The Ubuntu team announced the Beta release of Ubuntu 25.04, code-name Plucky Puffin, on Mar 27.
The final release of Ubuntu 25.04 is expected on April 17, 2025. It’s a short term release with 9-month support until Jan 2026.
Archives For News
Free open-source software updates and Linux news
Flowblade, the free open-source MLT video editor, released new 2.20 version few days ago.
For native Wayland support, the new release of this Linux video editor moved to SDL2 (Simple DirectMedia Layer 2.0) video playback for Flatpak package and all systems with MLT 7.30+.
Zorin OS, the beginner friendly Linux Distribution for users switching from Windows, released new 17.3 version on March 26.
The new Zorin OS is still based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with official support until 2027. It features Kernel 6.8 and a customized GNOME Desktop (GNOME 43) with extensions for the Windows style panel (task-bar) and start menu.
Zorin OS 17.3
MPV, the popular free open-source media player, released new 0.40.0 version after half an year of development.
The new MPV release added NVIDIA RTX Video HDR support, which can be enabled by using --vf=d3d11vpp=nvidia-true-hdr option. And, HDR is now natively supported when using direct rendering (DRM) and dmabuf-wayland on Linux.
The release added new clipboard property with native backends for Windows, macOS, and Linux on Wayland, allowing for native clipboard access, which is useful for scripting.
The on-screen control now offers right-click menu options. User can now right-click on play/pause button to choose whether loop current playback or not, and right-click on volume icon to select audio device.
Right-click on volume icon to choose audio device
MPV 0.40.0 also introduced mpv:// protocol, which can be used to start mpv from web browser or anything that would trigger url handler for given protocol.
Other changes include Windows support in umpv helper script, support for HDR metadata, as well as:
- Add select.lua options for watching history, edition, DVD/Blu-Ray titles.
- New positioning.lua script for cursor-centric zooming and drag to pan
- Support for wp-color-management-v1 protocol and support xdg-activation on Wayland.
- Update console.lua with persistent command history
- New
--playlist-extsand--archive-exts - And more. See the github releases page for details.
How to Install MPV 0.40
MPV does not provide official packages. It however offers links to the source code, and unofficial Windows, macOS, and Linux packages in its website via the link below:
For Ubuntu 22.04 (without libmpv), Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 24.10, I’ve built the new release package into this unofficial PPA with amd64 (AMD/Intel) and arm64/armhf (e.g., RasPi) platforms support.
To add the PPA and install mpv 0.40 from it, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run commands below one by one:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/mpv
sudo apt update
sudo apt install mpv
(Optionally) you may remove the PPA by using command:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/mpv
And remove the mpv package if you want via command:
sudo apt remove --autoremove mpv
Just a week after the 3.0.0 major release, GIMP announced the first maintenance update for the 3.0 series on this Sunday.
The new image editor release fixed more than a dozen of bugs, improved the official installers, updated translations, and introduced 2 new download mirrors for users from India.
Linux Kernel 6.14 was released yesterday on Monday! Linus Torvalds announced it in lkml.org:
So it’s early Monday morning (well – early for me, I’m not really a morning person), and I’d love to have some good excuse for why I didn’t do the 6.14 release yesterday on my regular Sunday afternoon release schedule.
I’d like to say that some important last-minute thing came up and delayed things.
Blender, the popular free open-source 3D computer graphics software, announced new 4.4 release few days ago.
The new release added many exciting new features, improved performances, and fixed over 700 issues.
GNOME Desktop 48 was officially released on Wednesday! The developer team announced it in GNOME website:
The GNOME project is excited to introduce GNOME 48, a fresh release shaped by six months of hard work from our amazing community. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who contributed to making this happen!
OpenJDK and Oracle announced the General Availability of JDK 24 this Tuesday.
Java 24 (Oracle JDK 24) delivers thousands of improvements to help developers maximize productivity and drive innovation. In addition, enhancements to the platform’s performance, stability, and security help organizations accelerate their business growth.
After more than 4 years of development, GIMP image editor 3.0 finally goes stable!
GIMP 3.0 is a new major release! Here are the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu users in 3 different ways:
- Flatpak package runs in sandbox environment.
- AppImage package, no installation required.
- Ubuntu PPA (unofficial) with native
.debpackage.
