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Archives For November 30, 1999

Liferea Feed Reader Can Now Convert TinyTinyRSS Sources to Local Subscriptions

Last updated: December 10, 2021

Liferea feed reader and news aggregator released version 1.13.7 a few days ago as the latest development release.

Liferea is a GTK+3 news reader with an embedded web browser. It supports for reading articles offline, force fetch full article text using HTML5 extraction, and subscribing to HTML5 websites that do not even have a feed.

It may also permanently save headlines in news bins, and supports for synchronizing with “TinyTinyRSS”, “TheOldReader”, and “Reedah”.

The 1.13.7 release continues working on the ‘Reader mode’. User now can toggle on/off Reader mode by right-clicking on lower right HTML view area via context menu option. And, it now allows to convert TinyTinyRSS subscriptions to local scriptions.

Other changes in Liferea 1.13.7 include:

Support for user-agent string customization and anonymization.
Add ‘Always show in Reduced Feed List’ option in news bin properties.
Execute feed pipe/filter commands asynchronously.
Fix HTML view blanking when following links by left click
Fix UI blocking when using command pipes or feed filters
Fix truncated content after Youtube embeds
Fix wrong (doubled) number of unread items
And other fixes, translation and documentation updates.

How to Install Liferea in Ubuntu Linux:

The RSS feed reader is available to install via universal Flatpak package.

Some users stick to the native deb package, so I uploaded it into may personal PPA for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10 and derivatives, e.g., Linux Mint 20. Due to outdated dependency library, Ubuntu 18.04 is not supported in this PPA.

1. Add the Ubuntu PPA:

First, either search for and open terminal from start menu, or simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

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

2. Install / Upgrade Liferea:

Since Ubuntu 20.04+ checks package updates automatically while adding PPA, you can now run command to install the feed reader:

sudo apt install liferea

or launch ‘Software Updater’ and upgrade the package from an old release. NOTE: some Ubuntu based systems may require to manually update cache via sudo apt update command first.

How to Remove Liferea and the Ubuntu PPA:

The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it after installing Liferea, by either running command:

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

or using “Software & Updates” utility under “Other Software” tab to manage all third-party repositories.

And to remove Liferea feed reader, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove liferea

In Howtos Feed Reader

How to Install Haguichi (Graphical App for LogMeIn Hamachi) in Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04

Last updated: December 9, 2021

Use LogMeIn Hamachi VPN service? Haguichi is a graphical app to make easy to join, create and manage Hamachi networks in Linux.

Haguichi is a free and open-source app that provides a stylish GTK UI for the official Hamachi for Linux. It has both dark and light window mode that shows a searchable and sortable network list in the left and details and actions in the right.

It’s well integrated with the Gnome desktop with notifications and system tray indicator applet, and make it easy to backup and restore configuration, as well as manage customize commands via Preferences dialog. And, it supports a list of keyboard shortcuts to make network and command actions more efficient.

Also, it’s being developed to fit well in other desktop environments (e.g., MATE, Cinnamon, KDE) including app theme, icon set, file manager and terminal support.

How to Install Haguichi in Ubuntu:

The app has official PPA so far contains the latest packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, and Ubuntu 21.10.

Besides modern 64-bit desktop PC and laptop, the PPA also supports arm64/armhf CPU architectures (e.g., Apple Silicon and Raspberry Pi)

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:ztefn/haguichi-stable

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

2. Update system package cache:

While Ubuntu 20.04 and higher update system package cache automatically during adding PPA, old Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and some Ubuntu based systems need to do it manually by running command in terminal:

sudo apt update

3. Install Haguichi:

Finally, use command to install the app:

sudo apt install haguichi

By keeping the PPA, user may always has the app up-to-date either via Software Updater or by running sudo apt upgrade regularly.

4. Install Hamachi for Linux:

As a graphical front-end, the app needs the official command line client to work properly. Just download the “amd64.deb” for PC or “armel/armhf.deb” for ARM device from the link below:

Download Hamachi for Linux

Then install the deb via your favorite package manager (usually double-click .deb package will bring up default package installer).

How to Install Haguichi in other Linux:

The app is also packaged for other Linux systems. Arch Linux may get it from AUR. Fedora has the copr repository. And it’s available in official openSUSE repositories.

For Debian, Raspberry Pi OS and Kali Linux, there’s another official PPA repository present. Though it’s built against Ubuntu Bionic (18.04), and user may run commands below one by one to properly add PPA and install Haguichi.

