News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
Free open-source software updates and Linux news
GNU Emacs text editor released new 30.1 version on Sunday with many new features.
Emacs is finally ported to Android operating system. Though, it requires to be compiled on another computer with Android NDK, SDK and Java compiler. See the “INSTALL” file under java sub-folder of the source for details.
The second point release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released! Ubuntu Team announced it yesterday afternoon:
As usual, this point release includes many updates and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-severity bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Many free open-source apps/projects got updates in past week. They include KDE Plasma 6.3 features panel clone and pixel perfect KWin zoom, GNOME 48 Beta with screen time and HDR settings support.
There are as well GIMP 3.0 RC3 with official AppImage support, Go lang 1.24 features full generic type aliases, and TLP 1.8.0 that supports charging threshold for DELL, Chromebook, and Framework laptops.
Wallpaper competition for the upcoming Ubuntu 25.04, Plucky Puffin, is open! Top 6 winner images will be shipped in the official iso image!
This time submissions are separated into 3 categories: Mascot Theme, Digital / Abstract Art, and Photography. Top 2 voted images in each category will appear in the background settings page in Ubuntu 25.04.
image from https://discourse.ubuntu.com/
KDE announced the first maintenance update for Plasma 6.3 just a week after it was originally released.
As you may know, Plasma 6.3 introduced new feature to resize or move the area of drawing tablet. However, some Linux Distributions are NOT supported due to outdated libinput library. The new release updated the UI to better handle the un-supported cases.
HandBrake video transcoder released new 1.9.1 version a few days ago. Here are the changes and native .deb packages for Ubuntu users.
The new HandBrake 1.9.1 contains primarily bug-fixes. It fixed FFV1 pixel format selection when an hardware decoder is used, causing incorrect bit depth output.
GNOME 48, the Linux desktop environment that will be default for Ubuntu 25.04 & Fedora 42 Workstation, now is in Beta stage.
The release team announced it just a few hours ago in GNOME Discourse, along with an installer image for testing and porting extensions.
GNOME added experimental HDR support since version 44. It’s a technology allowing to transmit high dynamic range videos and images to compatible displays. In GNOME 48, GCC (GNOME Control Center) finally has a toggle option in the Display setting page to turn on/off this feature.
gThumb, the free open-source image viewer and organizer designed for GNOME, released new version 3.12.7 a few days ago.
Like past few releases, gThumb 3.12.7 includes only minor new features, bug-fixes, and translation updates. For WebP image format, the release can now save the EXIF data, meaning the metadata about camera settings, date and time, and location etc information.
Also for WebP images, gThumb can also read the ICC profile (if available), which is a set of data that characterizes a color input or output device like a monitor or printer.
Other changes include using configured JPEG file format for video screenshot (gThumb support audio/video playback through extension), translation updates and following bug-fixes:
gThumb 3.12.7 has been made into Ubuntu 25.04 repository, while the app package in current Ubuntu releases’ repositories is old.
There’s no pre-build official packages. User may choose to either compile the app from source tarball, or use community maintained packages such as Flatpak and Ubuntu PPA.
gThumb is available to install as Flatpak package for most Linux, though it runs in sandbox.
NOTE: The gThumb Flatpak package is at v3.12.6 at the moment of writing, check the link above before installing.
Debian/Ubuntu user may first enable Flatpak support by running command below in a terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T):
sudo apt install flatpak
Then, install the Flatpak package via the single command below:
flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gnome.gThumb.flatpakref
After that, either search for & launch it from start menu (may need a log out and back in), or run the command below to start it from terminal:
flatpak run org.gnome.gThumb
For Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 24.10, I’ve uploaded the new release packages in native .deb format into this unofficial PPA.
User may just press Ctrl+Alt+T to open up a terminal window, then run commands below one by one to add PPA, update cache, and install/update gThumb:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gthumb
NOTE: For Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 20.04, there’s NO jpeg-xl support in the PPA package, as the run-time library is not available in system repositories until 24.04.
To uninstall the gThumb Flatpak package, use command:
flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.gnome.gThumb
Then also run flatpak uninstall --unused to clear useless runtime libraries.
For the PPA package, run the command below instead to uninstall:
sudo apt remove gthumb gthumb-data
Also run command to remove the PPA repository:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
TLP, the laptop battery power saving tool, released new 1.8.0 version few days ago!
The new release add battery charge threshold support for new laptops, including Chromebooks, DELL, and Framework laptops.
With Linux Kernel 6.12 or later, TLP 1.8.0 finally supports for setting start and stop battery charge threshold for DELL laptops.
image from pixabay.com
After 6 months of development, Go language announced new 1.24 release few days ago on Tuesday.
Go 1.24 now fully supports generic type aliases. Type aliases, a concept introduced in Go 1.9, allows to create a new name for an existing type without creating a new type. Previously, it didn’t support type parameters. But this changed in Go 1.24. See more about generic type aliases.
