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Free open-source software updates and Linux news

stunt rally 2.4 ubuntu 14.04

 

Open source racing game Stunt Rally just reached 2.4 release with lots of updates.

According to the changelog, the new release comes with all 147 tracks (6 new, 12 old deleted, some renewed), 2 new sceneries (Crystals, GreeceWhite), 3 new cars (4 renewed, 2 old deleted). Also there are a few improvements on UI and game experiences.

For detailed changes, refer to the project page.

Stunt Rally Open Source Racing Game

Install Stunt Rally in Ubuntu:

For 64-bit Linux so far (as well as Windows .exe) download the latest release from the link below and run the executable from its bin folder.

Download Stunt Rally

For Ubuntu 14.04 and Linux Mint 17, you can also get it from Playdeb repository. To do so, do below steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit enter. Type in your password when prompt.

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu trusty-getdeb games"

2. Also run command to get the key:

wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

3. Finally install the game from Synaptic Package Manager (available in Software Center) after clicking reload button to update package lists:

install-stunt-rally

DeadBeef

The lightweight Linux native music player DeaDBeeF has been updated to v0.6.2 with lots of new features, improvements and bug fixes.

DeadBeef is a fully-featured music player takes use of very few RAM. Since v0.6, it has a design mode (view -> design mode) that allows you to customize the UI the way you like.

Deadbeef 0.6.2 in Ubuntu 14.04

The latest 0.6.2 release was released days ago on August 5th with lots of changes:

  • added “Stop playback after current album finished” (Aleksejs Popovs)
  • added ALAC, OPUS, OggFlac encoder presets (Ian Nartowicz)
  • added configure option to build artwork plugin without network support
  • added new widget for muting chiptune voices
  • added support for SHIFT-JIS charset detection/recoding (off by default)
  • fixed “stop after current” bug, which required player restart on every change
  • fixed –gui command line option
  • fixed GUI seeking accuracy bug
  • fixed bug in extended frame flags conversion between ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4 tag formats
  • fixed crash when loading playlist from command line
  • fixed loading album art (APIC frame) from ID3v2.4 with data length indicator
  • fixed non-utf8 locale support in console
  • fixed support for vorbis files with more than 6 channels
  • fixed playlist count limit bug
  • fixed preserving file permissions after editing ogg files
  • fixed several bugs in PLS playlist format support
  • improved FreeBSD and OSX support
  • improved charset detection in CUE and ID3v1
  • improved album art column rendering/resizing (Christian Boxdörfer)
  • improved the build system and the output build quality
  • improved detection of config changes, to avoid unnecessary config writing
  • improved support for reading APEv2 and ID3v1 tags from large files (>2Gb)
  • updated licensing information in all plugins, to include information about all used libraries
  • aac: added workaround for 7 channel sound playback bug
  • ape: play files with format >= 4.11, improved error handling
  • artwork: many fixes and improvements, including support for non-tagged files
  • dumb: added option to configure internal volume
  • ffmpeg: fixed bitrate calculation
  • ffmpeg: fixed replaygain support
  • flac: fixed/improved many things in tag reading and writing code
  • gme: added support for loading gzipped modules from supported archives (e.g. from zips)
  • gtkui, pltbrowser: better accessibility
  • gtkui: added option to disable seekbar overlay
  • gtkui: added option to display playback state as unicode characters, instead of bitmaps (works better on HDPI screens)
  • gtkui: added support for design mode to more widgets (seekbak, volumebar, playback toolbar)
  • gtkui: fixed bug in gtk_drag_check_threshold handler
  • gtkui: numerous fixes in widget layout code
  • gtkui: single/double clicking on album art column will select/play the album/group (Christian Boxdörfer)
  • lastfm: added support for scrobbling radio streams (off by default)
  • lastfm: added support for scrobbling tracks shorter than 30 sec (off by default)
  • lastfm: improved support for musicbrainz track id
  • mms: fixed few buffer overflow bugs, improved responsiveness
  • mp3: optimized scanner: less backward seeks during frame syncing
  • shellexec: fixed escaping of single quotes, prevent opening copies of shxui dialogs
  • vfs_zip: huge speed improvements
  • vorbis, oggflac: new tagging code (Ian Nartowicz)
  • improved plugin duplicate checking
  • fixed RIFF WAVE header writing in converter
  • fixed 8bit png crash in album art plugin (Ian Nartowicz)
  • static builds now use -O3 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=0 compiler flags
  • fixed few issues with implementation of the Play button
  • improved tag writing in converter
  • fixed issues with “background jobs are running” warning
  • changed all wiki links to point to the new wiki on github
  • improved streamer event handling, to make the GUI more responsive and stable
  • fixed cleaning up downloaded temporary playlist files
  • Fixed skipping bad FLAC__METADATA_TYPE_CUESHEET blocks in FLAC
  • added support for uppercase .CUE extension
  • added “mpga” extension support (mp3)
  • fixed seeking backwards using hotkeys when in the beginning of a track

