r ~/.share/waydroid
sudo rm -r ~/.local/share/waydroid

Then, re-initialize by running command:

waydroid first-launch

Step 3: Start Android system, resize & move window

After clicking “Done” button in last step, start Waydroid again will launch an Android screen on your desktop.

However, it by default starts in full-screen (or may-be called maximized) mode.

To change the Android screen size, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) in the Ubuntu host, and run commands:

waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.width 506
waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.height 1000

The 2 commands will set the screen width and height to 506 x 1000. Change the numbers accordingly, and apply by running command to stop current Android session (then re-launch).

waydroid session stop

The Android window is borderless in my case. To move the window, you may either press & hold Super (Windows logo) key then dragging, or press Alt+F7 and then move mouse cursor without mouse clicking.

Step 4: Install & Remove Android Apps

If you selected ‘VANILLA’ while initializing Waydroid, then there’s no app store in the Android to install applications.

In the case, you may download any APK file from the web, or download & install the free open-source F-Droid in the host (Ubuntu in the case) then use it in Android screen to install apps.

To install APK file from host user’s ‘Downloads’ folder, just run command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

waydroid app install ~/Downloads/file_name_here.apk

And, verify by listing all installed Android apps:

waydroid app list

Waydroid will create app shortcuts for all installed Android apps, through .desktop files under “.local/share/applications”. Meaning, you can search & launch Android apps directly from host machine (Ubuntu).

Launch ‘F-Droid’ Android app in Ubuntu

And, it supports launching multiple instance of Android apps at the same time out-of-the-box.

To remove an app, either do it in the Android screen, or run command in Ubuntu host:

waydroid app remove packageName

Replace packageName according to waydroid app list output, e.g., org.fdroid.fdroid.

Step 5: Share files between Ubuntu Host and Android

To share files between host and the Android system, simply run single command in Ubuntu host:

sudo mount --bind ~/Documents/vboxshare/ ~/.local/share/waydroid/data/media/0/Documents/share

In the command, you need to replace:

  • ~/Documents/vboxshare/ – ‘vboxshare’ sub-folder in Ubuntu host.
  • ~/.local/share/waydroid/data/media/0/Documents/share – ‘share’ sub-folder of Documents in Android.

You need to first create the share folder if not exist, or it will show mount point does not exist as the screenshot below shows you.

Uninstall Waydroid:

First, stop the session and container, which maybe useful for reloading settings, run commands:

waydroid session stop
sudo waydroid container stop

To remove Waydroid, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove waydroid

Then, remove leftovers by running command:

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/waydroid ~/waydroid ~/.share/waydroid ~/.local/share/applications/*aydroid* ~/.local/share/waydroid

If you don’t want to install it back any more, then, also remove the source repository by deleting the sources & key files:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/waydroid.list /usr/share/keyrings/waydroid.gpg

For more about Waydroid, see the official document.

Transmission, Ubuntu’s default BitTorrent client, announced a new bug-fix 4.0.5 release a day ago.

The release fixed the following bugs:

  • the IP address field in UDP announces were not encoded in network byte order.
  • json string serializer improperly escaping characters
  • decreased download speeds for people who set a low upload bandwidth limit.
  • magnet data invalidates tracker IDs
  • HTTP tracker announces and scrapes sometimes failing after adding a torrent file by HTTPS URL.
  • In RPC, change the default sort order of torrents to match Transmission 3.00.
  • Fixed tr_sys_path_copy() behavior on some Synology Devices
  • larger group display name in macOS client.
  • Crash when opening torrent file from “Recently used” in GTK 4 client.
  • only append .added suffix to watchdir files for Qt client.

How to Install Transmission 4.0.5 in Ubuntu

Transmission has an unofficial Snap package, available to install through Ubuntu Software (or App Center).

It’s NOT updated to v4.0.5 at the moment of writing, but after installation, it will update automatically once new version published.

For choice, I’ve made this release into unofficial PPA for all current Ubuntu releases, meaning Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 23.04 and 23.10.

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 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, remote client, etc.

Uninstall Transmission 4.0.5

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!

This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install LibreWolf web browser in all current Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, 24.10 and 25.04

LibreWolf is a free and open-source web browser fork from Firefox. The browser focuses on privacy and security, and has uBlocker ad blocker out-of-the-box.

The browser website has an official guide for installing in on Debian and Ubuntu based systems. This tutorial is just a re-write with screenshots and more explanations.

UPDATE: LibreWolf does NO longer provide official .deb package for Debian/Ubuntu users. Here’s how to install it through Flatpak package.

