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Ubuntu 24.04 Aims to use Thunderbird Snap as Default

Last updated: February 8, 2024 — 1 Comment

Like Firefox, Thunderbird email client in Ubuntu is going to be replaced as a Snap app runs in sandbox.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, is working on porting core apps to Snap package format in recent years. Firefox, Chromium (in system repository), and Ubuntu Software (App Center) are now Snap apps in current Ubuntu releases. Next will be probably Thunderbird!

Canonical has built Thunderbird as Snap package for a period of time. It’s a re-pack of the upstream binary, only available for amd64 (Intel/AMD CPUs), as alternative package for the pre-installed .deb package.

Just one day ago, the Ubuntu Desktop team announced that the Thunderbird Beta Snap now is building from source instead of repacking. Meaning it can be built on other CPU architecture types, such as arm64 and armhf.

And, the Thunderbird Snap built from source aims to be default in next Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

We are aiming at using the snap built from source instead of the deb in Noble. (the reasons are the same than for Firefox, making it easier to roll new versions on older supported series and reducing the maintenance efforts).

Meaning in future, there will be (mostly) NO .deb package for the Thunderbird email client in Ubuntu repository!

Thankfully, those who prefer the classic .deb to Snap can use the Mozilla Team PPA instead, which is maintained by members from Ubuntu Developer Team.

For more about the Thunderbird package format transition, see it in discourse.ubuntu.com.

In News thunderbird, ubuntu 24.04

Arduino IDE 2.3 Released, Debug Feature Goes Stable

Last updated: February 8, 2024 — 1 Comment

The Arduino team announced the 2.3 release of the Arduino IDE this Wednesday.

Since v2.3, the debug feature is now stable and fully incorporated into the IDE! It’s now based on a standard framework, and enabled for all the Arduino boards based on the Mbed™ core, include GIGA R1 WiFi, Portenta H7, Opta, Nano BLE and Nano RP2040 Connect.

Maintainers of Arduino cores can now add debugging for any board. And, the upcoming release of the Arduino-ESP32 core will support the new debug framework!

Continue Reading…

In News Arduino IDE

How to Install GO (golang 1.23) in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: September 23, 2024 — 3 Comments

Go programming language announced the new 1.23 release on 13 August, 2024! Here’s the new features and how to install guide for Ubuntu & other Linux.

What’s New in Go 1.23:

The “range” clause in a “for-range” loop now accepts iterator functions of the following types: func(func() bool), func(func(K) bool), func(func(K, V) bool).
preview support for generic type aliases
Add All, Values, Backward, Collect, AppendSeq, Sorted, SortedFunc, SortedStableFunc, Chunk functions in slices package.
Add All, Keys, Values, Insert, Collect functions in maps package.
Add new structs package provides types for struct fields that modify properties of the containing struct type such as memory layout.
Go toolchain is possible to collect usage and breakage statistics
New go env -changed, go mod tidy -diff flags
Setting the GOROOT_FINAL environment variable no longer has an effect.
The go list -m -json command now includes new Sum and GoModSum fields
The go vet subcommand now reports symbols that are too new for the intended Go version.
New iter, structs, unique packages.
supports the new godebug directive in go.mod and go.work files
time.Timer and time.Ticker no longer referred to by the program become eligible for garbage collection immediately
the timer channel associated with a Timer or Ticker is now unbuffered, with capacity 0.

See the announcement for more changes in Go 1.23.

In Howtos, News golang

Deepin 23 Released Beta 3 with AI Plugin, More i386 Devices Support

Last updated: February 3, 2024 — Leave a comment

Deepin, the popular Linux Distribution from China, announced the last Beta of version 23 this Friday!

Deepin is a Linux Distro so far based on Debian ‘Stable’ branch, features Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE) that is built on Qt toolkit. It’s a free open-source system that has a very attractive desktop appearance.

Start in version 23, which is still in development, Deepin is going to be independent Linux Distribution. In the beta, it’s no longer depends on Debian or any other Linux, but still uses .deb and apt for installing and managing software packages.

The installer for Deepin 23 Beta3 is improved to be adaptive for different screen resolutions, including 768P, 1080P, 2K, and 4K. It added drivers support for certain i386 devices support, though without 32-bit download at the moment, due to human and resource limit.

The release introduced UOS AI plugin, available in system tray. User can communicate with it using text or voice. And, it can answer user questions and generate images based on user description.

In News Linux Deepin

OnlyOffice Desktop Editors 8.0 Released with RTL, PDF Password Protection

Last updated: February 3, 2024 — Leave a comment

OnlyOffice, the popular free open-source office suite, announced new 8.0 release this Friday.

The release introduced one of the most awaited features, RTL support. It now supports bidirectional text in documents and presentations. But, RTL input is partially available with some limitations, since it’s still in Beta. In the settings page, user can enabled RTL interface with a checkbox, then restart the app to apply.

The new 8.0 release also added local interface themes support. Besides the built-in light, classic light, dark, and contrast dark, there’s now a “Add local theme” option to apply a custom interface using local JSON file.

