News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
Free open-source software updates and Linux news
Ubuntu 24.10, code-name “Oracular Oriole”, was officially released!
This is the latest short term release with 9 months support until July 2025. It features Linux Kernel 6.11 and GNOME Desktop 47.
And, there are official flavors feature other desktop environments, such as KUbuntu 24.10 and Ubuntu Studio 24.10 with KDE Plasma 6.1, XUbuntu 24.10 with XFCE 4.18, Ubuntu MATE 24.10 with 1.26.
Python, the popular free open-source programming language, finally announced 3.13.0 stable this Monday!
Python 3.13 introduced new interactive shell. It’s enabled by default and based on code from the PyPy project.
When you start the new shell in an interactive terminal, it uses colors by default for prompts and tracebacks and supports multi-line editing.
As well, it supports REPL-specific commands such as help, exit, and quit without call them as functions. And, I can finally use clear command in the shell to clear screen.
The new interactive shell also supports interactive help browsing using F1, history browsing using F2, and ‘paste mode’ with F3 for pasting larger blocks of code.
Just in case for those who don’t like the new shell, it can be disabled by setting environment variable. PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1.
Python 3.13 shell, with colors, multi-line editing, etc support
The popular FFmpeg media library released new version 7.1 a few days ago. Here are the new features and Ubuntu PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 users.
The new release of FFmpeg library added official VVC decoder support. Versatile Video Coding (VVC in short), also known as H.266, has about 50% better compression rate for the same quality compared to HEVC (aka H.265). It supports resolutions ranging from very low up to 4K, 16K, and 360° videos, as well as YCbCr 4:4:4, 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 with 8–10 bits per component, HDR, variable and fractional frame rates from 0 to 120 Hz, and more.
FFmpeg added experimental VVC decoding support since the last 7.0 version. Now, the decoder goes official and it’s compatible with DVB test content. The release also supports for decoding VVC with Intel Quick Sync Video acceleration. As well, it supports encoding VVC using libvvenc library.
MPV, the popular free open-source Linux media player, released version 0.39.0 last week. Here are the new features and Ubuntu PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 users.
The new MPV 0.39.0 introduced Video Super Resolution scaling support with Intel and NVIDIA RTX GPUs. It’s a technology that can use your GPU to upscale low resolution video to higher resolutions. For AMD GPUs, the feature will be integrated into the FFmpeg library.
According to the official release note, the feature is implemented through the d3d11va filter, meaning that it’s Windows only. To enable it, either use vf set d3d11vpp=scale=nvidia:scale-target in your mpv.conf file or see the official documentation for the command line options.
MPV media player
The Beta release of Ubuntu 24.10, code-name Oracular Oriole, is out last night on Sep 20.
This is a short-term release with 9 months support. It so far features Linux Kernel 6.11 and GNOME 47 desktop.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary, the new release includes a “Warty Brown” accent color and new optional wallpapers in the “Appearances” settings page. There’s also an anniversary logo that you can see in the login screen.
And, the release now by default plays the original startup sound at login. While, there’s a toggle option in “Sound” settings page to turn it off.
The sound comes from the warty-startup.oga file under “/usr/share/sounds/Yaru/stereo” directory. Without logging out and back in, you may run command below in terminal to play it out:
/usr/bin/canberra-gtk-play --id="warty-startup"
Anniversary logo in login screen
GNOME, the popular free open-source Linux desktop environment, finally released new major 47 version a day ago on Wednesday!
If everything goes well, the new GNOME 47 desktop will be default in upcoming Ubuntu 24.10 and Fedora Workstation 41, and optional in Arch, Manjaro Linux, etc.
The new release features accent colors in the “Appearance” settings page. With it, user can change the Default Blue color of toggle buttons, slide bars, check-boxes, selection borders, etc., as easy as a single mouse click.
Ubuntu has the feature since 22.04. It has 10 colors while GNOME 47 has 9. They include Blue (default), Teal, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Pink, Purple, Slat. And, so far the accent color does NOT apply to the folder icons.
Scrcpy, Android screen mirroring and controlling app, released version 2.7 few days ago.
Scrcpy is a popular free and open-source application for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It can mirror the Android screen on PC, and allows to control the device with keyboard and mouse.
With the new 2.7 release, user can now use game controllers (e.g., PS4/PS5, or XBox gamepad), which are connected into the computer, to play Android games.
Scrcpy on Ubuntu
Linux Kernel 6.11 was released! Linus Torvalds announced it 2 days ago on Sunday:
“I’m once again on the road and not in my normal timezone, but it’s Sunday afternoon here in Vienna, and 6.11 is out.
The last week was actually pretty quiet and calm, which is nice to see. The shortlog is below for anybody who wants to look at the details, but it really isn’t very many patches, and the patches are all pretty small. Nothing in particular stands out – the biggest patch in here is for Hyper-V Confidential Computing documentation. …”
Oracle finally announced the release of new major VirtualBox 7.1.0 after almost 2 years since the last feature release.
The release introduced a new logo icon with flat design, and re-fined the UI with modern look and feel. The Preferences and VM Settings dialog now include Basic and Expert tabs that will show/hide some extra settings.
It improved the font in Settings/Preferences to make the text more easy to read, as well it provides a “Search Box” in the dialog for searching settings. And, each VM now has new splash screen at very beginning of startup.
VirtualBox VM startup splash
Audacity audio editor announced 3.6.2 release a week ago, then version 3.6.3 a day ago with a quick-fix.
As you may know, Audacity 3.6.0 introduced new compressor and limiter effects, replacing the old ones. For those who prefer the classic effects, the new point release added a “Legacy” effects section, under “Effects” menu, that contains the old Limiter, Compressor and Classic Filters.
