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Kid3 Audio Tagger 3.8.6 Released with Qt 6 Support [PPA]

Last updated: March 21, 2021

Kid3 audio tag editor 3.8.6 was released a few days ago with new features and important bug-fixes. PPA has updated for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 20.10.

Kid3 3.8.6 adds support for building with Qt 6. And it now provides a nicer default style for Windows users.

The new release features:

  • adds sub tracks support in Discogs import
  • Integration test for Amazon import
  • Removed TrackType.org import.
  • Fix crash when using id3lib in 64-bit Windows.

How to Install Kid3 3.8.6 in Ubuntu via PPA:

The official Kid3 PPA has made the new packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Linux Mint 20.

1. Open terminal either from application launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ufleisch/kid3

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

2. If an old version was installed, upgrade Kid3 using Software Updater:

or run commands one by one in terminal to install or upgrade to the latest tag editor:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install kid3-qt

You may replace kid3-qt with kid3 in the code for KDE integration, and/or with kid3-cli for the command-line interface.

Uninstall

To remove the PPA repository, either open Software & Updates -> Other Software tab and remove the relevant line, or run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ufleisch/kid3

To remove the audio tag editor, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove kid3 kid3-*
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Oracle Java 16 Released, How to Install it in Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, 20.10

Last updated: September 15, 2021

Oracle Java 16 was announced as a short release with 6-month support. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10 via PPA.

UPDATE: Oracle Java 17 has been released as the new LTS (Long Term Support Release). This tutorial also works for the new release!

New features in the release include:

  • Vector API (Incubator)
  • Enable C++14 Language Features
  • Migrate from Mercurial to Git
  • Migrate to GitHub
  • ZGC: Concurrent Thread-Stack Processing
  • Unix-Domain Socket Channels
  • Alpine Linux Port
  • Elastic Metaspace
  • Windows/AArch64 Port
  • Foreign Linker API (Incubator)
  • Warnings for Value-Based Classes
  • Packaging Tool
  • Foreign-Memory Access API (Third Incubator)
  • Pattern Matching for instanceof
  • Records
  • Strongly Encapsulate JDK Internals by Default
  • Sealed Classes (Second Preview)

The “Linux Uprising” team ppa has made the installer script, which automatically downloads and installs Oracle JDK 16 package, and sets Java 16 as the default Java version (setting JAVA_HOME, etc.) on 64-bit Ubuntu based system.

1.) Open terminal and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linuxuprising/java

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

2.) After adding PPA, refresh system package cache and install the script:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install oracle-java16-installer

For Java JDK 17, replace the package name so the command will be:

udo apt install oracle-java17-installer

Once the package is installed, you have to accept the license (press Tab to highlight) before starting the download process.

And after installed Oracle Java 16, check via java --version command:

(Optional) To uninstall the PPA repository, run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:linuxuprising/java

And remove Oracle Java 16 if you want by running command:

sudo apt-get remove oracle-java16-installer
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How to Install 0 A.D. Alpha 24 via Another PPA in Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10

Last updated: March 16, 2021

0 A.D., a free open-source real-time strategy video game, released Alpha 24 “Xšayāršā” a few weeks ago. Here’s how to install the game in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10 via PPA.

0 A.D. Alpha 24 new features in breaf:

  • Balancing adjustments
  • Building snapping
  • Renderer improvements
  • Hotkey editor
  • Formation improvements
  • Status effects (and modifiers)
  • World population setting
  • Lobby improvements
  • In-game user interface (GUI) improvements
  • Unit behaviour improvements
  • Reinforcement-learning interface
  • Art: new models
  • New Skirmish maps

How to Install 0 A.D. Alpha 24 in Ubuntu:

The game has an official PPA, which is however not updated for the new release almost a month after the release date.

For choice, xtradeb games PPA has made the package for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Linux Mint 20.

1.) Open terminal from system application menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/play

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

2.) Then either install the game package via command:

sudo apt install 0ad

or update from an old release via Software Updater.

How to Remove 0 A.D.

As the PPA also contains many other game packages (e.g., openra, speed dreams, warzone2100, etc), you may remove it via Software & Updates tool under Other Software tab.

To remove 0 A.D. package, just run command:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove 0ad 0ad-data
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How to Install SoundConverter 4.0.x in Ubuntu 20.04 & 22.04

Last updated: December 16, 2023

SoundConverter is a nifty audio file converting software for Linux Gnome. Here’s how to install the latest version via PPA in Ubuntu.

SoundConverter is a simple and fast Gnome sound conversion software with multi-threading support. It reads anything GStreamer can read, and writes to Opus, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, AAC, and MP3 files.

It can also be used to automated re-naming filenames and creating folders according to tags, extract the audio from videos.

Ubuntu includes the software package in its main repositories, however the package version is always old.

If you want to install the most recent 4.0.x version with latest bug-fixes and improvements, the “xtradeb packaging” team maintains the packages for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04.

1. Add the PPA:

Firstly open terminal either from system application launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When terminal opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps

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

2. Install or upgrade SoundConverter:

After adding the PPA, you can either install the sound converter via command:

sudo apt install soundconverter

Linux Mint users may need to run sudo apt update first to update package cache.

or upgrade it via update manager (Software Updater) if an old package version exist.

Once installed, open it from your system application launcher. Add audio file or folder, click the gear button to set result folder, format, quality etc, and convert!

3. (Optional) How to Remove SoundConverter:

The PPA contains also many other software packages, e.g, Shutter, GNU Cash, Avidemux. You may want to remove it after installation, by going to Software & Updates -> Other Software.

And remove the sound converter if you want by running command:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove soundconverter
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Show Spotify Playing Song on Top Bar in Ubuntu 20.04 via Extension

Last updated: March 10, 2021

For Spotify users, you can add the currently playing song name displayed on the top panel in Ubuntu 20.04 via Gnome Extension.

There’s a Gnome Shell Extension called ‘Spotify Song Label’, which adds the current playing song as well as artist in the top bar.

It can be placed in the left, center, or right of the top panel, with options to change left / right padding. And it has ability to toggle between Spotify window and last focused app.

How to Install Spotify Song label Extension:

1.) Firstly make sure chrome-gnome-shell package is installed. And for the configuration tool (see the previous picture), install the gnome-shell-extension-prefs package:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell gnome-shell-extension-prefs

2.) Go to the extension web page and turn on the toggle icon to install it.

Don’t see the toggle icon? Click the link which says “Click here to install browser extension” to install browser extension and refresh the web page.

That’s it. To change the extension settings, use either Gnome Tweaks or Extensions you installed via step 1.

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[Quick Tip] Single Command to Rotate a Video in Ubuntu Linux

Last updated: August 25, 2025

Got a video playing upside down? Here’s an easy way to rotate it via a single command in Ubuntu.

There are a few video players, e.g., SMPlayer, support for rotating by 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise during video playback.

If you want to make it permanent by exporting video rotated, besides using a heavy video editing tool, e.g., Pitivi and Openshot, the single command in this tutorial may help.

An upside down video

1. Install FFmpeg:

Firstly install FFmpeg if you don’t have it. FFmpeg is a large suite of libraries and programs for handling multi-media files and streams.

It is very popular and most likely already installed on your system, if you have any audio, video, and other multimedia relevant applications installed.

To make sure, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

2. Command to rotate video:

Now you can run the single command to rotate a video:

ffmpeg -i input-video.mp4 -vf "transpose=1" -acodec copy output-video.mp4

Before this command, you may first navigate to the video folder either via cd command (e.g., cd ~/Videos), or in file browser go to the folder and right-click blank area and select “Open in Terminal”.

In the command, the number in “transpose=1” can also be:

  • 0 – means rotate by 90 degrees counterclockwise and flip
  • 1 – means rotate by 90 degrees clockwise
  • 2 – means rotate by 90 degrees counterclockwise
  • 3 – means rotate by 90 degrees clockwise and flip

(Thanks to Roman Sheydvasser) Add -c copy (or -codec copy) will copy all the frames instead of doing decode -> filter -> encode process. It will speed up the command quite a lot!

In my case, the command is:

ffmpeg -i ~/Videos/aisha.mp4 -vf "transpose=1" -acodec copy ~/Videos/aisha-rotated.mp4

This command however will re-encode the video. Depends on the video size and your CPU, the process may take a few minutes.

Optional

The last command can take quite a few minutes since it needs to re-encode the video. As a workaround, user can use this command instead to do the rotation in the metadata.

ffmpeg -i input-video.mp4 -map_metadata 0 -metadata:s:v rotate="90" -codec copy output-video.mp4

The command is fast and will work for video players (such as VLC and MPV) that support can handle rotation metadata.

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How to Change the Icon Size in Default File Browser in Ubuntu

Last updated: March 6, 2021

The default size of files and folders in Nautilus file browser does not meet you need? It’s easy to change it in all current Ubuntu releases with Gnome.

Though you can’t find how to configure it either in the System Settings or Gnome Tweaks, Ubuntu do provide an option to set an even larger or smaller icon size, and here’s the quick tip shows you how.

Change File & Folder Size via Single Command:

If you’re familiar with Linux command, you can run a single command to change the size.

Since Nautilus displays files and folders in either icon view or list view, the command can be either:

1.) Change icon size in icon view:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view default-zoom-level 'large'

Here value ‘large’ can be changed to: ‘small’, ‘standard’, ‘larger’, or ‘largest’.

2.) Change icon size in list view:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.list-view default-zoom-level 'large'

Here value ‘large’ can be changed to: ‘small’, ‘standard’, or ‘larger’.