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ztefn/haguichi-debian/ubuntu bionic main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/haguichi-debian.list'

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys EB75B0EBE2C821AC

sudo apt update

sudo apt install haguichi

The app also is available as universal Flatpak app to work on most Linux systems.

How to remove Haguichi:

To remove the app, simply run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove haguichi

And, remove PPA either via command below:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ztefn/haguichi-stable

Or use the ‘Software & Updates’ utility under Other Software tab.

As well, you may remove the hamachi client as you mind via command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove logmein-hamachi

In Howtos VPN

This Extension Reproduces Old Fashioned Desktop Cube in GNOME 40 / 41

Last updated: December 8, 2021

Remember the old fashioned Desktop Cube effect? Almost 10 years ago, Ubuntu user may enable this Compiz effect, so press and hold Ctrl+Alt key and drag the mouse will turn Desktop into a rotatable cube.

Desktop Cube effect in Ubuntu 12.04

Now there’s an extension to reproduce this effect in GNOME 40 & 41. Which means, users of Ubuntu 21.10, Fedora Workstation 35, or Arch Linux so far may try out this cool 3D effect in their desktop.

The extension is now in early stage. User may not so far rotate the “cube” for an entire round, but it’s working on new features including:

Free rotation of cube via middle mouse button.
Proper multi-monitors support.
Sky boxes.
Cuboid transitions when switching workspaces via keyboard shortcuts.
And more.

How to Install Desktop Cube Extension:

Ubuntu users need to press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal, and run command to make sure chrome-gnome-shell package is installed:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

Then, go to the extension web page and turn on the slider icon to install it:

Install Desktop Cube Extension

If you don’t see the toggle icon, click the link says’Click here to install browser extension‘ to install browser extension and refresh the web page.

Once installed, either press Super/Windows key or click ‘Activities’ to trigger overview, then switch workspaces via Ctrl+Alt+Arrow to start the effect.

NOTE: To get better effect, it’s better to have more than 3 workspaces. Just open or move a window to the second workspace, it will create a new workspace automatically. Or, install and open Gnome Tweaks and set a static number of workspaces:

Uninstall Desktop Cube extension:

To remove the extension, just go to the extension web page via the button above and turn off the slider icon.

Or, search for and install ‘Gnome Extensions‘ app in Ubuntu Software (Gnome Software) and use the tool to manage extensions.

In Howtos Gnome

Firefox 95 Released! Available in Microsoft Store & New Sanboxing Technology

Last updated: December 7, 2021

Mozilla Firefox web browser 95.0 was released today with security and performance improvements.

The release introduced new RLBox sandboxing technology that uses WebAssembly to isolate potentially-buggy code. And, it’s enabled by default on all platforms (desktop and mobile) to protect users from accidental defects as well as supply-chain attacks.

For Windows 10 and Windows 11, Firefox now is available in Microsoft Store for easy install. MacOS user now has less CPU usage during event processing, and less power usage when decoding video (e.g., streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime Video).

Firefox in Microsoft Store

Other changes in Firefox 95 include:

Picture-in-Picture (pop out video) now has option to toggle buttons to left/right.
Enable site isolation for all users to protect against side-channel attacks such as Spectre.
Faster content process startup on macOS.
Improved page load performance.
Various bug-fixes.

How to Get Firefox 95 in Ubuntu Linux:

For Ubuntu 21.10 with the pre-installed Firefox as Snap, user should now has the latest release since it updates automatically. Other Ubuntu releases may search for and install it from Ubuntu Software (snapcraft.io/firefox).

For those prefer the classic DEB package (defaults in Ubuntu 21.04 & earlier), just wait and Ubuntu will publish the package in next few days. At that time, either use ‘Software Updater‘ or run command below will upgrade the Firefox package:

sudo apt upgrade

Mozilla also provides Linux tarball in its website. User may just extract it and click run the executable file to launch the web browser. Along with the release note, get it from the link below:

Firefox 95 Release Note & Download

In Howtos web

How to Install Latest Tesseract OCR 5 in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: November 16, 2024

This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Tesseract OCR engine in all current Ubuntu releases (Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 20.04) via PPA.

