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How to Install / Remove XFCE4 (XUbuntu Desktop) in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: May 5, 2024 — Leave a comment

This simple tutorial shows how to install or completely remove the XFCE4 desktop environment in Ubuntu 22.04 and/or Ubuntu 24.04.

XFCE4 is lightweight Linux desktop environment aims to be fast and low on system resources. To try it out, I’d recommend to install XUbuntu, Linux Mint, Linux Lite or other Linux with XFCE4 as default.

But for lazy men who don’t want to backup personal data, re-install and re-configure favorite applications again and again, install XFCE4 Desktop on top of the current Ubuntu system is a good choice. And, here’s how to do the job step by step.

Install XFCE4/XUbuntu Desktop in Ubuntu

1. First, open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, or by searching from ‘Activities’ overview.

2. When terminal opens, it’s recommended to first run command to update your system package index:

sudo apt update

3 Then, either install XFCE4 desktop, and core apps without changing startup animation, login screen, etc.

sudo apt install xfce4

As you can see in the screenshot, the installation only takes 88.5 MB (126 MB for 24.04) disk space in my case.

Or, install the whole XUbuntu Desktop environment, to make your Ubuntu just look like XUbuntu

sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop

Though, it will install more packages and takes 550 MB (905 MB for 24.04) disk space in my case.

In the case, it also asks to choose which login screen interface to use (Display Manager). Either choose gdm3 to keep original login screen, or use lightdm to switch to the one that is default in XUbuntu. Finally, hit Tab to highlight OK and hit Enter.

Log in XFCE4 Desktop

After installation, restart your computer!

Depends on which display manager you chose in previous step, either select your user and choose “Xfce Session” via the bottom right gear button menu.

Or, directly choose user and type password to login, if you selected lightdm display manager.

After login, you may want to tweak something. In my case, I’d like to right-click on top-panel and go to “Panel -> Add New Items”, then add Whisker Menu to replace the default application menu. In case you don’t see the widget in the list, run command to install it:

sudo apt install xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin

How to Completely Remove XFCE4/XUbuntu Desktop

1. If you installed the ‘xubuntu-desktop’ package and replaced the login screen, open terminal and run command to open the configuration again and choose “gdm3” to restore the original login screen:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

2. Also, to restore the original startup animation screen, run command:

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

In terminal output, type the number for bgrt.plymouth theme and hit Enter.

3. Before removing the packages, it’s HIGHLY recommend to restart or log out, and choose either “Ubuntu” or “Ubuntu on Xorg” session to log in.

Finally, open terminal and run the single command to remove XFCE4 or XUbuntu Desktop packages:

sudo apt remove --autoremove xubuntu-desktop xfce4 xfce4-* libxfce4* espeak-data gnome-software-common libexo-common libgarcon-common thunar-data tumbler-common xiccd atril-common brltty-x11 wslu plymouth-theme-xubuntu* adwaita-icon-theme-full pinentry-gtk2 xterm mesa-utils lm-sensors libxapian30

This command will remove the most packages installed along with ‘xfce4’ or ‘xubuntu-desktop’ package. However, it’s recommended to keep an eye on terminal output to see which packages it’s going to remove, before typing ‘y’ to confirm.

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How to Install digiKam (8.2.0 Updated) in Ubuntu 22.04 | 20.04

Last updated: April 24, 2024 — Leave a comment

digiKam, the popular KDE photo management software, released new major 8.0.0 version! Here are the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu users.

digiKam 8.0.0 is a big release after two year of development. It features new online documentation that is well written with plenty of screenshots and screencasts. An EPUB is also available for offline use.

Image support has been greatly improved in this release. It added support for 16-bit float (half float) images in the TIFF Loader, and JPEG-XL, WEBP, and AVIF export settings everywhere.

