Howtos | UbuntuHandbook

Show Spotify Playback Info in Top-bar in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: July 2, 2024 — Leave a comment

Spotify users? Here’s an extension that can display the current track information in Ubuntu top-bar.

It’s spotify-tray, a free open-source tool available as GNOME Shell Extension, that can show title, artist, and/or album of current playing song or podcast in top-panel.

The extension is very simple and customizable. You can control:

Where (left, center, or right) to display the playback info in top-bar.
What to display, including track, artist, album, custom text, emoji (via built-in selector).
Display in static mode, or horizontally scrolling marquee.

In Howtos spotify

How to Hide GNOME Top Bar in Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04 or 20.04

Last updated: June 25, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to hide (or auto-hide) the top bar in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and/or Ubuntu 20.04 with default GNOME Desktop.

Like the left (or bottom, if you moved it to) dock panel, the top bar can be hidden in Ubuntu and other Linux with GNOME Desktop to save screen space. And, this can be done by using one of the following extensions:

Just Perfection – GNOME UI & behavior config tool with many toggle options, including hide top-bar.
Hide Top-bar – support intellihide, that hides only when app window hit screen top or maximized.
Hide Panel Lite – very light version that only hide top-bar, except in overview. However, so far supports ends at GNOME 42.
Dock Unroll – light version that support GNOME 46.

In Howtos Gnome

Enable JPEG-XL (.jxl) Image Support in Ubuntu 24.04 & 22.04

Last updated: June 20, 2024 — 2 Comments

This tutorial shows how to enable .jxl file support for system image viewer, GIMP, and some other apps in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and even Ubuntu 18.04.

JPEG-XL is a new image format by JPEG committee. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, and includes features such as animation, alpha channels, layers, thumbnails, and has better compression efficiency (60% improvement) comparing to JPEG.

For encoding and decoding JPEG-XL images, there’s a free open-source libjxl library available. Ubuntu has included the library in system repository since 24.04, however lacks GdkPixbuf loader plugin until Ubuntu 24.10 (still in development so far).

Meaning system default image viewer, and many other apps do not work with .jxl file in current 3 Ubuntu LTS releases out-of-the-box.

In Howtos JPEG XL, photo

PPA Updated for Installing KeePass2 2.57 in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: June 17, 2024 — Leave a comment

For those who are sticking to KeePass2 password manager, here’s an Ubuntu PPA contains most recent .deb package for Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 23.10, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04.

Linux has a native KeepassXC password manager, though KeePass2 is still available for choice, which runs in Linux through Microsoft’s mono software framework.

Ubuntu includes KeePass2 package in system repository, but always old!

For the most recent versions, 3rd PPAs so far are the only choices besides building from the source tarball.

In Howtos password manager

Set up Lightweight Socks5 Proxy Server in Ubuntu 24.04 / Debian 12

Last updated: June 12, 2024 — Leave a comment

This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install and set up a lightweight Socks5 proxy server in Ubuntu or Debian.

Due to poor network connection, I decided to set up a proxy server on my remote VPS for playing an online game. However, the tutorials on the web are mostly using Dante, which consumes too much RAM, and makes my cheap VPS server frequently run out of memory.

After digging around, I found a lightweight socks5 proxy server called Microsocks. And, here’s how to install & use it in Debian & Ubuntu.

In Howtos network, socks5

Enable & Enhance Touchpad Gestures in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: June 12, 2024 — 1 Comment

This tutorial shows how to enable (or improve) touchpad gestures in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04. Not only for the default GNOME (both X & Wayland), but also for XFCE, MATE, and other desktop environments.

GNOME introduced multi-touch gestures support since v40, however, it only works on the default Wayland session, and supports only 3 finger swipe gestures. For more gestures, GNOME on Xorg, and other desktop environments, you can choose either option below:

Gesture Improvements extension (GNOME only) – enable 4-finger swipe and pinch gestures, support both Xorg and Wayland.
Touchegg – for all desktop environments on X, including GNOME on Xorg, but not for Wayland.

In Howtos touchpad gestures

Enable Some Cool Window Animations in Ubuntu 24.04 GNOME

Last updated: June 3, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to enable some cool animations, when moving, opening, closing, minimizing and restoring app windows in Ubuntu with default GNOME Desktop.

All the animations here are handled by GNOME shell extensions, meaning they will also work in Fedora Workstation, RHEL 9, and other Linux with GNOME desktop.

NOTE: These animations will consume more energy and system resources. It’s NOT recommended for laptop running without power supply, and lower end PC with very old CPU and low memory.
Continue Reading…

In Howtos Gnome

Install Google Earth in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04 (Step by Step)

Last updated: May 31, 2024 — 3 Comments

This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install Google Earth Pro or Enterprise Client in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 20.04

Today we can use Google Earth easily in web browser or mobile phone. For those still need a desktop app, it’s easy to install in Debian/Ubuntu through:

either Google’s official apt repository (native .deb packages),
or Flatpak package, that runs in sandbox environment.

Choose either one that you prefer, though both run in only amd64 (Intel/AMD) CPU architecture.

In Howtos Google Earth

Automatically Create, Delete, Write to Files on Startup in Ubuntu

Last updated: October 6, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to automatically create, delete files/folders, and/or write parameters into config files at startup in Ubuntu and other Linux using systemd.

This can be useful if some configuration do not persistent and reset to default on every boot, or you want to clean up something either on every boot or after every time period.

Advanced users can manually create a script, and run it via either crontab schedule task or custom systemd service. But, here I’m going to show you how to do the trick using tmpfile.d, a built-in configuration for creation, deletion and cleaning of volatile and temporary files.

In Howtos ubuntu 24.04

Install HandBrake Video Transcoder 1.8.0 in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: May 27, 2024 — 1 Comment

This is a step by step guide shows how to install the most recent Handbrake video transcoder 1.8.0 in Ubuntu 24.04 and Ubuntu 22.04. There’s also an option for those who are stick to the old Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04, and Ubuntu 16.04.

Handbrake is a popular free open-source tool for converting video from nearly any format, including DVD video (disc or ISO image), Matroska MKV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS. It has presets to easily output to Android, Apple, Chromecast compatible, and various other devices. And, it supports hardware acceleration to speed up transcoding using Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD GPUs.

The most recent version so far is HandBrake 1.8.0, that features GTK4 port for Linux, FFV1 video encoder (and new preset “Preservation FFV1”), TrueHD audio encoder, VP9 tunes, multi-pass CQ with VP9, and various other changes. See the release note page for details.