Tesseract is the most accurate open-source OCR engine that reads a wide variety of image formats and converts them to text in over 40 languages. Tesseract 5.0.0 was officially released a few days ago that features:

Faster training and OCR performance while less memory usage via ‘fast bloats’.
Support for latest macOS and Apple Silicon
Better ARM/ARM64 support.
API improvements and more.

How to Install Tesseract OCR in Ubuntu:

The optical character recognition engine is available in Ubuntu repositories though it’s always old.

Thanks to Alexander Pozdnyakov, the maintainer of Tesseract OCR in Debian/Ubuntu official repository, also maintains few PPAs with the latest packages. And, most CPU architectures (amd64, i386, arm64/armhf, ppc64el, s390x) are supported.

Option 1: Add Tesseract 4.x PPA

For the latest release of Tesseract OCR 4 (v4.1.3 so far), the stable PPA contains the packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and old Ubuntu 16.04/14.04.

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alex-p/tesseract-ocr

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

Option 2: Add Tesseract 5 PPA

The new 5.x release series is available in the another PPA for Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 20.04.

Also, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alex-p/tesseract-ocr5

NOTE: install the OCR from this PPA will override the old 4.x packages, though it’s not 100 % API compatible with v4.0.

Option 3: Add Tesseract repository for Debian:

For Debian Stretch, Buster, Bullseye, and Sid, there’s apt repositories for both Tesseract v4 and v5. Along with Ubuntu 21.10 users may follow the link button below to add the repository:

Tesseract repository for Debian

Update and Install Tesseract:

After adding a PPA or repository from the previous options, run command in terminal to refresh system package cache in case you’re still running old Ubuntu 18.04 and earlier:

sudo apt update

And, finally install the software engine via command:

sudo apt install tesseract-ocr

Or, upgrade the package using Software Updater:

How to Remove PPAs & uninstall Tesseract OCR:

To remove the PPAs, either run previous add-apt-repository command with --remove flag, or use Software & Updates utility under ‘Other Software’ tab.

To remove OCR engine, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-*

You may also remove the libtesseract* package, which will however remove other app packages (e.g., gImageReader) that depends on it.

In Howtos Tesseract-ocr

How to Install the Latest Blender in Ubuntu via Official Linux Tarball

Last updated: November 13, 2023

For those don’t like the Snap package, this is a step by step guide shows how to install latest Blender via its official Linux tarball in Ubuntu.

The latest Blender is quite easy to install in Ubuntu since it’s available in Ubuntu Software. However, it’s Snap package!

For choice, the Blender foundation provides the portable Linux tarball, but it lacks app shortcut for launching from system start menu. So, I’m writing this how to tutorial to deal with it.

NOTE: This tutorial should work on most Linux (e.g., Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint) that support .desktop file, though the title said for Ubuntu.

Install Blender via Linux Tarball:

1. Download Linux Tarball

First, go to the official download page. Click download Blender for Linux. It’s a 64-bit tarball ‘blender-x.x.x-linux-x64.tar.xz‘ for modern PC/laptop:

Download Blender

After downloading the package, extract, and finally click run the executable file will launch the 3D creation software.

If you want to make it show in system start menu (Activities overview search results), you need to do following more steps.

2. Extract Tarball to /opt for global use:

Here I’m going to extract the tarball to /opt directory and create app shortcut for Blender.

1.) Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to backup old blender folder under ‘/opt’ if any:

sudo mv /opt/blender /opt/blender.back

Ignore ‘No such file or directory’ output. It means you don’t have old file to backup.

2.) Create new blender folder under /opt:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/blender

3.) Extract Blender tarball from Downloads folder to the new created folder:

sudo tar -Jxf ~/Downloads/blender-*-linux-x64.tar.xz --strip-components=1 -C /opt/blender

NOTE: Instead of running the commands above in terminal, user may decompress the tarball in file manager and move source folder to desired location. However, moving to /opt needs root permission. So, open file manager via sudo nautilus ~/Downloads command is required

3. Verify if the Blender executable works:

After extracting the Linux tarball into /opt/blender. User may run command to list that directory to verify:

ls /opt/blender

And, run this command should launch the software:

/opt/blender/blender

Sometimes, app may refuse to launch due to missing shared library. If so, copy the library name and search in packages.ubuntu.com under ‘Search the contents of packages’ to find out the required package and install it.

4. Create app shortcut for Blender:

The Linux tarball includes the shortcut file by default, though it won’t work since PATH to executable varies depend where you put the folder. Run command in terminal to open the file via gedit text editor:

sudo gedit /opt/blender/blender.desktop

For Ubuntu 22.10+, replace gedit with gnome-text editor in command. For non-GNOME desktop, use mousepad for XFCE, xed for cinnamon, or nano command line editor works for most cases.

When it opens, change the ‘Exec’ and ‘Icon’ lines into:

Exec=/opt/blender/blender %f
Icon=/opt/blender/blender.svg

Then, save the file. For nano text editor, press ctrl+x, hit y and then Enter to save it.

Edit Blender Desktop file

Finally, copy the file to either ‘.local/share/applications’ for single user use, or ‘/usr/share/applications’ for global use:

sudo cp /opt/blender/blender.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Here I copied the app shortcut file to local folder for single user use. And, the app icon shows in ‘Activities’ overview search result immediately. Though, it’s better to change the ownership to yourself.

sudo chown $USER:$USER ~/.local/share/applications/blender.desktop

NOTE: If you still have old Blender package in system, there may be duplicated app icons.

Remove Blender:

To uninstall Blender installed via previous steps, simply remove the folder under /opt directory via command:

sudo rm -R /opt/blender

And remove the app shortcut file via:

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

In case you didn’t change the ownership, add sudo at the beginning to get pass permission issue.

In Howtos blender

Fix Slow Shutdown ‘systemd-shutdown[1]: waiting for process: crond’ Issue

Last updated: December 3, 2021

My Ubuntu laptop recently runs into a power-off issue. Every time when I shutdown or reboot the machine, it stuck at blank screen with text message “systemd-shutdown[1]: waiting for process: crond” for more than a minute.

According to the keyword ‘crond‘, it has something to do with the cron schedule job. And, thanks to this thread, user may run the command below to list all current schedule cron jobs:

find /etc/cron* -type f | xargs  ls -ltr

And there you’ll find that the schedule job ‘/etc/cron.d/collect‘ tries to run an unknown crond binary under ‘/var/tmp’ every 10th minute (e.g., 5:10, 5:20, 5:30 …). So the problem may not occur when shutdown/reboot within a few minutes after login.

The /var/tmp directory stores temporary files or folders that are preserved between system reboots. According to @bird7676 in that thread, the files were probably created by Free Download Manager.

Solution:

If you don’t use and have removed the Free Download Manager, simply remove these temporary files as well as the schedule job.

To do so, either use a system cleaner (e.g., BleachBit), or press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run command below to remove the files:

sudo rm /etc/cron.d/collect /var/tmp/crond /var/tmp/bs

If the app is important for you, you may run ‘mv‘ command to move the files to another location or backup unfinished downloads before deleting them.

NOTE: while the binary may be still running though you have removed the file, you may need to shutdown/reboot twice to check if the problem is fixed.

In Howtos systemd

Vivaldi Browser 5.0 Adds Built-in Translation, New Theme Editor

Last updated: December 2, 2021

Vivaldi web browser released version 5.0 today with exciting new features.

The release makes it easy to change the app UI appearance via themes. Vivaldi comes with some themes with different colors, background image, blur, transparency and other settings. User may edit or create new theme easily with the built-in editor.

Vivaldi built-in themes & editor

And in ‘Themes’ setting page, it provides option to export theme into zip archive. So your friends may easily get the same Vivaldi appearance by opening the Zip archive in settings.

The browser now has built-in translation support powered by Lingvanex. By clicking on the icon from left panel, user may translate any text selection to the native language automatically by enabling ‘Auto-translate selected text’ option.

And according to the release note, only Vivaldi servers are involved, meaning you don’t have to share what you read with Big Tech’s ‘prying eyes’.

Other change in Vivaldi 5.0 include:

Additional way of showing downloads.
Provide rpm packages for ARM / ARM64.
Two-Level Tab Stacks on mobile and tablets.
Handle page actions as commands
Add parameter to search with selection command: to specify search engine
Add option to not show Calendar notifications.
Add Oauth support for Office365/Outlook in built-in Mail.

How to get Vivaldi:

The official download page offers Linux DEB for both 64-bit PC and arm64 machines (e.g., Raspberry Pi).

Download Vivalid

Vivaldi also has an official apt repository, with it you can install the browser and get future updates through Software Updater utility.

Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by searching for terminal from application menu. When it opens, run following commands one by one:

1. Download and install the repository key:

wget -qO- https://repo.vivaldi.com/archive/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -

Typer user password when it prompts and hit Enter to continue.

2. Add Vivaldi repository via command:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://repo.vivaldi.com/archive/deb/ stable main'

3. Finally check updates and install the web browser via command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install vivaldi-stable

Or upgrade from an old version via Software Updater utility.

In Howtos web

Pin App Shortcuts to Ubuntu Desktop as easy as in Windows 10 via Extension

Last updated: December 1, 2021

Adding an app shortcut icon to the Desktop in Ubuntu is not that easy for beginners by default. User has to first open the folder that stores the app shortcut files (usually /usr/share/applications). Then drag and drop the .desktop files into user’s “Desktop” folder. Make executable in file properties dialog and finally select ‘Allow Launching‘ via context menu option.

To make life easier, a Gnome extension is available to make the process to create a desktop shortcut for apps as easy as few clicks. Since Ubuntu uses full-screen app launcher, it’s not Windows 10/11 style drag and drop adding desktop icons. Instead, it adds ‘Add to Desktop‘ option to app icon’s context menu.

Like in Linux Mint and/or Zorin OS, user just needs to search the app in ‘Show Applications’ or ‘Activities’ overview screen, right-click on the app icon, and finally click ‘Add to Desktop’ to pin to desktop.

Install ‘Add to Desktop’ Extension:

1. To install a Gnome extension, first press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run command to make sure the ‘chrome-gnome-shell‘ package is installed.

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

2. Next go to extension web page via the link button below and turn on the toggle icon to install it:

Add to Desktop Gnome Extension

Don’t see the toggle icon? Install browser extension via ‘Click here to install browser extension‘ link and refresh the web page.

NOTE: The extensions support for all recent Gnome versions, so it works on all current Ubuntu releases including Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10. For other Linux with GNOME (e.g., Debian, Fedora), user needs to enable desktop icon support first (e.g., using Desktop Icon NG).

The extension should work immediately after installation. If not, try restarting Gnome Shell by either logging out and back in, or pressing Alt+F2, type r and hit Enter in ‘Run a Command’ box.

That’s all. Enjoy!

In Howtos Gnome

How to Install Lazarus IDE in Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, 22.04

Last updated: October 9, 2023

This is a step by step guide shows how to install the Lazarus IDE in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and their derivatives, e.g., Linux Mint, Elementary OS and more.

Lazarus is a free Delphi compatible cross-platform IDE for rapid application development using the Free Pascal compiler. User may install the project either from Ubuntu repository or by using the official DEB packages.

Lazarus IDE in Ubuntu

Option 1: Install Lazarus via Ubuntu repository:

Ubuntu includes Lazarus in its own repositories, but it does not provide updates for the package. So the package will always be old, though Ubuntu 21.10 has v2.0.12, most recent release at the moment.

The good side is that user may install the package on 64-bit modern PC, old 32-bit PC on Ubuntu 18.04, and/or arm64/armhf devices (e.g., Apple silicon and Raspberry Pi).

To install the package, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit Enter:

sudo apt install lazarus

This command will install Lazarus, fpc compiler, as well as all other required packages:

Once installed, search for and open the IDE from activities overview and enjoy!

Option 2: Install Lazarus via its official DEB packages:

The IDE provides official Linux packages available to download at the sourceforge.net. You can always get the latest version from the link button below, though it’s only provides packages for modern 64-bit and old 32-bit PC.

Lazarus 64-bit DEB

Lazarus 32-bit DEB

The official deb packages are made up of:

fpc-laz – the Compiler, some command line tools, base units and non visual components like database access
fpc-src – the sources of fpc and its packages, needed for code browsing
lazarus-project – the IDE, visual components and help files

Grab all the 3 packages. Then, open file manager and go to ‘Downloads‘ folder, right-click and choose ‘Open in Terminal‘ to open terminal with that folder as working directory. Finally, run command to install them:

sudo apt install ./fpc*.deb ./lazarus-project*.deb

NOTE: the official package conflicts with the one in Ubuntu own repository. Though the IDE supports for having multiple package versions in same system, installing Lazarus via either way in this tutorial will remove another (if any) automatically.

And it will prompt to either upgrade or downgrade configuration when switching between different app versions on first startup.

Uninstall Lazarus:

To remove the Lazarus IDE, run command below in terminal will do the trick for the software installed via both methods.

sudo apt remove --autoremove lazarus lazarus-project fpc-*