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Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat is Available to Download

Last updated: April 25, 2024 — Leave a comment

Ubuntu 24.04, code-name Noble Numbat, is finally released!

It’s a new Long Term Support (LTS) release with 5 years of support until 2029, and another 7 years of support through ‘Ubuntu Pro’ (can be enabled in welcome or Software & Updates dialog).

Meaning users of Ubuntu 24.04 can keep receiving security updates until 2036!

Ubuntu 24.04 features Linux Kernel 6.8, and it will keep updating to new kernel series in next point releases. The new kernel introduced Intel Shadow Stack, and stable Intel Meteor Lake graphics support. KVM now allows up to 4096 vCPUs. And, there are many other new features as well as hardware support, see this page for details.

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Audacity 3.5.0 Released! Cloud Saving, Beat Detection & Pitch Shifting

Last updated: April 25, 2024 — 2 Comments

Audacity, the popular free open-source audio editor, release version 3.5.0 (then 3.5.1 with quick-fixes) few days ago.

Audacity 3.5.0 is a major release with new features. They include a new cloud-saving feature. By going to menu ‘File -> Save To Cloud …’, user can save Audacity project to audio.com via a free account. So, user can access the project from any other devices, and/or share and collaborate with others.

NOTE: this feature does NOT work in my PPA package, since it’s built with Debian upstream rule that disables network access! If you do prefer this feature, please leave comment below, or use the official AppImage package instead.

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MPV 0.38.0 Released with Zooming in/out Shortcut (Ubuntu PPA)

Last updated: April 19, 2024 — Leave a comment

MPV, the popular free open-source media player, announced new 0.38.0 release few days ago!

The release improved --deinterlace with auto value, and --deinterlace-field-parity to automatically turn on deinterlacing. It can improve the overall clarity, sharpness of the video, by converting interlaced video (commonly found in analog television, VHS, Laserdisc, digital television (HDTV)) into a progressive form.

Without using config file, users can now press and hold Ctrl key then use mouse wheel scrolling to zoom in or zoom out the video playback.

Ctrl + Mouse Wheel to zoom in/out

In News media player, mpv

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Beta is Out for Testing

Last updated: April 12, 2024 — Leave a comment

Ubuntu 24.04, code-name Noble Numbat, is finally available for Beta testing after a week of delay.

Ubuntu 24.04 is long term support (LTS) release with 5-year of support. By enabling Ubuntu Pro, user can get 7 years more security updates. Meaning that Ubuntu LTS has 12 years of support!

The new LTS features GA Kernel 5.8 and GNOME Desktop 46.

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Kodi 21 “Omega” Stable Officially Released! [How to Install]

Last updated: April 8, 2024 — Leave a comment

After more than a year of development, Kodi media player 21, code-name “Omega”, is finally released!

Kodi 21 is a new major release. It’s now based on FFmpeg 6.0, that features Radiance HDR image support, VAAPI decoding and QSV decoding for 10/12bit 422, 10/12bit 444 HEVC and VP9, MediaCodec decoder, and various other exciting new features, see ffmpeg.org for details.

For macOS, the release supports HiDPI (retina) displays using its native implementations for window displays. And, it fixed crash on speech recognition activation, improved window resizing when moving (or fallback when display disconnected) from one display to another, and implemented Hotkeycontroller for media keys.
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In News Kodi, media player

Ubuntu 24.04 Beta Delayed Due to XZ Open Source Attack

Last updated: April 3, 2024 — 2 Comments

The Beta release of Ubuntu 24.04, Noble Numbat, has been pushed to April 11, 2024, one week after the previous date (April 4, 2024)!

It’s because an attack publicly disclosed on March 29, 2024.

An attacker using the name “Jia Tan” installed a backdoor into liblzma library. It’s a part of xz, which happens to be a dependency of OpenSSH in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. The backdoor sends hidden commands at the start of an SSH session, allowing the attacker to run an arbitrary command on the target system without logging in.

Russ Cox, Google’s Golang developer, post a page talking about timeline of the xz open source attack. According to the post, “Jia Tan”, the attacker, started contributing to xz since October 2021, and became a maintainer since the second half of 2022.

Attack began on 2024-02-23, and Debian Unstable, Ubuntu 24.04 (Dev), Fedora 40 Beta and Fedora Rawhide have been affected.
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In News ubuntu 24.04

Flowblade Video Editor 2.14 Adds Editable Titles, Slowmo Playback & USB Shuttle

Last updated: March 31, 2024 — Leave a comment

Flowblade video editor released new major 2.14 version few days ago with exciting new features!

Flowblade is a free open-source multi-track non-linear video editor for Linux, that features built-in G’Mic Tool, batch encoding, and GPU accelerated (Vaapi and NVENC) video encoding.

The new major 2.14 version was released last Friday. It features initial USB jog/shuttle support, so far with following 3 devices support:
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Kodi Announced Discontinuation of its Ubuntu PPA

Last updated: March 30, 2024 — Leave a comment

The popular Kodi media player (formerly XBMC) finally discontinued its official PPA for Ubuntu users.

Meaning that there’s no official Kodi .deb package any more. Users are recommended to use Flatpak package instead!

Ubuntu PPA is a popular way to host up-to-date versions of software packages in .deb package format. And, Wolfgang Schupp has been maintaining the Kodi Team PPA for many years for Ubuntu users. The last version stuck at Kodi 20.2, though there are still add-on updates now and then.

Now, the developer team officially announced the discontinuation of the PPA:
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In News Kodi, XBMC media center

Fedora Linux 40 Beta is Released

Last updated: March 27, 2024 — Leave a comment

Fedora Linux announced the Beta release of the next version 40 one day ago on Tuesday!

Fedora is a popular free open-source Linux Distribution owned by Red Hat, which acts as an upstream release for CentOS Stream and RHEL. It features Iot, Cloud, Server, CoreOS, and Workstation defaults to GNOME (and other Desktops as spins).

Like Ubuntu, Fedora has 2 releases every year, but each has only about 13 months support! The next is Fedora 40, which now is in Beta stage!

Fedora 40 Workstation Beta

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Blender 4.1 Released! New Nodes, Faster Performance and Python 3.11

Last updated: March 27, 2024 — Leave a comment

Blender, the popular free open-source 3D creation software, announced new 4.1 major release this Tuesday.

Blender 4.1 introduced new geometry nodes, including Index Switch, Musgrave, Split to Instance, Sort Elements, Rotate Rotation, Active Camera. It replaces mesh “Auto Smooth” option with a modifier node group asset, adds support for Blackbody shader node, new Manage panel in Geometry Nodes modifier.
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