Other changes include new OCR over scanned text via Tesseract engine, and:

  • Port to Qt6, and still compatible with Qt 5.15 LTS.
  • Spell-checking in the captions/information/properties edit-text widgets
  • Add convert to lossless JPEG-XL, WEBP, and AVIF while importing from camera.
  • Add JPEG-XL, WEBP, and AVIF converters in Batch Queue Manager.
  • Database search by the number of face regions or without face regions.
  • New option to write metadata to files with ExifTool backend.
  • Add support for SQLite WAL (Write-Ahead-Logging) mode.
  • Update G’MIC-Qt tool to last version 3.2.2.
  • Phase One/Leaf IIQ-S v2 support Canon CR3 filmrolls/RawBurst Canon CRM (movie) files Tiled bit-packed (and 16-bit unpacked) DNGs (non-standard) Deflate-compressed integer DNG files are allowed Canon EOS R3, R7 and R10 Fujifilm X-H2S, X-T30 II OM System OM-1 Leica M11 Sony A7-IV (ILCE-7M4) DJI Mavic 3

How to Install digiKam 8.2.0 in Ubuntu & other Linux

The new digiKam release is available to install via both Flatpak and AppImage. Choose either one that you prefer.

Option 1: digiKam Flatpak

1. For digiKam Flatpak package, first press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to enable Flatpak support.

sudo apt install flatpak

2. Then, run command to install digiKam as flatpak package:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.kde.digikam.flatpakref

As you see in the screenshot below, the flatpak package however will do many downloads for the run-time libraries.

Option 2: digiKam AppImage

Some users do NOT like Flatpak, because it take much more disk spaces. In the case, you can choose to use the non-install AppImage package.

1.) First, select download the latest AppImage package from the link below:

Download digiKam (Linux AppImage)

2.) Then, open the Downloads folder in your file manager. And, do following steps to launch digiKam:

  1. Right-click on the AppImage package, and click open “Properties”.
  2. Navigate to “Permissions” tab, and enable “Allow executing file as program”.
  3. Close the “Properties” dialog.
  4. Finally, right-click on AppImage, and click “Run” to launch digiKam.

Create shortcut for the digiKam AppImage

Click run the AppImage launches the digiKam software directly. If you want to add a shortcut into app launcher (search results in ‘Show Applications’ and/or ‘Activities’ overview), do following steps one by one.

1. First, it’s recommended to put the AppImage package into a certain folder for long time use. Here I chose the “.local/bin” directory.

Just, press Ctrl+H in Files, and navigate to .local -> bin (create bin folder if not exist). Then, copy or move the digiKam AppImage into this folder.

2. Then, download the logo icon from web. Just, go to its website, right-click on the logo in top-left and select “Save image as” to download the file.

Finally, rename the file to digikam.svg, and store in “.local/share/icons” (also, create the ‘icons’ sub-folder if not exist).

3. Finally, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to create the shortcut config file:

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/org.kde.digikam.desktop

Replace gedit with gnome-text-editor for Ubuntu 23.10+, or use nano instead.

When file opens in text editor (or terminal for nano), paste follow lines and save it. For nano, press Ctrl+X, type y and hit Enter to save file.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=digiKam
Comment=digiKam photo management tool
Exec=digiKam-8.0.0-x86-64.appimage
Icon=digikam
Categories=Graphics;
Type=Application
Terminal=false

NOTE: if the bin folder under .local was previously not exist. You need to log out and back in to make it in your PATH.

4. After that, you should be able to search for and launch digiKam from app launcher.

That’s all. Enjoy!

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Install Bluefish Editor 2.2.15 via PPA in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: May 6, 2024 — Leave a comment

The bluefish text editor released version 2.2.15 recently. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 20.04 via PPA.

Bluefish is a powerful GTK3 text editor for web and software development. It supports many programming and markup languages, but it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.

The development of Bluefish editor is quite slow. The new 2.2.13 was released as the latest version more than 2 years since the last. And, it’s a very minor maintenance release that features:

  • Greatly improved CSS syntax support.
  • Few user interface improvements.
  • Some minor improvements for the syntax highlighting
  • And some minor bug-fixes.

