Running Ubuntu laptop without power supply? It’s wise to keep an eye on the battery percentage. And, here’s how to make Ubuntu 22.04 display the info in top-right corner just besides the battery icon.
Method 1: Single command toggle display battery percentage
For those OK with Linux commands, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage true
You’ll see the change immediately after hitting Enter to run the command.
Method 2: Use Gnome Control Center -> Power settings
In Ubuntu 22.04, the GNOME Tweaks tool no longer provide the option to toggle display battery percentage. Because, GNOME has merged this option into system settings (aka gnome-control-center).
1.) Firstly, open ‘Settings’ either from the dash or top-right system tray menu.
2.) When it opens, navigate to Power panel in the left. And, finally use the on/off switch in bottom right to toggle display battery percentage:
There are quite a few weather apps for Ubuntu Linux. Here’s a new one for GNOME desktop 40+.
Different to other apps, the extension show a little icon in system tray area for current weather condition. By clicking on it will display weather forecast for next days as desktop widget.
Though it only shows the basic icons (e.g., cloudy, clear, rain, or snow.), and allows to control via:
single click on indicator icon to display widget.
right-click on desktop widget to hide.
middle click to refresh.
Scroll up/down to increase/decrease days.
As you see in the picture, the icons are somehow too big in my case in Ubuntu 22.04 laptop. And, it so far only supports for getting weather information from OpenWeatherMap.org.
How to Install the weather widget:
NOTE: the extension works on Ubuntu 21.10, Ubuntu 22.04, Fedora 34+, and Arch Linux etc with GNOME 40+.
1.) Ubuntu user needs to first press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal, and run command to install the browser agent:
sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell
2.) Next, click the link below to go to extension page and turn on the slider icon to install it.
NOTE: The pre-installed Firefox in Ubuntu 21.10+ is SNAP that so far does not support this thing! Use another browser or install Firefox as deb.
And, if you don’t see the on/off switch, install browser extension via ‘click here to install browser extension‘ link and refresh the page.
3.) Finally, open “Extensions” app (install via sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-prefs). And, configure the extension to search and set your location.
As you see, the app also has option to disable or remove the extension as you want.
This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Oracle Java (JDK 21 or JDK 24) in Ubuntu Linux via the official binary package.
There used to be unofficial Ubuntu PPA to automate the process of installing Java JDK and setup the environment, however, discontinued. So, here’s the tutorial to manually install the Java package and set as default.
Step 1: Download the pre-build binary package
Oracle provides the pre-build binary packages for Linux, Windows, macOS, available to download via the link below:
Here replace 21 in command if you downloaded JDK 24. Or, just drag and drop the .deb package from your downloads folder into terminal to auto-insert path to that file.
The .deb package include a post-install script that automatically set the JDK installation with a higher priority. So, it should be default if you have multiple java.
Just in case, you may run the command below to manually set default Java:
sudo update-alternatives --config java
In the output, input the number for your desired Java version and hit Enter.
Similarly, you may run the command below to configure default Javac, Jshell, Jar, etc.
sudo update-alternatives --config javac
For Intel/AMD platform, you’re done!
Install the Compressed Archive for ARM devices
For the ARM computers (e.g., Raspberry Pi, Apple M1/2, etc), first open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to make sure the /usr/lib/jvm directory is exist:
sudo mkdir -p /usr/lib/jvm
Then, extract the downloaded archive to that directory by running command:
sudo tar -zxf ~/Downloads/jdk-21_linux-aarch64_bin.tar.gz -C /usr/lib/jvm/
Also, replace 21 in command with 24 if you selected JDK 24. After that, you may run the command below to list that directory content which should include the new generated jdk-21 (or jdk-21.x.x) sub-folder.
3. Set JDK 21/24 as default (for ARM only):
NOTE 1: For Intel/AMD, you’re DONE after installed the .deb package and set default Java. This is only required for ARM platform.
NOTE 2: The JDK root folder-name may vary depends on which package you installed. It may be ‘jdk-21’, ‘jdk-21.0.1’, ‘jdk-24’, ‘jdk-24.0.1’, and so forth. Run ls /usr/lib/jvm to tell and replace jdk-21 in commands below accordingly.
a.) Create symbolic links for the executable files:
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/lib/jvm/jdk-21/bin/jar 1
As mentioned, you need to replace “jdk-21” in command with e.g., jdk-21.0.1, jdk-21.0.6, jdk-24, jdk-24.0.1, etc. accordingly!!!