Install LibreWolf Flatpak package

The LibreWolf web browser now offers Linux package through Flatpak, which runs in sandbox environment. It works in most Linux and supports amd64 (Intel/AMD) and
arm64
(e.g., Raspberry Pi) platforms.

Linux Mint 21/22 and Fedora (with 3rd party repository) enabled may search & install the package either from Software Manager or GNOME Software.

While Debian and Ubuntu may run the commands below one by one to install:

First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to ensure Flatpak daemon is installed:

sudo apt install flatpak

For old Ubuntu 18.04, try adding this PPA for the daemon package.

Then, run command to install the web browser as Flatpak package:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/io.gitlab.librewolf-community.flatpakref

NOTE: If the app icon is not visible after installation, either log out and back in to apply variable change, or run the command below to start it from terminal:

flatpak run io.gitlab.librewolf-community

Update LibreWolf

To check and install updates for the Flatpak package, just run command:

flatpak update io.gitlab.librewolf-community

For choice, you may install Warehouse, a graphical app to manage (include updateing) Flatpak packages.

Set LibreWolf as default web browser

For the default GNOME Desktop, open Settings (Gnome Control Center), then navigate to Default Applications in left pane. Finally, select “LibreWolf” from the drop-down box for Web.

For GNOME 46 (Ubuntu 24.04), Default Applications has been moved to “Apps” settings page.

Other desktops may have their own option to do the job. If you don’t know where to find the option, try editing the config file that works in most desktop environments. To do so:

  • First, open file manager and press Ctrl+H to show all hidden files and folders.
  • Navigate to .config sub-folder and click edit mimeapps.list file.
  • Finally, set librewolf.desktop for text/html, x-scheme-handler/http, x-scheme-handler/https and save file.

How to Remove LibreWolf Web Browser

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

flatpak uninstall --delete-data io.gitlab.librewolf-community

Also run command flatpak uninstall --unused to remove useless runtime libraries.

That’s all. Enjoy!

I’m using Virtualbox to try out different Linux Distributions in virtual machines. It always has 2 logo icons on Ubuntu dock: one for the manager, and another for VMs.

The VM and VM manager icons on the dock are totally same, causing me to make mis-clicks frequently. And, all the opened VMs are grouped into single icon on the dock.

If you don’t like this default behavior, then it’s easy to make Virtual Virtual Machines to have separate icon per instance.

As the screenshot below shows you, after following this tutorial, every VM will have its own system logo on Ubuntu Dock:

UPDATE: This tutorial ONLY works for Virtualbox installed from virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads.

Method 1: Disable virtualboxvm.desktop

The VM icons for Linux are handled by virtualboxvm.desktop file under “/usr/share/applications” directory. Simply disable that file will make Virtualbox VM (7.0.12 in my test) fall back to separate icon with system/distro logo.

To do so, just create an empty file with same filename under “.local/share/applications”. It will be taken in use instead of the one in ‘/usr/share/applications’ for current user only.

Option 1: Single command to create empty virtualboxvm.desktop

Ubuntu user can press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, then run the single command below to create the empty file:

touch ~/.local/share/applications/virtualboxvm.desktop

This command should work in most Linux, though running command mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications may be required first to create the directory.

Option 2: Use text editor to create empty virtualboxvm.desktop

For those who hate Linux commands, simply search for and launch a text editor window.

Then, it should by default open an empty file (if not create one). There open menu and select “Save as”.

In next dialog, name the empty file to virtualboxvm.desktop and save it into “Home > .local > share > applications”.

The change will be applied next time you launch a VirtualBox VirtualBox.

Method 2: Edit virtualboxvm.desktop

In case the first method does not work for you, you can configure the file to make it start VM as separate process.

1. First, open 2 “Files” windows. Then drag’n’drop virtualboxvm.desktop to local folder.

  • In “Files” (aka nautilus), navigate to Other Locations -> Computer -> usr -> share -> applications, then, find out the virtualboxvm.desktop file.
  • In another “Files” window, press Ctrl+H, then navigate to .local -> share -> applications. Finally, drag’n’drop the file to this folder.

2. Right-click on the virtualboxvm.desktop file in .local/share/applications folder and click “Open with Text Editor”.

When the file opens, add --separate flag to ‘Exec’ line. So it will be ‘Exec=VirtualBoxVM --separate %U‘.

For choice, you can change the icon to Icon=virtualbox-vbox, or replace with /path/to/whatever-icon that your want. However, all VMs will use the same icon on Ubuntu Dock.

How to Restore

To restore the change, simply delete the empty file either in your file manager or by running command in terminal:

rm ~/.local/share/applications/virtualboxvm.desktop

That’s it. Enjoy!

This simple tutorial shows how to install the Waterfox web browser from its official tarball & create app shortcut in Ubuntu Linux.

