Archives For November 30, 1999

QMPlay2, the free open-source Qt media player, released version 24.03.16 few days ago.

QMPlay2 is a Qt based media player that uses FFmpeg as backend for most video and audio codecs support. It also supports Audio CD, raw files, Rayman 2 music and chiptunes, as well as ALSA, PulseAudio or PipeWire sound servers. And, it has built-in a browser to search & play YouTube videos.

The most recent 24.03.16 release added better support for FFmpeg 6.1, and experimental Vulkan Video decoder support. So, since this release, the media player now supports hardware accelerated video playback through following APIs:

  • Vulkan Video (needs FFmpeg 6.1).
  • CUVID (NVIDIA only)
  • DXVA2 (Windows Vista and higher)
  • D3D11VA (Vulkan, Windows 8 and higher)
  • VDPAU/VA-API (X11 for VDPAU, Linux/BSD only)
  • VideoToolBox (macOS only).

QMPlay2 YouTube browser


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GNU Octave, the free open-source application for numerical computations, released new major 9.1.0 version! Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04.

The GNU website has not yet announced the new release, but it’s available in the download page.

According to the changelog, the new Octave 9.1.0 overhauled dec2base, dec2bin, and dec2hex. They now accept negative inputs and fractional inputs.

It re-architected the inputParser function to get a 60% performance improvement. And, the perms function has been made faster. The audiowrite function now supports writing to MPEG audio formats (including MP3) if the sndfile library supports it. The current directory of oruntests now changes to the directory containing the files with the tests for the duration of the test.

The release features new functions, including isenv, ismembertol, isuniform, tensorprod.

The disable_diagonal_matrix, disable_permutation_matrix, and disable_range functions have been removed! Replacements are optimize_diagonal_matrix, optimize_permutation_matrix, and optimize_range

Operators, such as .+, .+=, **, and .**= are removed. Replacements are +, +=, +=, ^, and .^=. And, following function are obsolete:

  • idx_vector::bool()
  • all_ok(const Array&) in Array-util.h.
  • octave_base_value::count


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CopyQ, the popular free open-source clipboard manager, announced new 8.0.0 release today!

The new release features new arm64 build packages for MacOS, Debian, and Raspberry Pi. The packages for Windows and MacOS are now based on Qt6 framework. The 64-bit Windows packages now install the app to “Program Files” instead of incorrect “Program Files (X86)“. User has to remove the old path after installing the new version.

For Linux, CopyQ 8.0.0 adds cmake option -DWITH_X11=OFF to disable X11 support, and build option to disable auto-start, which is useful for Flatpak package so far does not support this feature due to permission issue.

For security, the release also disallows storing and processing data from password managers, such as KeePass, KeePassXC, 1Password, and some browsers in private mode.

CopyQ indicator and clipboard history editor

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OBS Studio, the popular free open-source live streaming app, announced new major 30.1 release this Wednesday!

The new release enabled HDR for HEVC over the RTMP protocol, AV1 HDR is not currently supported by YouTube.

OBS Studio 30.1 reworked Image Slideshow source to load files asynchronously, and fixed an issue where the slideshow would loop before showing all images. Existing Image Slideshow sources will continue functioning as before. To change them to the new version, you have to re-create them.

The release also added AV1 support for VA-API video hardware acceleration, and AV1 support for WebRTC/WHIP output.

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Kdenlive video editor released new 24.02.0 version this Monday!

The new release now takes use of Qt6 and KDE Frameworks 6 for its user interface. The port gets overall experience and better Wayland support for Linux users. And, it now runs natively on DirectX, Metal, and Vulkan respectively on Windows, MacOS, and Linux with substantial performance boost.

However, due to this change, the developer team discontinued supporting for the official PPA that contains the native .deb package for Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Now, it supports only AppImage & Flatpak for Linux.

Other downsides due to switched to Qt6 and KDE Frameworks 6 include:

  • Themes and icons not applied properly in Windows and Linux AppImage.
  • Temporarily removed audio recording feature.
  • Text not properly displays in clips in the timeline for Linux Wayland.


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Linus Torvalds announced Linux 6.8 stable as the latest Kernel series this Sunday.

For Intel, the new kernel now includes the IAA (Intel Analytics Accelerators) crypto compression kernel driver, Qualcomm WCD939X USB subsystem Altmode Mux driver. It added support for QAT 420xx devices, and Thunderbold support for next 16th gen CPUs, QAT 420xx devices. The intel_idle driver now supports ntel Meteor Lake 14th Gen CPUs. And, the issue that the maximum frequency of Core Ultra mobile processors is 100MHz less has been fixed.

AMD PMC (Power Management Controller) driver has been updated with next-gen Zen 5 CPUs support. And, the kernel  now supports AMD MicroBlaze V soft-core RISC-V processor.

Kernel 6.8 also added many new devices support. They include Samsung Exynos Auto v920, Google GS101 (Tensor G1), MediaTek MT8188, Qualcomm SM8650 (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3), Qualcomm X1E80100 (Snapdragon X Elite), and Unisoc UMS9620 (Tanggula 7), as well as new Lenovo, ASUS, and Acer Chromebooks with Mediatek MT8183 SoC.

For gaming, the kernel adds driver for Adafruit Seesaw gamepad, and supports Lenovo Legion Go and Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) controllers, as well as new gaming handhelds, such as Anbernic RG351V, Powkiddy RK2023, and Powkiddy X55.

Other changes in Linux Kernel 6.8 include:

  • Initial Rust support for LoongArch CPU.
  • 11% higher s390 (IBM Z) system call entry performance
  • Experimental Intel Xe DRM kernel graphics driver
  • Raspberry Pi 5 graphics driver support with V3D.
  • Apple M1 USB4/Thunderbolt DART support
  • Gigabyte AORUS Waterforce X240 / X280 / X360 AIO coolers. support.

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KeePassXC password manager announced the new 2.7.7 release this Sunday! Here are the new features and how to install instruction for Ubuntu.

The new KeePassXC 2.7.7 features official support for Passkeys. It’s a type of login credential, that provides a faster, easier, and more secure ways to login to websites and services without having to enter a password.

image from keepassxc website

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After almost 2 years, Cozy audiobook player, finally announced new 1.3.0 release days ago.

Cozy is a free open-source application for Linux, allows to listen to your DRM free mp3, m4b, m4a (aac, ALAC, …), flac, ogg and wav audio books.

The new release ported the UI to GTK4 plus LibAdwaita. It now looks more native, well integrated in Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux with recent GNOME Desktop, and automatically switch to dark mode when system switched to dark style.

Other changes include:

  • Improved mobile support
  • Smaller visual refinements to match the state of the art of GNOME apps
  • Dozens of bug fixes and performance improvements
  • Significant cleanup and improvements to the codebase
  • As always, updated translations thanks to all translators!

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HexChat, the popular free open-source IRC chat client, discontinued!

HexChat is a IRC chat client forked from XChat. It’s a GTK app written in mostly C programming language. Features include customizable interface, Windows and Linux support, scripting support with Lua, Python, and Perl, multi-network with auto-connect, join, and identify, and more.

By announcing the 1.6.2 release today, the developer TingPing finally discontinued working on the project, after almost 12 years of development.

This will be the last release I make of HexChat. The project has largely been unmaintained for years now and nobody else stepped up to do that work.

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Zorin OS, the popular Ubuntu based Linux Distribution, announced v17.1 this Thursday!

Like Linux Mint, Zorin OS is based on Ubuntu LTS. The latest 17.x release series is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, but features GNOME 43 desktop with custom layout.

It provides an elegant and user friendly desktop appearance targets to users who are switching from Microsoft Windows. And, features 3 editions: Pro (cost $48), Core, and Education.


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