Install DeaDBeeF in Ubuntu:

Download the .deb package that matches your OS type – 32-bit (i386) or 64-bit (amd64) – from the link below:

Download DeaDBeeF .deb

Then double click the package to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and click install.

Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS Is Available For Download

Last updated: July 25, 2014

Ubuntu 14.04.1

The first point release, Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS (Long-Term-Support) for its Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, as well as other flavors, has been announced just a few hours ago.

José Antonio Rey said in the release note:

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-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Download Ubuntu 14.04.1 and its flavors:

Ubuntu 14.04.1: http://releases.ubuntu.com/trusty/

Edubuntu 14.04.1: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/trusty/release/

Kubuntu 14.04.1: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/trusty/release/

Lubuntu 14.04.1: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/trusty/release/

Mythbuntu 14.04.1: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/trusty/release/

Ubuntu Gnome 14.04.1: cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/trusty/release/

Ubuntu Kylin 14.04.1: cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/trusty/release/

UbuntuStudio 14.04.01: cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/trusty/release/

Xubuntu 14.04: cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/trusty/release/

Users of Ubuntu 12.04 will soon be offered an automatic upgrade to 14.04.1 via Update Manager. If you’re running on Ubuntu 14.04, regular update via Software Updater will bring you to this point release.

via: fridge.ubuntu.com

Nvidia 340.24 Add Support For G-SYNC Monitors

Last updated: July 12, 2014

Nvidia ubuntu 14.04

Nvidia has just announced the release of driver 340.24 for Linux with numerous improvements and fixes. One of the exciting news is the initial support for G-SYNC monitors.

Nvidia 340.24 was released on July 8th, 2014 with following changes:

  • Fixed a bug that prevented 3D Vision stereo and ultra low motion blur modes from working on G-SYNC capable monitors in some cases.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the “Allow G-SYNC” checkbox to be displayed in nvidia-settings even if the GPUs in the system are not capable of G-SYNC.
  • Fixed a kernel crash when running some applications with IOMMU functionality enabled.
  • Fixed a floating point exception in the OpenGL driver when running “Risk of Rain” under Wine.
  • Made various improvements and corrections to the information reported to GL applications via the KHR_debug and ARB_debug_output extensions.
  • Fixed a bug that caused GLX applications which simultaneously create drawables on multiple X servers to crash when swapping buffers.
  • Updated nvidia-settings to report all valid names for each target when querying target types, e.g. `nvidia-settings -q gpus`.
  • Added support for controlling the availability of Fast Approximate Antialiasing (FXAA) on a per-application basis via the new __GL_ALLOW_FXAA_USAGE environment variable and the corresponding GLAllowFXAAUsage application profile key. See the README for details.
  • Fixed a bug where indirect rendering could become corrupted on system configurations that disallow writing to executable memory.
  • Updated the nvidia-settings Makefiles to allow nvidia-settings to be dynamically linked against the host system’s libjansson. This option can be enabled by setting the NV_USE_BUNDLED_LIBJANSSON Makefile variable to 0.Please note that nvidia-settings requires libjansson version 2.2 or later.
  • Removed the runlevel check from nvidia-installer: the installation problems formerly associated with runlevel 1 no longer apply.
  • Added initial support for G-SYNC monitors.Additional details and system requirements can be found at:http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/g-sync
  • Improved support for running the NVIDIA driver in configurations where writing to executable memory is disallowed.Driver optimizations that require writing to executable memory can be forcefully disabled using the new __GL_WRITE_TEXT_SECTION environment variable.See the README for more details.
  • Fixed an X driver bug that caused gamma ramp updates of the green channel at depth 15, on some recent GPUs, to be ignored.
  • Fixed a regression, introduced in the 340.17 public beta release, that caused the NVIDIA X driver to access freed memory when exiting a GLX application that used either of the GLX_NV_video_out or GLX_NV_present_video extensions.
  •  
    Install Nvidia 340.24 in Ubuntu:

    IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’re just looking for a working drive for your Nvidia card in Ubuntu Linux, please search for and install nvidia-current in Ubuntu Software Center.

    Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, do:

    1. Remove the previous installed proprietary driver and install the latest updates-dev package. Then restart your computer

    sudo apt-get purge nvidia*; sudo apt-get install nvidia-331-updates-dev

    2. Download the driver:

    32 bit Linux | 64 bit Linux | 32 bit ARM

    Check the release note for the supported GPUs.

    3. Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (~ F6) to switch to command console and log in.

    4. Stop the graphic session by running:

    sudo service lightdm stop

    Replace lightdm with gdm or mdm if you’re using Gnome display manager or Linux Mint.

    5. Now give executable permission and run the downloaded package:

    chmod +x ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-*-340.24.run && sudo sh ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-*-340.24.run

    Follow the onscreen prompt and you’re done.

    (Optional) If for some reason the new driver does not work properly, remove it via:

    sudo sh ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-*-340.24.run --uninstall

    For easier way, wait the driver to be built into xorg edger PPA. By then, you can install it via 3 commands:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
    
    sudo apt-get update
    
    sudo apt-get install nvidia-340

    HP printers in Linux
     

    HP print, scan and fax Drivers for Linux just got an update a few hours ago with new printers and Linux Distros support, Linux Mint 17 Qiana is included.

    HPLIP (Hewlett-Packard Linux Imaging & Printing) is an HP-developed solution for printing, scanning, and faxing with HP inkjet and laser based printers in Linux. It is free, open source software distributed under the MIT, BSD, and GPL license.

    The latest HPLIP 3.14.6 was released on June 4th, which added support for Boss 5.0, Debian 7.5, Linux Mint 17, and following new printers:

    • HP DesignJet Z6600 PostScript
    • HP DesignJet Z6800PS Photo
    • HP DesignJet D5800 60-in Production Printer
    • HP DesignJet T3500 36-in Production eMFP
    • HP Designjet T7200 42-in Production Printer
    • HP Deskjet 2543 All-in-One Printer
    • HP Deskjet 2549 All-in-One Printer
    • HP OfficeJet Pro 8640 e-All-in-One Printer
    • HP OfficeJet Pro 8660 e-All-in-One Printer

    Also there are a few bug fixes:

    • Fixed Device Communication Error on launching HP Device Manager
    • Unable to add/remove file in ‘hp-sendfax’ wizard
    • Fax cover page does not get changed after changing recipient second time
    • Improved scan performance for ‘hp-scan’ utility

    Install HPLIP 3.14.6:

    1. Download the installer:

    Download HPLIP 3.14.6

    Or check out if there’s a new release at official page.

    2. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the installer via:

    cd ~/Downloads && chmod +x hplip-3.14.6.run && ./hplip-3.14.6.run

    Answer the questions to finish the installing process. Once done, restart your computer.

    intel graphics installer

    Intel(R) Graphics Installer 1.0.5 for Linux has been released just days ago. The NEW release added support for Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr and Fedora 20.

    What is Intel(R) Graphics Installer:

    The Intel® Graphics Installer for Linux is a simple graphical tool that allows you to easily install the latest graphics and video drivers for your Intel graphics hardware. This allows you to stay current with the latest enhancements, optimizations, and fixes to the Intel® Graphics Stack to ensure the best user experience with your Intel® graphics hardware. The Intel® Graphics Installer for Linux is available for the latest versions of Ubuntu and Fedora.

    intel driver update utility

    Installation for Ubuntu:

    Download the installer at the link below:

    Download Intel Graphics Installer

    You may check out your system type 32-bit or 64 bit by going to System Settings -> Details.

