News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
Want to beatify your Steam app window in Ubuntu or other Linux. Here’s a free open-source project to do the job in GNOME.
It’s Adwaita for Steam, a skin to make Steam look more like a native GNOME app. With it, the title and tool bars will be merged into a compact GNOME Client-Side Decoration style header bar.
Along with rounded window corners extension, it will look just like a native app.
Steam with Adwaita skin
This is a step by step guide shows how to set the priority of certain packages, launchpad PPAs, and/or other apt repositories in Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, and their based systems.
Besides using the default system repositories, we can also install additional packages from third-party or software’s own repositories.
For example, user may update LibreOffice office suite via the Ubuntu PPA, install Spotify, Google Chrome, Edge from their own repositories, or install tons of media apps from deb multimedia repository in Debian.
This tutorial shows how to install the most recent Apache NetBeans IDE v25 in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 24.10, and Debian 12 Bookworm, and their based systems, such as Linux Mint 22/21.
NetBeans is a free open-source (Apache License 2.0) Java IDE, that also supports other languages like PHP, C, C++, HTML5, and JavaScript via extensions.
This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install the most recent Arduino IDE (2.3.4 so far) in Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint.
Arduino IDE is free open-source AVR development board IDE from Arduino CC. It’s available in Debian and Ubuntu repositories, but stuck at version 1.8.19, probably because the 2.x versions require internet connection.
If you want to get the 2.x release series, then there are 3 choices: Flatpak, AppImage, and portable Linux Zip archive that work in most Linux distributions.
This is a step by step guide shows how to compile the Kdenlive video editor 25.04.0 from source tarball in Ubuntu 24.10 and Ubuntu 25.04.
The popular Kdenlive video editor dropped native .deb package support for Ubuntu since version 24.02. It now provides official Flatpak package and AppImage for universal Linux support.
If you don’t like running it in sandbox environment, then you may choose to build it from source by yourself! And, here’s how to do the job for the most recent 25.04.0 release.
Kdenlive Video Editor
This is a step by step guide shows how to install Sigil ePub ebook editor (v2.4.0 so far) by either using Flatpak package or building from the source tarball.
Sigil is a popular free and open-source ePub ebook editor that works in Windows, Linux, and macOS. However, it does not provide official packages for Linux.
While Sigil in Ubuntu system repository is always old, user can easily install the latest version via Flatpak package that runs in sandbox environment, or by compiling it from the source tarball.
SIgil 2.3.1
This tutorial shows how to share either the Public or certain user folder for local network access in Ubuntu 24.04 or Ubuntu 24.10 with default GNOME desktop.
There are quite a few applications designed for local network file sharing/transferring, but for Ubuntu and other Linux with GNOME, there are built-in services to share user specific folder/folders for local access.
Continue Reading…
For those who are waiting for the latest NVIDIA 565.77 driver package, it’s now available in PPA for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 24.10.
NVIDIA 565.77 is so far the latest feature branch version graphics driver for Linux. As Ubuntu seems to prefer the production branch version, this new driver release will be less likely (in my own opinion) to be add into official system repository.
If the new driver includes specific features and bug-fixes for your device, then you may try the “Graphics Drivers” team PPA maintained by Ubuntu Team members.
For those who want to try out the new XFCE Desktop 4.20, XUbuntu developer team has made it into the QA PPAs for (X)Ubuntu 24.04 and (X)Ubuntu 24.10.
XFCE 4.20 is the new major release of the popular lightweight Linux desktop. It features experimental Wayland support, client-side decoration and hamburger menu for Thunar, power profile daemon, hybrid sleep, and many other exciting new features. See HERE or the official release note for details.
XFCE 4.20 will be probably default in next XUbuntu 25.04, Fedora 42 (spin), Arch, etc Linux Distributions.
For (X)Ubuntu, Linux Mint (XFCE edition), Linux Lite users who can’t wait, XUbuntu developer team has made the new desktop release into QA experimental PPA for testing purpose!
NOTE: The PPA is for testing purpose!!! The packages will be either moved to the Staging PPA (if passed verification), or removed.
1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open up a terminal window. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xubuntu-dev/experimental
Type user password when it asks, while there’s no visual feedback, and hit Enter to continue
UPDATE: For (X)Ubuntu 24.10, XFCE 4.20 has been made into QA Staging PPA. User may run the command below instead:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xubuntu-dev/staging
2. After adding PPA, just run command to install all available updates to upgrade to XFCE 4.20:
sudo apt full-upgrade
NOTE: Linux Mint user may need to run sudo apt update first to refresh package cache.
For non-XUbuntu or Ubuntu based systems without XFCE4, you need to run the command below instead to install the new desktop environment:
sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop
Tips: It’s recommended to copy what packages it’s going to install, in case you want to uninstall them later.
After installation, restart your computer. Then, launch “XFCE About” dialog to check the desktop version.
To restore the previous XFCE Desktop 4.18, simply install ppa-purge tool, then use it to purge that PPA which will downgrade all the install packages.
First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install ppa-purge:
sudo apt install ppa-purge
Then, use the command below to purge the QA experimental PPA:
sudo ppa-purge ppa:xubuntu-dev/experimental
To remove XFCE desktop (don’t do it in XUbuntu or other Linux xfce edition), then try running command:
sudo apt remove --autoremove xfce4* libxfce4* xubuntu-* xfwm4
This is a step by step beginner’s tutorial shows how to set the default OS or kernel entry in Grub boot-menu in Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian or other Linux.
Most Linux today uses Grub2 to provide a menu on start-up, allowing to choose which operating system, which kernel, or recovery mode to boot.
It by default boots the first entry, while user can configure to automatically another menu entries without user interaction. And, here’s how to do the trick in 2 ways: from command line or use a graphical tool.