In News office, OnlyOffice

LibreOffice 24.2.0 Released! New Version Numbering Scheme

Last updated: February 1, 2024 — Leave a comment

LibreOffice, the popular free open-source office suite, announced a new major release this Wednesday.

It’s LibreOffice 24.2.0, the first release introduced the new calendar-based numbering scheme (YY.M). Meaning it’s release in February, 2024.

The release added better support for Qt-based UI variants. It automatically switches to dark app color and dark icon theme for KDE Plasma when the desktop is set to dark style.

In News LibreOffice

Budgie Desktop 10.9 Released! Redesigned Bluetooth, Initial Wayland Port

Last updated: January 31, 2024 — Leave a comment

Budgie desktop announced the new 10.9 release this Monday! See what’s new in the free open-source desktop environment.

Budgie is a popular desktop environment that default in Ubuntu budgie, and optional in Debian, Fedora, Arch, Manjaro Linux, etc.

The most recent version 10.9 was released few days ago. It features initial port to Wayland, which is already default in Ubuntu, Fedora Workstation, and other Linux (such as Debian 12) with recent GNOME desktop.

It adopts XFCE’s libxfce4windowing library to make the transition from X11 to Wayland. And, in the release the Show Desktop applet, Alt+Tab window switcher, and Workspace applet have been ported to the new library.

Budgie 10.9 also takes into use the budgie-session. It’s a softish fork from GNOME session 44.x.

As you may know, GNOME is going to drop X11 session. The developer, Jordan Petridis, has submit the request in project page. To retain the X11 session until switch Budgie to being Wayland-only, the budgie-session is being in use to take place.

Another change in the release is the redesigned bluetooth applet. Instead of using an older version of gnome-bluetooth, the applet now directly communicates to BlueZ and UPower over D-Bus.

And, the applet now provides direct connect/disconnect functionality for paired devices, battery life indicators, as well as functionality for sending files to Bluetooth devices.

Image from https://buddiesofbudgie.org/

How to Get Budgie Desktop 10.9

For more changes about the new desktop release, see the official release note.

To get the new desktop release, it’s better to wait your Distribution to package the updates. And, Arch Linux has already done the job.

For Ubuntu users, just keep an eye on the Ubuntu Budgie Team PPA.

In News budgie desktop

Ubuntu 23.04 is Reaching End of Life Today

Last updated: January 25, 2024 — Leave a comment

Ubuntu 23.04, code-name ‘Lunar Lobster’, will be soon no longer supported!

Ubuntu 23.04 was released on April 20, 2023 with 9-month support circle. And, today January 25, 2024 is the last day it’s officially supported according to the announcement.

Meaning that Ubuntu developer team will no longer publish any security and package updates for users of Ubuntu 23.04. Also, third-party repositories and Ubuntu PPAs will mostly stop updating packages for 23.04.

There are security risks of using end-of-life system, so it’s better to either upgrade to Ubuntu 23.10, which is supported until July 2024, then upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 (with 5 years support) a few months later.

Or, re-install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS that is supported until 2027, plus 5 years of expanded security maintenance.

To download the latest Ubuntu images, go to ubuntu.com/download.

To upgrade Ubuntu 23.04 to Ubuntu 23.10, either see the official guide or this step by step guide. It’s IMPORTANT to make backup, since upgrade might fail due to various reasons!

In News ubuntu 23.04

Firefox 122.0 Released with new .deb package for Debian/Ubuntu

Last updated: January 24, 2024 — 1 Comment

Mozilla announced new 122.0 release for its free open-source Firefox web browser this Tuesday!

This is a new monthly release that include minor new features. For Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and their based systems, Firefox now provides official .deb packages through an apt repository.

Meaning now, there are 5 official ways to install Firefox in Ubuntu Linux:

Snap package (pre-installed in Ubuntu 22.04+)
New apt repository (maintained by Mozilla)
MozillaTeam PPA (maintained by Ubuntu Team members)
Portable Linux tarball (maintained by Mozilla)
Flatpak package (verified by Mozilla)

Besides providing .deb package for the Stable release, the apt repository also includes the packages for Beta, Nightly, and Dev versions of the popular web browser.
Continue Reading…

In News Firefox, web

UVC Webcam/Camera Software Guvcview 2.1.0 Released (Ubuntu PPA)

Last updated: January 23, 2024 — Leave a comment

Guvcview, the free open-source tool for capturing image/video and dynamically controlling UVC camera and webcam devices, released version 2.1.0.

It’s a GTK3 and Qt5 application that provides both graphical interface and command line options to control your webcam or camera.

With it, you can change the brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, white balance (gamma), sharpness, backlight compensation, etc settings for your webcam.

Besides the dynamic control of UVC (USB Video Class) camera/webcam, it also allows to capture video with control of frame rate, filters such as mirror, invert, pieces, blur, etc. Also, capture audio with sample rate, latency, and filters including echo, reverb, fuzz, wahwah, and ducky.

In Howtos, News camera, webcam