To reset the change, either run command:

gsettings reset org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view default-zoom-level

or run:

gsettings reset org.gnome.nautilus.list-view default-zoom-level

Change file folder icon size via graphical tool:

Firstly open Ubuntu Software, search for and install dconf editor (or install dconf-editor via apt):

Then launch the tool and navigate to “org/gnome/nautilus/icon-view/default-zoom-level” for the icon size in icon view:

  • Turn off ‘Use default value’
  • Then select a size from ‘Custom value’

For the list view mode, go to “org/gnome/nautilus/list-view/default-zoom-level”.

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LibreOffice 7.1 Finally Available to Install via Ubuntu PPA

Last updated: March 2, 2021

The official LibreOffice Fresh PPA finally made the LibreOffice 7.1 packages for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 20.10.

LibreOffice, Ubuntu’s default office suite, released version 7.1 almost a month ago. The new release features new Additions Dialog to better integrate extensions, new User Interface select dialog, new widget with styles preview in tabbed Notebookbar.

LibreOffice Math gets full support of HTML colors, and new examples in Element pane. The Writer application features faster find/replace, a new Style Inspector, and better detection of Unicode in documents. LibreOffice Impress gains new animation presets and adds “Pause/Resume” and “Exit” buttons.

How to Install LibreOffice 7.1 via Ubuntu PPA:

For Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Linux Mint 20, firstly open terminal and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa

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

After that, open Software Updater and you’ll see the package updates for office suite after checking for updates.

Just install all the updates and done!

How to Restore:

For any reason, you can restore the office suite to the original pre-installed version, by running command in terminal to purge the PPA:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:libreoffice/ppa
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How to Install Blender 2.92 in Ubuntu 20.04, 20.10 via PPA

Last updated: June 9, 2021

For those prefer installing apps via the classic apt method, you can now install Blender 2.92 via PPA in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and also Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04.

The open-source 3D modeller software Blender 2.92 was released a few days ago. Features “a completely new workflow for editing meshes, new physics simulation methods, faster Cycles rendering, better compositing with Eevee, and so much more.”

Blender offers official Snap package, which runs in sandbox, and is available to install directly from Ubuntu Software. As well, a Linux portable package is available to download in its website. For those prefer the classic deb packages, Thomas Schiex’s PPA has made it for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 20.10 uses.

1. Add Blender PPA:

Firstly open terminal from system application launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

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

The PPA does not support for Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04, but another PPA do! It however requires a few more PPA for updated libaries, see the PPA description for detail.

2. Install or update Blender:

If you have an old version of Blender packages installed via apt method, open Software Updater (Update Manager) and update the software:

Or run commands in terminal to install / update the package:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install blender

3. Fix missing libLLVM-6.0.so.1 issue:

Blender 2.92 does not start in my Ubuntu 20.04, and it outputs an error when running from terminal:

/usr/lib/blender/blender: error while loading shared libraries: libLLVM-6.0.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

This can be easily fixed by running command:

sudo apt install libllvm6.0

Not sure if the problem exists in Ubuntu 20.10, but libllvm6.0 is not available in the Groovy repository.

Uninstall:

To remove the Ubuntu PPA, open Software & Updates and go to Other Software tab, then remove the relevant line.

To remove Blender installed via apt, run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove blender
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How to Install Kodi Media Center 19.0 in Ubuntu 20.04/18.04

Last updated: February 20, 2021

The Kodi media center 19.0 now is available to install via its official Ubuntu PPA.

Kodi 19.0 “Matrix” is a new major release for the open-source home theater software. Though it’s not officially announced at the moment of writing, the PPA packages has been updated, available for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, Linux Mint 20.x and derivatives.

What’s New in Kodi 19.0:

There are many new features in the release. And here are some big changes:

  • AV1 Codec support.
  • New color for subtitles and ability to change opacity.
  • static HDR10 and dynamic Dolby Vision HDR support.
  • Move to Python 3 for addons.
  • New functions in the PVR.

How to Install Kodi 19.0 via PPA:

Open terminal either from system app launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run following commands one by one to get the new release packages.

1. Add Kodi PPA.

To add the official Kodi PPA, run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

Type user password when it asks, with no asterisk feedback, and hit Enter to continue.

2. Install / Update Kodi.

The Software Updater utility will prompt you to run a “partial upgrade” since the dependency packages switched from Python 2 to Python 3. So it’s recommended to install or upgrade Kodi by running terminal commands.

Firstly refresh system package cache, if you’re on Ubuntu 18.04, via command:

sudo apt update

Then install Kodi via command:

sudo apt install kodi

If you’re going to upgrade Kodi, the previous command may not update the add-ons, so I recommend to run apt upgrade instead:

sudo apt upgrade

How to Downgrade:

You can purge the Ubuntu PPA as well as downgrade Kodi to the stock version available in Ubuntu main repositories. To do so, run command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
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