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Kdenlive 24.02 Released! Ported to Qt6, Dropped Ubuntu PPA

Last updated: March 12, 2024 — Leave a comment

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.

In News Kdenlive, video editor

Linux Kernel 6.8 Released with New Laptops & Game Controllers Support

Last updated: March 11, 2024 — Leave a comment

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.

In News kernel

KeePassXC 2.7.7 Released with Passkeys, 1Password & Bitwarden Import

Last updated: March 11, 2024 — Leave a comment

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

In Howtos, News KeePassXC, password manager

Cozy Audiobook Player 1.3.0 Ported to GTK4 & LibAdwaita

Last updated: March 9, 2024 — Leave a comment

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!

In News

HexChat IRC Client Discontinued By Releasing v2.16.2

Last updated: March 11, 2024 — 2 Comments

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.“

In News HexChat, IRC client

Zorin OS 17.1 Released! Education Edition & Better Windows Apps Support

Last updated: March 8, 2024 — Leave a comment

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.

In News Zorin OS

Pithos Pandora Radio Client Released 1.6.2 with Few Fixes

Last updated: March 8, 2024 — 1 Comment

Pithos, the free open-source client for Pandora Radio, released new 1.6.2 version a few days ago.

Pithos is a native app for Linux desktop, allowing to listen to free music through Pandora music streaming service. It’s much more lightweight than the Pandora.com web client, and well integrated with Linux desktop that features media keys, notifications, and the sound menu.

The Pithos 1.6.2 version was released a few days ago with only few bug-fixes. They include:

Fix issue where playback would stop after a few songs
Fix album art caches never being deleted

Nothing else!

In News Pandora Radio Client, pithos

Kodi 21 “Omega” Gets Its First RC Release

Last updated: March 8, 2024 — Leave a comment

After 3 alpha and 3 beta releases, Kodi media center 21, finally announced its first RC release this Thursday.

Kodi 21 is the next major release that’s still in development. The release features upstream FFmpeg 6.0, adds support for NFSv4, support M3U8 playlist files, AVIF images, HDR10 for Android.

The developer team asks users to try out the new development release and report issues to help to make it better. And, in the current RC1 release, changes include:

Allow users to set a subtitle save path
Fix that audiobooks showing their last chapter with no duration.
For Linux, allow Pipewire to properly identify HDMI for passthrough usage.
Implement Hotkeycontroller for media keys on macOS
Some color accuracy changes for 10bit SDR/HDR color mapping on Windows.
Allows subtitles to be tonemapped to avoid extreme brightness for HDR playback on Android.
Fix for icons not being correctly refreshed
See github releases page for more.

In News Kodi, XBMC media center

GNOME 46 to Add “Variable Refresh Rate” Configure Option

Last updated: March 6, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME 46, the default desktop for Ubuntu 24.04 and Fedora 40, will finally have the option to enable Variable Refresh Rate.

Variable Refresh Rate, VRR in short, is a feature for TV, monitor, and other displays, allowing to adjust refresh rate on the fly to match the frame rate of the graphics card. Which, is useful for smoother viewing experience, and reducing screen tearing.

GNOME has the feature request for VRR support 3 years ago. It’s finally merged and planned for GNOME 46, which will be released later this month!

According to this request, it’s an experimental feature. User needs to enable it first either via Dconf Editor or gsettings tool via the command:

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['variable-refresh-rate']"

Then, log out and back in. Gnome Control Center, aka Settings, will have the option in “Displays” panel, when you click expand the “Refresh Rate”.

image from gitlab.gnome.org

Once enabled the feature, and selected your preferred value, the Refresh Rate will be displayed as “Variable (up to xxx.xx Hz)”.

In News Gnome

Ubuntu 24.04 Going to Drop the Games from Installer

Last updated: March 2, 2024 — 1 Comment

Ubuntu has a few offline games out-of-the-box. Now, the developer team is going to remove them from the installer in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Since Ubuntu 23.10, Ubuntu Desktop no longer provides ‘Minimal installation‘ option in the installer. Instead, it’s “re-named” to “Default installation” with just the essentials, web browser and basic utilities. User can choose “Full installation” option for the office, media player, games, and other app packages that’s previously installed by default in old Ubuntu releases.

Just a few days ago, the desktop team proposed to remove the games from full installation, then made the decision with wider support.

Meaning that the game packages may be completely removed from the iso image, though they are still available to install in Ubuntu Software (App Center).