    Once downloaded, double-click the package to install via Ubuntu Software Center. Or use Gdebi, which will automatically resolve and install required dependencies.

    Gdebi DEB installer in Ubuntu

    Gdebi DEB installer in Ubuntu

    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr Is Out!

    Last updated: April 17, 2014

    ubuntu 14.04

    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, the Long-Term Support release finally is out!

    Here’s a summary of the most obvious changes in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (zdnet.com):

    • Choice of application menu position
    • Application click-to-minimise from the Launcher
    • A wider range of scale for launcher icons – from 16 to 64 pixels
    • Appearance improvements for very high-resolution displays
    • Anti-aliased corners on windows
    • Borderless windows
    • New language status icon in the top menu bar
    • Harmonised appearance for the lock screen
    • System Settings (GNOME Control Centre) replaced by Unity Control Centre
    • Linux kernel incremented to version 3.13
    • Multi-task filtering by text input (see our 14.04 beta preview)
    • Opening a guest session triggers a ‘changes are temporary’ warning
    • Since Ubuntu One is to close in June, 14.04 will not support Ubuntu One File Services
    • First time for Ubuntu community flavours (Edbuntu, Kubuntu et al) to also be approved for LTS status
    • New Upstart — its last outing before Ubuntu switches to systemd

    Download Ubuntu 14.04:

    releases.ubuntu.com/trusty

    Links:

    ubuntu1404-lts-logo-icons

     

    The default wallpapers of Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr LTS are now available for download in launchpad.net. There are the classic purple background and other 11 wallpapers from the wallpaper contest.

    Ubuntu 14.04 default background:

    ubuntu1404-wallpaper

    Download the original picture

    The other wallpapers:

    Ibanez_Infinity_by_Jaco_Kok

    Foggy_Forest_by_Jake_Stewart

    Jelly_Fish_by_RaDu_GaLaN

    Sea_Fury_by_Ian_Worrall

    Partitura_by_Vincijun

    SONY DSC

    Reflections_by_Trenton_Fox

    Backyard_Mushrooms_by_Kurt_Zitzelman

    Berries_by_Tom_Kijas

    Mono_Lake_by_Angela_Henderson

    Water_web_by_Tom_Kijas

    Download all the 11 wallpapers at launchpad.net (ubuntu-wallpapers-trusty_*_all.deb under the trusty tahr section).

    Ubuntu 14.04 Beta 1

    The first set of beta builds of Ubuntu 14.04 are now available for download in 8 different ‘flavors’, including:

    • Kubuntu 14.04 Beta 1
    • Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 Beta 1
    • Xubuntu 14.04 beta 1
    • Lubuntu 14.04 beta 1
    • Edubuntu 14.04 beta 1
    • Ubuntu Kylin 14.04 beta 1
    • Ubuntu Cloud 14.04 beta 1
    • Ubuntu Studio 14.04 beta 1

    According to the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release schedule, the next beta will be released on March 27th. After the Release Candidate (April 10th), the Ubuntu 14.04 final release will be available on April 17th.

    Download Ubuntu 14.04 Beta 1:

    PPA Install ExMplayer Ubuntu

    ExMplayer, the Mplayer GUI known as thumbnail seeking feature has just released version 3.8.0 with great new features and bug fixes.

    According to the changelog, ExMplayer now supports Facebook sharing, Subtitle search, upload and download.

    ExMplayer Facebook sharing

    ExMplayer subtitle search

    For details, see:

    • Added Facebook sharing( Listening to… Watching….)
    • Added subtitle Search (Thanks to Opensubtitles.org)
    • Added subtitle download and upload (Thanks to Opensubtitles.org)
    • Added support for multiple subtitle languages
    • Added update checking
    • Introduced mini mode
    • Fixed fontcache problem on 64 bit Windows
    • Fixed screen flickering (Seek view) on Windows8

    Install:

    The official PPA provides the latest build for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 10.04 and their derivatives.

    To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:exmplayer-dev/exmplayer 
    
    sudo apt-get update
    
    sudo apt-get install exmplayer

    If you don’t like adding PPAs, download the DEB package from the launchpad page.

    ExMplayer Homepage