Similarly, add links for other executable files (e.g., jarsigner, jlink, javadoc) as you need.
b.) Next, run the commands below one by one, and type number to select Java JDK 21 as default.
sudo update-alternatives --config java
sudo update-alternatives --config javac
sudo update-alternatives --config jar
When done, verify by running command in terminal:
java -version
javac -version
4. Set JAVA_HOME (for ARM only):
As well, you only need to do this for ARM package. If installed the .deb version, just verify JAVA HOME via the bottom command.
Also, replace ‘jdk-21’ below according to ls /usr/lib/jvm command output (e.g., jdk-21.0.6, jdk-24, jdk-24.0.x).
Option 1.) Set JAVA_HOME for current terminal console, that will work until you close it:
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk-21
setenv JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk-21
Option 2.) To make it permanent, create and edit config file via command:
sudo gnome-text-editor /etc/profile.d/jdk.sh
Depends on your desktop environment, you may replace gedit with mousepad for XFCE, xed for Linux Mint, pluma for MATE, kate for KDE Plasma, gedit for Ubuntu 22.04 or older.
Stellarium 0.22.0 released! Here’s how to install and keep it up to date in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04 via PPA.
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye.
While the software package in Ubuntu repository is always old, the latest version so far is Stellarium 0.22.0 that features:
AstroCalc: Eclipse Finder
AstroCalc: RTS (Rises, Transits, Settings)
Switch from Bortle scale to physical brightness values for light pollution.
Allow tweaks for the atmosphere brightness/color model and tone mapping
Several new calendars in the Calendars plugin
Seasonal polar caps on Mars
New and improved sky cultures
Larger textures allowed in Scenery3D
Improved OnlineQueries and Satellites plugin
Many fixes in core and plugins.
A large number of bug fixes and closed feature requests and enhancements
How to install Stellarium:
The software developer team provides Ubuntu packages via PPA repository. So far, it supports Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and upcoming Ubuntu 22.04.
1. Add the PPA
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add the PPA repository:
There are quite a few image editing tools for Linux desktop. ‘Drawing’ is the one that promoted itself a Microsoft Paint alternative for Linux.
The app provides basic editing features, including crop, resize, skew and rotate images, apply simple filters, insert or censor text. As well, it supports for drawing with pencil, straight line, curve tool, many shapes, several brushes, with colors and other common used options.
Drawing. Tools with text
The app is targeted for GNOME, but also works on other desktop, e.g, elementaryOS Pantheon. And, it should also be compatible with the Pinephone and Librem 5 smartphones.
For those sticking to the old Ubuntu 18.04, but need higher Linux kernel version for specific hardware support, here’s how to install the Linux Kernel 5.13 from Ubuntu 20.04 repository.
NOTE: Ubuntu 20.04’s kernel package does install and seems running good in Ubuntu 18.04. But I’m not sure if it will cause compatibility issues. Install it ONLY that you do require it, and use it at your own risk!!
Linux Kernel 5.13 features include:
Initial and early support for Apple M1.
New “Landlock” Linux security module.
Initial graphics support for Alder Lake S.
AMD FreeSync HDMI support.
New Intel cooling driver
Realtek RTL8156 and RTL8153D support
New drivers support for Amazon’s Luna game controller.
Apple Magic Mouse 2 support .
Realtek RT1019, RT1316, RT711 and RT715 support.
Install Linux Kernel 5.13 in Ubuntu 18.04:
You know, the Mainline Kernel PPA maintains the latest kernel package. However, it’s now built against the most recent Ubuntu libc6 library.
The Kernel package from Ubuntu 20.04 repository could be the only way to get recent Kernels for Ubuntu 18.04, except for building by yourself.
1. Add Ubuntu 20.04 Updates repository:
Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit enter:
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list'
The command adds focal-updates repository to your system software sources.
2. Set lower priority for the repository:
Also in terminal window, run command to create and open a config file via Gedit text editor:
sudo gedit /etc/apt/preferences.d/99focal-updates
When the file opens, add following lines and save it:
GNOME 42 is out! The upcoming Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will take use it as the default desktop environment.
If you’ve tried out the latest update of Ubuntu 22.04 development build, you should already see the brand new appearance of the GNOME desktop.
It introduced the new ‘Appearance‘ settings page, with options to switch between Dark and Light mode. As well, each wallpaper has both dark and light editions that changes automatically.
GNOME 42 Appearance Settings
Ubuntu has ‘Appearance’ settings page for a few years. In Ubuntu 22.04, the page has been modified. While wallpaper selection is available in ‘Background’ tab, it provides light/dark switch along with new accent color, desktop icons, and dock settings.
Ubuntu 22.04 Appearance Settings Page
The Gnome Screenshot app has been replaced with the desktop’s built-in screenshot UI. Just press ‘Print Screen‘ on keyboard to bring up the UI. Then, you may take a screenshot of selection area, app window, or full-screen. It as well has ability to record your desktop or selection area.
The UI supports keyboard shortcuts. However, it won’t work once you changed the trigger from ‘Print Screen’ to another.
V – switch between screen capture and recorder mode.
s – selection area.
c – full-screen.
w – app window.
Enter / Space / Ctrl+C – capture
Gnome New Screenshot UI
Many apps has been ported to GTK4 + libadwaita, but Ubuntu 22.04 is said to avoid GTK4 due to theme issue. You’ll see some apps has 4 corners rounded (e.g., Files and Image Viewer) which are GTK4. While, others are GTK3 apps that have sharp bottom corners.
GNOME 42 introduced 2 new defaults apps: Gnome Text Editor and Gnome Console. The latter is really my favorite. However, Ubuntu 22.04 still uses Gedit and Gnome Terminal at the moment!
2 New Default Apps in GNOME 42
And, GNOME finally uses Microsoft’s RDP protocal to provide remote desktop service, which is more secure that the VNC connection. User may get the settings in ‘Sharing’ tab in Gnome Control Center.
Videos player (Totem) and Gnome web have hardware accelerated support.
Improved file indexing and full-screen app handling to reduce energy consumption.
significantly enhanced input handling.
Get GNOME 42:
If you’re an Ubuntu user, I would recommend to try out Ubuntu 22.04 daily build ISO or just wait for the final release. Or, you may try the GNOME OS Nightly.
This tutorial shows how to install the latest version of KeePassXC password manager (v2.7.10 so far) and keep it up-to-date in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 20.04
The popular KeePassXC password manager now is at 2.7.0 release series with many exciting new features. Here’s are some of them according to the release note:
Entry tagging
Unlock via Windows Hello and macOS Touch ID
Auto-Type overhaul.
Improvements to Secret Service integration (Linux)
Change the crypto backend from libgcrypt to Botan
KeePass 2.7 Entry tags
To get the most recent KeePass in Ubuntu, you have 4 choices:
Snap package – runs in sandbox environment.
AppImage – no installation required. Just run to launch the app.
Ubuntu PPA – contains native .deb package.
Flatpak package – runs in sandbox environment.
All of them are official! Choose one that you prefer.
Option 1: KeePassXC Snap package
Snap is the easiest way to install the app in Ubuntu, however, it runs in sandbox and so far it’s a bit lag behind. The snap is at v2.7.8 while the latest has reached v2.7.9.
To install it, just launch App Center (or Ubuntu Software), then search and click install KeePassXC filtered by Snap package.
Or, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run command to install the package:
sudo snap install keepassxc
Snap package installs updates automatically, though you may run the command below to check updates manually:
sudo snap refresh keepassxc
Option 2: KeePassXC AppImage package
The software website provides Linux package via AppImage. It’s available to download via the link button below:
No installation required, after downloaded the AppImage, just go to its ‘Properties’ dialog, enable “Executable as Program” permission. Finally, click Run will launch the password manager.
NOTE: Ubuntu 22.04 and higher does NOT support AppImage out-of-the-box, due to miss libfuse2 library. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to get it:
sudo apt install libfuse2
Option 3: Install KeePassXC via Ubuntu PPA
For native .deb package, the official PPA contains the package for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04. So far, it supports amd64, arm64, armhf, and riscv64 CPU architecture types.