Waterfox is a free open-source fork of Firefox, claims to be ethical and user-centric, emphasizing performance and privacy.

The browser provides official Linux package through the portable tarball package, though a community maintained Flatpak package is also available to run it in sandbox.

Step 1: Download Waterfox Tarball

To download the package, simply go to its website via the link button below and click the “Download” button:

Once you got the package, just extract it, and run the executable file (waterfox or waterfox-bin) in the new generated folder, will launch the web browser.

Extract, and Launch Waterfox web browser

Step 2: Create App Shortcut for Waterfox

If you want to make the app icon visible in the ‘Activities’ overview search result (or application/start menu depends on your desktop environment), then follow the steps below to create app shortcut for it.

1. Move the source folder

Before creating app shortcut, it’s better to move the ‘waterfox’ folder for long time use.

For current user only, you may put the folder to anywhere in your user home. I usually create a custom folder in user home (e.g., bin, apps) or put portable apps into .local (it’s hidden, press Ctrl+H to view/hide).

In the screenshot below, I moved the waterfox folder into the custom “MyApps”  folder:

For global, it’s good choice to move the folder to “/opt“, so all users in the system can launch the web browser.

In the case, right-click on blank area of the folder that contains “waterfox” sub-folder, and click “Open in Terminal”. In pop-up terminal, run command to move or copy it to opt:

sudo cp -R waterfox /opt

2. Create App Shortcut

In most Linux, the app shortcuts are handled by .desktop files located in either /usr/share/applications or .local/share/applications.

First, search for and launch your system text editor from overview or application menu depends on your DE:

When it opens with an empty document, paste following lines:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Waterfox Web Browser
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
GenericName=Web Browser
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer
Exec=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/waterfox %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/ftp;x-scheme-handler/chrome;video/webm;application/x-xpinstall;
StartupNotify=true
Actions=new-window;new-private-window;

[Desktop Action new-window]
Name=Open a New Window
Exec=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/waterfox -new-window

[Desktop Action new-private-window]
Name=Open a New Private Window
Exec=/home/ji/MyApps/waterfox/waterfox -private-window

Depends on where you moved the ‘waterfox’ folder, change the value of “Exec” and “Icon” accordingly! Meaning replace /home/ji/MyApps to yours.

When done pasting file content and changing Exec/Icon path, press Shift+Ctrl+S to open the “Save as” dialog. Then, do:

  • press Ctrl+H to show hidden folders in the pop-up dialog.
  • navigate to home -> .local -> share -> applications. Create ‘applications’ if it does not exist.
  • type waterfox.desktop as the file name.
  • finally click Save button.

If you did the previous steps correctly, it should now show ‘waterfox’ icon in the start/application menu or ‘Activities’ overview depends on your desktop environment.

Uninstall Waterfox

To uninstall the web browser installed via the previous steps, first remove the ‘waterfox’ folder depends on where you saved it. Then, remove the waterfox.desktop file from .local/share/applications.

 

This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest qBittorrent 4.6.2 (the Qt5 build) from PPA in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

qBittorrent has an official PPA, which however seems no longer updating for Ubuntu 22.04 since v4.6 release series.

User can choose to install the Flatpak package, which runs in sandbox. But if you prefer the classic .deb package, then here’s new unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 22.04.

While Ubuntu 22.04 has Qt6 6.2.4 in system repository, now qBittorrent requires at least Qt6 6.4. That could be the reason the official PPA stop updating for 22.04. Thankfully, Qt5 version is still supported, so I built it into PPA for those who need it.

Features in qBittorrent 4.6.x

  • Experimental I2P support
  • UI editor for the default theme
  • Implement torrent tags editing dialog
  • Allow to add new torrents to queue top
  • Option to stop seeding when torrent in-actived.
  • See HERE for more.

Install qBittorrent 4.6.2 in Ubuntu 22.04 via PPA

The PPA package uses the total same debian/rule from the official PPA. It seems working good in my case though with minor testing.

1. Add the PPA

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/qbittorrent

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

2. Update system package cache

Ubuntu now automatically refresh system package cache while adding PPA, but Linux Mint does NOT.

To do it, simply run command:

sudo apt update

3. Install or Update to qBittorrent 4.6.2

If you’re using the torrent client package from either system repository or its official PPA, simply launch Software Updater (Update Manager) to update it.

Or, run the command below in terminal window to install/update it:

sudo apt install qbittorrent

Uninstall qBittorrent

To uninstall the torrent client package, open terminal and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove qbittorrent libtorrent-rasterbar2.0

Also, remove the unofficial Ubuntu PPA either by running command:

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

or by removing source line under Other Software tab in “Software & Updates” tool.