News | UbuntuHandbook

Archives For News

Free open-source software updates and Linux news

[How-to-Install] SuperMario-Like Game SuperTux 0.4.0 Released

Last updated: December 22, 2015

SuperTux, a classic Super Mario-like 2D jump ‘n run sidescroller game, has reached the 0.4.0 release, a new STABLE release since 0.1.3 after more than 10 years of development.

Compared to 0.1.3, this release features:

a nearly completely rewritten game engine based on OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL2, …
support for translations
in-game manager for downloadable add-ons and translations
Bonus Island III, a for now unfinished Forest Island and the development levels in Incubator Island
a final boss in Icy Island
new and improved soundtracks and sound effects
new badguys, bonuses and power-ups (air-, earth- and ice-flower)
a halloween tilemap
new graphic effects (glowing objects, particles, …)
levels and worldmaps are scriptable using squirrel
much more game objects: trampolines, switches, portable stones, wind, moving platforms, … – most of them have scripting APIs
improved statistics
many invisible changes, like unit tests, efficiency improvements and more bugfixes
much more..

Compared to the latest beta, 0.3.5a, SuperTux 0.4.0 features updated translations, many bugfixes, more levels, and much more. See the release notes for details.

How to Install SuperTux 0.4.0 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, the new release has been made into the official Ubuntu repositories, just search for and install the game via Software Center.

For Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 14.04, and Mint 17.x, run below commands one by one in terminal to install it from third-party PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install supertux supertux-data

For those who don’t want to add PPA, grab the .deb packages from links below:

1. First download and install supertux-data for both 32-bit & 64-bit:

supertux-data for Ubuntu 15.10

supertux-data for Ubuntu 14.04

2. Then install the .deb package for supertux:

supertux for Ubuntu 15.10: 32-bit | 64-bit

supertux for Ubuntu 14.04: 32-bit | 64-bit

In Howtos, News Supertux

Firefox 43.0 Released, How to Upgrade in Ubuntu

Last updated: December 16, 2015

Mozilla Firefox web browser has reached the 43 release on Tuesday, available for upgrade in Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and their derivatives.

What’s new in Firefox 43:

Private Browsing with Tracking Protection offers choice of blocking additional trackers
Improved API support for m4v video playback
Firefox 64-bit for Windows is now available via the Firefox download page
Users can choose search suggestions from the Awesome Bar
On-screen keyboard displayed on selecting input field on devices running Windows 8 or greater
Firefox Health Report has switched to use the same data collection mechanism as telemetry

Also various security fixes and developer improvements are included in this release. See the release note.

How to Install / Upgrade:

Canonical has made the new release into the updates & security repositories for all current Ubuntu releases.

To install it, just run Software Updater and click install available updates after checking for updates:

Don’t see it in the list? Launch Software & Updates, select download from ‘Main Server’ and make sure the security and updates repositories are enabled in Updates tab.

In Howtos, News Firefox

Install KeePassX 2.0 in Ubuntu 16.04, 15.10, 14.04

Last updated: August 4, 2016

KeePassX, a native Linux port of KeePass password manager, finally reached the 2.0 release after several years of development.

KeePassX 2 has been rewritten from scratch. It uses the new .kdbx (same as KeePass 2) database format. You can import your .kdb database from 0.4 series from menu Database > Import KeePass 1 database.

New features include:

Multiple attachments per entry
Add custom key/value pairs to entries
Open multiple database in one window

For more details, see official release note.

How to Install KeePassX 2 in Ubuntu:

The official KeePassX PPA does not update at the moment, but a third-party PPA has built the KeePassX 2.0 for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 15.04, and ~~Ubuntu 14.04 LTS~~.

1. Add PPA

Open terminal from Unity Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, paste below command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:eugenesan/ppa

Update: The 14.04 package so far is broken in the eugenesan/ppa. Use this PPA instead with yubikey support:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hda-me/keepassx2-yubico

Type in your password when it asks (no visual feedback just type in mind) and hit Enter to continue.

2. After that, upgrade KeePassX by running Software Updater. Or run below commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install keepassx

For those who don’t want to add PPA, grab the .deb installer directly from HERE.

3. (Optional) As a third-party PPA, it also contains many other applications. You may remove the PPA after installation by either using Software & Updates -> Other Software tab, or running below command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:eugenesan/ppa && sudo apt-get update

In Howtos, News KeePass, KeePassX, password manager

Lightweight PDF Viewer ‘MuPDF’ 1.8 Released [How-to-Install]

Last updated: November 12, 2015

MuPDF, a free, open-source, and lightweight PDF and XPS viewer, now reaches the 1.8 release with new features, improvements and various fixes.

MuPDF is a lightweight PDF viewer and toolkit written in portable C, which also reads XPS, OpenXPS and EPUB documents. It works on Windows, Android, and Linux.

The renderer in MuPDF is tailored for high quality anti-aliased graphics. It renders text with metrics and spacing accurate to within fractions of a pixel for the highest fidelity in reproducing the look of a printed page on screen.