1. Add the PPA
Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal window. When it opens, paste the command below and hit Enter to add PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phoerious/keepassxc
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.
2. Update package cache.
Ubuntu now automatically refresh package cache while adding PPA, but some Ubuntu based systems (e.g., Linux Mint) does NOT.
To manually refresh system package cache, run command:
sudo apt update
3. Install / upgrade KeePassXC
Finally, install the password manager by running command in terminal:
sudo apt install keepassxc
If you already have an old version of the package installed, then just launch “Software Updater” to check and install updates.
Option 4: Install KeePassXC via Flatpak package
Flatpak is another universal Linux package format that runs in sandbox. KeePassXC is available to install as Flatpak package through the Flathub repository. So far, it supports code>amd64, arm64 CPU architecture types.
For Linux Mint 21/22, and Fedora Workstation (with 3rd party repository enabled), simply search for and install the package from either Software Manager or GNOME Software.
While Ubuntu and other Linux can install the package by following steps below one by one:
First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to enable Flatpak support:
sudo apt install flatpak
Old Ubuntu 18.04 user may need to add this PPA first for most recent daemon package.
Then, add the Flathub repository which hosts the software package:
Ubuntu 22.04 finally merged desktop icon settings into System Settings (Gnome Control Center). However, it only provides few options to toggle display ‘Home’ folder, change icon size and new icon position.
By right-clicking on desktop and select ‘Desktop Icons Settings’ from pop-up menu, it will bring up the ‘Appearance‘ settings page as the picture below shows:
Ubuntu 22.04 only provides few Desktop Icons options
What if you want to show the trash can, removable devices (e.g., USB drive) on desktop? They are hidden settings! Here I’m going to show you how to configure them in Ubuntu 22.04.
Single Command to Toggle Display Trash Icon on Desktop
The gsettings command is always the most efficient way to configure hidden settings in Ubuntu.
If you’re OK with Linux commands, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and paste the command below into it.
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.ding show-trash true
By hitting enter, you should see the trash can desktop icon immediately!
To hide the icon again, simply run the command below to reset the key:
In addition, you may hide the Trash icon from left dock via command:
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock show-trash false
Use Dconf Editor to toggle display Trash icon & more Desktop Icons Settings:
The ‘Dconf Editor‘ tool provides a graphical interface to configure these hidden settings in Ubuntu.
1.) Firstly, search for and install Dconf Editor in Ubuntu Software.
Ubuntu Software always sucks! It does not launch in my case at the moment of writing this tutorial. So, there’s no screenshot for it.
You may also run the command below in terminal to install the ‘Dconf Editor’ tool.
sudo apt install dconf-editor
2.) Search for and launch the tool from ‘Activities’ overview screen:
3.) When the app opens, navigate to org/gnome/shell/extensions/ding. Scroll down, and you’ll see the on/off switch for the ‘show-trash’ key, as well as many other settings for desktop icons.
This simple tutorial shows how to change the default terminal emulator from Gnome Terminal to the one that you prefer in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04.
The default Gnome Terminal is great, but there are many good alternatives (e.g., tilix). If you prefer to use another one and want to set it as default, so you may press Ctrl+Alt+T to open it.
UPDATE 2025: for Ubuntu 25.04, there’s new xdg-terminal-exec to do the job.
Step 1: Create symbolic link to x-terminal-emulator
Ubuntu so far defaults to x-terminal-emulator, which is a virtual package by default links to Gnome Terminal.
By creating a group of alternatives to the package allows to switch which one to use at any time with a single command.
Firstly, open terminal and run command to create a symbolic link (replace /usr/bin/tilix with your terminal emulator):
Type the number for the one that you prefer and hit Enter will set it as default terminal.
In the case, I selected 5: ‘/usr/bin/tilix.wrapper’. It’s a Tilix wrapper with command line arguments that created automatically during installation. Step 1,
Restore and remove the alternative link:
To revert back to Gnome Terminal, just re-run the command in Step 2 and choose number 0 or 1.
And to remove the link created via Step 1, use command (replace ‘/usr/bin/tilix’ accordingly):