How to Install Bluefish Editor (2.2.15 Updated) in Ubuntu

The editor only provides source tarball for downloading at the sourceforge web-page.

To make it easy to install in all current Ubuntu releases, I’ve upload the software package into this unofficial PPA. And, it is built against the rules from Debian upstream.

The PPA supports Ubuntu 18.04 (stick to v2.2.14), Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and their based systems with both x86_64 and arm64/armhf CPU architecture types.

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/bluefish

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

2. For the old Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint users, manually refresh the system package cache by running command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, either run command to install the text editor:

sudo apt install bluefish

Or, open “Software Updater” and use the tool to upgrade the previous Bluefish package to the latest.

Uninstall or Restore Bluefish

For any issue, you can easily restore to the previous 2.2.12 (or 2.2.11 depends on your Ubuntu version), by purging the PPA repository. To do so, open terminal and run command:

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

Or, you may directly remove the text editor by running command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove bluefish

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

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

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

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How to Check File’s MD5, SHA (1, 256, 512) Hash in Ubuntu 22.04

Last updated: April 12, 2023 — 1 Comment

This simple tutorial is going to show you how to check MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512 file hash in Ubuntu and most other Linux systems.

After downloading a file from the web, it’s important to verify the file integrity. This can be done by checking the hash code of the local file, then compare to the one from the download page. The hash code of local file and the one from download page should be same, before safe for use.

Method 1: Single command to check MD5 or SHA Hash

For most Linux, there’s built-in command line tool to check the file hash.

1. First, open file manager and navigate to the folder that contains the file you want to check. Then, right-click on blank area and select ‘Open in Terminal‘ (or ‘Open Terminal Here’)

2. When terminal opens, type sha and hit Tab key will show you available commands to do the job.

For example, to check sha256 checksum, use command:

sha256sum file_name_here

To check sha1 checksum, use command:

sha1sum file_name_here

Or use command below instead by replacing number 256 with 1, 224, 384, 512, 512224, 512256 accordingly:

shasum -a 256 file_name_here

To check MD5, use command:

md5sum file_name_here

Depends on your machine, the command will take a few seconds to output the hash code. Then, you can compare it with the one from the file download page.

Method 2: Check File Hash in File Manager

Without running a Linux command every time, user can choose to install a file browser extension. So, it’s possible to right-click on the file, and go to its “Properties” dialog to check the file hash.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to to install the file manager extension:

sudo apt install nautilus-gtkhash

Depends on your Desktop Environment, replace nautilus-gtkhash with:

  • thunar-gtkhash for XFCE desktop’s file manager.
  • nemo-gtkhash for Cinnamon desktop’s nemo file manager.
  • caja-gtkhash for MATE desktop.

2. Once installed, run command to quit file manager:

nautilus -q

Also, replace nautilus depends on which file manager you’re using.

3. Finally, open the folder that contains the file to check the hash. Right-click on it and click on “Properties“.

4. In pop-up dialog, navigate to the last “Digests” tab. Tick the desired hash function, and click on the bottom right “Hash” button to start checking.

When done, compare the hash code with the one from the download page and done!

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Firefox 112 Adds Importing Data From Chromium Snap Support

Last updated: April 11, 2023 — Leave a comment

Mozilla today announced the release of Firefox 112.0. See what’s new in this release!

For Ubuntu user using the Chromium browser that was installed as Snap package from system repository, Firefox 112 adds ability to import data from that browser. Though, the feature so far does not work in Firefox itself installed as Snap package.

When working with too many browser tabs, user can now click on the down arrow icon (‘⋁’) to open tab lists, and use middle mouse click on any tab to close it.

Also, the Ctrl+Shift+T re-open closed tab shortcut key, can now restore the previous session if there are no more closed tabs from the same session to re-open.

Other changes in Firefox 112.0 include:

  • Right-clicking on password fields now shows an option to reveal the password.
  • Update EnableTrackingProtection policy to prevent from more cross-site tracking.
  • Enables overlay of software-decoded video on Intel GPUs in Windows
  • Disable the deprecated U2F Javascript API by default.
  • Various security fixes.

How to Install Firefox 112.0 in Ubuntu

For Ubuntu 22.04 and higher, that using the pre-installed Firefox as Snap package. You should now has updated to the new release. Just open browser, and check its version via the ‘About Firefox’ page.

For Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 18.04, just wait! The new release page will be made into system repository in next few days. Keep your system up-to-date will automatically update Firefox package to the latest.

For those who do NOT like the pre-installed Snap package, and old Ubuntu users who can’t wait, there’s also an Ubuntu PPA that contains the latest Firefox package, see this step by step guide how to install Firefox from that PPA.

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OpenShot 3.1.0 Released with More Profiles, Redo/Undo for Grouping Actions

Last updated: April 8, 2023 — Leave a comment

The OpenShot video editor announced the new 3.1.0 feature release few days ago. Here are the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu users.

OpenShot 3.1.0 features a new output video profile dialog, with more than 400 profiles support. Which, are also fully searchable.

The release also added more robust time remapping implementation, including audio resampling support for backward and forward videos, and time keyframes support using Bezier curves to incrementally speed up / slow down video and audio.

The Undo/Redo feature has been improved with multi-step edits, such as slicing a clip into 2 clips or removing a track.

  • Support waveform visualizations for audio-only files.
  • Improve Caption effect with better VTT/Subrip support.
  • Caption effect font_size moving from “Points” to “Pixels”
  • Caption effect default properties have been changed with High DPI support.
  • Clip caching, memory leak fixes, prevent zombie threads
  • FrameMapper & Clip objects now include extra caching and optimizations

For more about OpenShot 3.1.0, see the official release note.

How to Install OpenShot 3.1.0 in Ubuntu:

The software has an official Ubuntu PPA with all current Ubuntu releases and their based systems support.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below into terminal and hit Enter to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa

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

2. Ubuntu 20.04 and higher will automatically refresh system package cache while adding PPA. Though old Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint do not.

To manually update the cache, run command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, either install the video editor by running command in terminal:

sudo apt install openshot-qt python3-openshot

Or use ‘Software Updater’ to update it from an already installed package.

Uninstall:

To remove the Ubuntu PPA, either open “Software & Updates” and delete the source from ‘Other Software’ tab:


or run the command below in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa

And remove the editor for choice by running command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove openshot-qt python3-openshot
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How to Add App Icons to the Desktop in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: June 29, 2024 — 9 Comments

Want to send your application shortcut icons onto desktop, so you can click them to launch the corresponding apps? This simple tutorial is going to show you how to do the job in Ubuntu 24.04 with default GNOME Desktop.

As far as I know, there are 2 ways to easily add your app icons to the desktop in Ubuntu. They include:

  • Manually drag and drop the associated .desktop file on to desktop, add executable permission, and enable allow launching.
  • Another way is using an extension, which adds “Add to Desktop” context menu option to your app icons.

Continue Reading…

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Enable Flatpak & AppImage Support in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: May 4, 2024 — 6 Comments

This simple tutorial is going to show you how to add both flatpak and AppImage package format support, while Ubuntu does not support them out-of-the-box.

Like Snap, Flatpak is an universal Linux package format runs in sandbox. Many software developers provide their app packages for Linux through Flatpak. And, AppImage is a portable Linux package format. Just download the package, and click ‘Run’ (after adding executable permission) will launch the program.

Enable Flatpak Support in Ubuntu

Ubuntu is focusing on the native deb and snap support. The developer team has officially announced that they won’t support Flatpak out-of-the-box.

However, user has the freedom of choice to use any other source sources, including Flatpak.

1. To enable Flatpak support, first press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run command:

sudo apt install flatpak

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter. In case the command does not work, run sudo apt update first to update package index.

2. (Optional) Then, you can choose to add the Flathub repository, the standard repository that contains tons of applications as Flatpak. To do so, run command:

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

When done, log out and back in to apply the variable environment change.

3. Finally, you can either go to flathub.org and install any Flatpak application, by running the flatpak install command in the down-arrow menu beside “Install” button.

Or, install a local .flatpak (or .flatpakref) file by running command:

flatpak install ~/Downloads/file_name_here.flatpak

Enable AppImage Support in Ubuntu

AppImage is a non-install package format for Linux. Like some .exe or .msi files, user can directly click run .AppImage file to launch applications. Though, the ‘allow executing file as program’ option has to be enabled first in file ‘Properties’ dialog.

Ubuntu does NOT support AppImage out-of-the-box, due to switch to fuse3, while the file format requires the classic fuse2.

So enable AppImage is also easy. Just open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install the fuse2 library:

sudo apt install libfuse2

After that, right-click on your AppImage file and click ‘Run’ to launch the application after enabled ‘allow executing file as program’ and enjoy!

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How to Detach Child Pop-up windows from Parent in Ubuntu 22.04

Last updated: April 4, 2023 — Leave a comment

In Ubuntu, Fedora and other Linux with GNOME desktop, you may found that many applications have child dialogues attached to parent windows.

For example, when opening ‘About’ dialog for Files or adding custom shortcut in System Settings. The parent window will always attach the pop-up child dialog. User can not move it out of the way until close it.


For those who don’t like this feature, it’s easy to detach the child windows. And, this tutorial is going to show you how!

Option 1: Single command to detach child windows

For those who are familiar with Linux command, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window.

When terminal opens, run command:

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter attach-modal-dialogs false

It applies the change immediately once you hitting Enter, though it’s for current user only!

Option 2: Use Gnome Tweaks (Graphical)

Gnome Tweaks, the popular graphical configuration tool for GNOME desktop, also has the option to do the similar job.

First, search for and install “Gnome Tweaks” from Ubuntu Software (or Gnome Software):

Then, launch Gnome Tweaks and navigate to “Windows” in left. Finally, turn off the option for “Attach Modal Dialogs” option and done.

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Ubuntu 23.04 Beta Released! Linux Kernel 6.2 & GNOME 44

Last updated: March 31, 2023 — 1 Comment

The Ubuntu Team announced the Beta release of the Ubuntu 23.04 “Lunar Lobster” today!

Ubuntu 23.04 is a short team release with 9 months support! The final stable release will be available in next few weeks. And, it features Linux Kernel 6.2 and GNOME Desktop 44.

What’s New in Ubuntu 23.04

When trying to install the new Ubuntu release via an ISO image, you’ll see the new installer wizard. The new installer is a Flutter app with fast response and modern user interface.

Lunar new installer wizard

Thanks to GNOME 44, the top-right system menu (Quick Settings) will now display a ‘Background App‘ sub-menu, allowing to manage applications run in background. Though, only Flatpak applications are supported so far.

The “Settings” has redesigned “Mouse & Touchpad”, and “Accessibility” pages, with clean and easy to use configure options. Create Wi-Fi hotspot now displays QR code, and Network settings page now supports for adding WirdGuard VPN. About page is also been updated with more information such as Firmware version.

Other changes about the new Ubuntu 23.04 include:

  • Big avatar icon in login/lock screen.
  • Big icon view in native file chooser.
  • Paste photo image from clipboard directly into image file.
  • New Ubuntu fonts.
  • Ruby 3.1, Python 3.11.2, and more.

The new release also features 10 official flavors. Besides Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu Unity, and Xubuntu, there are 2 new flavors: Edubuntu and Ubuntu Cinnamon.

How to Get Ubuntu 23.04

The ISO images for Ubuntu, Server and Netboot install tarball are available to download at the link below:

Download Ubuntu 23.04

Ubuntu 22.10 user can upgrade to the development branch of 23.04, by installing all available package updates and then run update-manager -d -c in terminal. Or follow the official guide here.

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