What’s New in MuPDF 1.8:

Headline changes:

New OpenGL-based barebones desktop viewer.
New URW fonts with greek and cyrillic.
64-bit file support.
Ghostscript proofing mode (source only; not in shipped binaries).

EPUB improvements:

User style sheets.
GIF images (also for CBZ).
Table of contents.
CJK text.
Page margins.
Many bug fixes.

Bug fixes:

Updated FreeType to version 2.6.1.
Various font substitution bug fixes.
Fix setjmp/longjmp behaviour which could cause optimizing compilers to misbehave.

In addition, mudraw has been merged into mutool, use mutool draw to use mudraw.

How to Install MuPDF 1.8 in Ubuntu:

There are Android, Windows installers, and source tarball available in its official download page.

For Ubuntu and derivatives, you can either build the viewer from the source or use my personal binaries in PPA.

Method 1:

Open terminal from Unity Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run below commands one by one to add my PPA and install MuPDF:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mupdf mupdf-tools

Method 2 For those who don’t want to add PPA:

Depends on your Ubuntu edition (e.g., 15.10, 15.04, 14.04, and 12.04), and OS type (i386.deb for 32-bit and amd64.deb for 64-bit)

select download the .deb packages for mupdf and mupdf-tools from the link below:

MuPDF in PPA page

Finally click install the packages via Ubuntu Software Center.

How to Use:

The PDF viewer doesn’t have a launcher. To use it, right-click on the file and select it from the “Open With” option.

To set default, go to file’s context menu -> Properties -> Open With tab -> select MuPDF from list -> finally click ‘Set as default’ button.

For mouse behavior and key bindings run man mupdf command in terminal.

Uninstall:

You may remove the PPA by launching Software & Updates and then navigate to Other Software tab. Also remove MuPDF via Ubuntu Software Center if you want.

In Howtos, News MuPDF, pdf viewer

Firefox 42 Now Is Available for Upgrade in Official Repository

Last updated: November 5, 2015

Mozilla Firefox 42.0 was finally released one day ago. Now it’s available in Ubuntu official repositories for Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04, and their derivatives, e.g., Linux Mint 13/17, and Elementary OS Freya/Luna.

Firefox 42.0 features:

Private Browsing with Tracking Protection blocks certain Web elements that could be used to record your behavior across sites
Control Center that contains site security and privacy controls
Indicator added to tabs that play audio with one-click muting
WebRTC improvements:
- IPV6 support
- Preferences for controlling ICE candidate generation and IP exposure
- Hooks for extensions to allow/deny createOffer/Answer
- Improved ability for applications to monitor and control which devices are used in getUserMedia
Login Manager improvements:
- Improved heuristics to save usernames and passwords
- Edit and show all logins in line, Copy/Paste usernames/passwords from the Context menu
- Migration imports your passwords to Firefox from Google Chrome for Windows and Internet Explorer; import anytime from the Login Manager
Improved performance on interactive websites that trigger a lot of restyles
HTML5
- Implemented ES6 Reflect
- Support ImageBitmap and createImageBitmap()
- Media Source Extension for HTML5 video available for all sites
DEVELOPER:
- View HTML source in a tab
- Remote website debugging over WiFi (no USB cable or ADB needed)
- Asynchronous call stacks now allow web developers to follow the code flow through setTimeout, DOM event handlers, and Promise handlers.
- Configurable Firefox OS Simulator in WebIDE, to simulate reference devices like phones, tablets, even TVs
  CSS filter presets in the Inspector
- Ability to save filter presets inside CSS Filter Tooltip
And also various security fixes.

How to Upgrade Firefox:

To upgrade the browser in Ubuntu, just launch Software Updater (or Update Manager for Linux Mint).

After checking for updates, you should see Firefox Web Browser available in the list.

Install it and done!

In News Firefox

QupZilla 1.8.7 Released, QtWebEngine Version Is Under Development

Last updated: October 13, 2015

QupZilla, an open-source Qt web browser, has reached the 1.8.7 release with enhancements and various bug-fixes.

QupZilla 1.8.7 is still using QtWebKit. New version QupZilla 2.0 will be using QtWebEngine, and it’s now under development. Changes in the 1.8.7 release:

save pinned tabs per-window when set to restore session
Shift+Left click on links now opens link in new window
show web inspector action now toggles inspector
add button to create new userscript in GreaseMonkey
add “Anti-Adblock Killer” AdBlock subscription
add Ctrl+G and Ctrl+Shift+G shortcuts in search toolbar
fix enabling select all and find actions in menu
fix searching for strings with special whitespaces from locationbar
fix build with KF5 KWallet, Qt 5.5 and gcc 4.9.
fix crash when blocking popup window with AdBlock
fix icon animation when blocking popup window with AdBlock
fix incorrectly accepting some cookies
fix creating new config directory
fix saving settings without changing pages in SpeedDial
fix center dials option in SpeedDial
fix not escaping characters for (file, ftp) dir listings
fix not showing restore page when opening new url from cli
fix adding search engine from form on page with Qt 5
fix saving homepage/new tab urls from preferences
Linux: use run-time detection of X11 platform

How to Install / Upgrade QupZilla in Ubuntu:

For all current Ubuntu releases, there’s an official PPA repository for QupZilla browser. Follow below steps to add the PPA and install/upgrade the latest browser:

NOTE: The new release is not ready for upgrade at the moment. CHECK OUT THE PPA PAGE.

1. Add QupZilla PPA.

Open terminal from the Unity Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run below command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:nowrep/qupzilla

2. If have a previous release installed, run Software Updater (or Update Manager) to upgrade the browser once a new release is out and made into PPA.

Or, run below commands one by one in terminal to refresh system repository cache and install/upgrade the browser:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install qupzilla

In News QtWebEngine browser, Qupzilla web browser

Final Beta of Ubuntu 15.10 Available for Download

Last updated: September 29, 2017

The final beta of Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf was released a few hours ago, features images from not only the Ubuntu Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, but also the Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio, and Xubuntu flavours.

The final release of Ubuntu 15.10 is planned for release on 22 October. It will be supported for 9 months for Desktop, Server, along with all other flavours.

Ubuntu 15.10 Beta2 include Kernel 4.2.1 and features:

Kubuntu: Plasma 5 and KDE Applications 15.08
Lubuntu: another bug fixes for LXQt, replace iBus with Fcitx.
Ubuntu Gnome: Gnome 3.16, experimental wayland session available (install gnome-session-wayland)
Ubuntu MATE: Migration MATE 1.10 is complete.
See more at fridge.ubuntu.com

Upgrade to Ubuntu 15.10 from Ubuntu 15.04:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WilyUpgrades

Download Ubuntu 15.10 and flavors:

Ubuntu 15.10: http://releases.ubuntu.com/15.10/

Kubuntu 15.10: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/15.10/

Lubuntu 15.10: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/15.10/

Ubuntu Gnome 15.10: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/15.10

UbuntuKylin 15.10: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/15.10/

Ubuntu MATE 15.10: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mate/releases/15.10/

Xubuntu 15.10: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/15.10/

In News Ubuntu 15.10

This is the Default Desktop Wallpaper for Ubuntu 15.10

Last updated: September 19, 2015

The default desktop wallpaper for Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf, next Ubuntu release coming in October, has been released on launchpad by Will Cooke.

The wallpaper is made from Alex Milazzo in the Design team. It looks not all that different from the previous 15.04’s wallpaper.

Ubuntu 15.10 default wallpaper

Below is the Ubuntu 15.04 default wallpaper:

Ubuntu 15.04 default wallpaper

The wallpaper image, png8 and png24 in 4096 x 2304 available for download at the link below:

Ubuntu 15.10 default wallpaper

In News Ubuntu 15.10

Upgrade to Firefox 40 in Ubuntu 15.04, 14.04

Last updated: August 12, 2015

Mozilla Firefox 40 was released yesterday and available for upgrade in Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 12.04 repositories.

Release highlights according to the official release note:

Support for Windows 10
Added protection against unwanted software downloads
User can receive suggested tiles in the new tab page based on categories Firefox matches to browsing history (en-US only).
Hello allows adding a link to conversations to provide context on what the conversation will be about
New style for add-on manager based on the in-content preferences style
Improved scrolling, graphics, and video playback performance with off main thread compositing (GNU/Linux only)
Graphic blocklist mechanism improved: Firefox version ranges can be specified, limiting the number of devices blocked
Add-on extensions that are not signed by Mozilla will display a warning
NPAPI Plug-in performance improved via asynchronous initialization
Smoother animation and scrolling with hardware vsync (Windows only)
JPEG images use less memory when scaled and can be painted faster
Sub-resources can no longer request HTTP authentication, thus protecting users from inadvertently disclosing login data
IndexedDB transactions are now non-durable by default
Implemented AudioBufferSourceNode.detune to modulate playback rate in cents, a logarithmic unit of measure used for musical intervals
Improved Performance tools in the developer tools: Waterfall view, Call Tree view and a Flame Chart view
New rules view tooltip in the Inspector to tweak CSS Filter values
Console API messages from SharedWorker and ServiceWorker are now displayed in web console
New page ruler highlighting tool that displays lightweight horizontal and vertical rules on a page
Inspector now searches across all content frames in a page
Fix that Kannada text does not display properly in built-in pdf viewer
security fixes.

How to upgrade:

The packages has been made into Ubuntu updates and security repositories. Just search for and launch Software Updater and install the updates after checking for updates:

In News Firefox

Second Alpha of Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf Released

Last updated: September 29, 2017

The second alpha of Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf has been released yesterday afternoon, features images for Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, UbuntuKylin and the Ubuntu Cloud images.

Alpha 2 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider testing. It’s based on Linux Kernel 4.1:

Kubuntu 15.10 Alpha 2: Plasma 5.3 desktop and KDE Applications 15.04.1.
LXQt is still in development, Lubuntu 15.10 Alpha 1 is set to be another bug fix release.
Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Alpha 1 added new wallpapers, Ubuntu MATE Welcome 1.0.1, updated boot splash and Mate Tweak 3.5.0.

For Ubuntu flavor developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting and fixing bugs, download Ubuntu 15.10 Alpha 2: