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Ubuntu 14.10 And Its Flavors Officially Released

Last updated: October 24, 2014

Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn

Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn and its flavors including the newest Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, and Ubuntu Studio were officially released today.

According to the release note, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 3.16-based kernel, a new AppArmor with fine-grained socket control, and more.

Ubuntu Desktop has seen incremental improvements, with newer versions of GTK and Qt, updates to major packages like Firefox and LibreOffice, and improvements to Unity, including improved High-DPI display support.

Ubuntu Server 14.10 includes the Juno release of OpenStack, alongside deployment and management tools that save devops teams time when deploying distributed applications – whether on private clouds, public clouds, x86 or ARM servers, or on developer laptops. Several key server technologies, from MAAS to Ceph, have been updated to new upstream versions with a variety of new features.

Kubuntu 14.10:

Kubuntu 14.10 comes in two flavours, the stable Plasma 4 running the desktop we know from previous releases, and a tech preview of the next generation Plasma 5 for early adopters.

See: www.kubuntu.org/news/kubuntu-14.10.

Lubuntu 14.10:

Lubuntu 14.10 mainly features:

  • General bug fix release as we prepare for LXQt.
  • Many LXDE components have been updated with bug fix releases.
  • An update of the artwork (more icons, theme update, more compatibilities …).

See: wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/ReleaseNotes/Lubuntu

Xubuntu 14.10:

Xubuntu 14.10 features new Xfce Power Manager plugin in panel and ittems in the newly themed alt-tab dialog can now be clicked with the mouse.

See: wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/ReleaseNotes/Xubuntu.

Other Flavors:

Ubuntu Gnome 14.10: wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuGNOME

UbuntuKylin 14.10: wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuKylin

UbuntuStudio 14.10: wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuStudio

In News
 

LXQt 0.8.0 Released with Full Qt 5 Compatibility

Last updated: October 20, 2014

LXQt, the next generation of LXDE, has just reached release 0.8.0, which brings full Qt 5 compatibility, two beautiful new themes, and a lot of new features.

LXQt is the Qt port and the upcoming version of LXDE, the Lightweight Desktop Environment. It is the product of the merge between the LXDE-Qt and the Razor-qt projects.

According to the release note, LXQt 0.8.0 brings below changes:

  • Full Qt 5 support. Run cmake with -DUSE_QT5 to enable it.
  • New component: lxqt-admin. This brings an optional set of basic admin tools such as configuration for date & time as well as users and groups.
  • New theme: Plasma Next. Based on KDE Plasma Next theme.
  • New theme: Dark Alpha, by Inti Alonso.
  • Much improved support for multiple displays.
  • Support for RGBA transparency if compositing is available.
  • lxqt-config-randr has been removed. It has been replaced by lxqt-config-monitor.
  • pcmanfm-qt: Support single-click to activate items
  • pcmanfm-qt: Support drag & drop on the desktop
  • pcmanfm-qt: Implement integration with the ark archive manager
  • pcmanfm-qt: Improve readability in icon view
  • lxqt-panel: Support reordering of taskbar buttons
  • lxqt-panel: Support “urgency” hint
  • lxqt-panel: Add support for OSS in volume control, if available
  • lxqt-powermanagement: Improved compatibility with systemd/logind
  • Integrate with compton if available (disabled by default)
  • Add support for setting a default UI font
  • Lots of performances improvements.
  • Lots and lots of bugfixes.
How to install LXQt in Ubuntu:

A daily build PPA is available in ppa:lubuntu-dev/lubuntu-daily, so far it supports Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 and derivatives.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run below commands one by one to add the PPA and install LXQt session:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lubuntu-dev/lubuntu-daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install lxqt-metapackage lxqt-session lxsession

Once installed, log out or restart. When you’re at the Unity Greeter choose log in with a LXQt session.

(Optional) To remove this Desktop Environment, run below command in terminal:

sudo apt-get remove lxqt-metapackage lxqt-session && sudo apt-get autoremove
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Final Beta of Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Available for Download

Last updated: September 29, 2017

Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn Beta 2 and its official flavors are now available for download.

This Beta features images for Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, UbuntuKylin, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Cloud.

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of Ubuntu 14.10 Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.

Codenamed “Utopic Unicorn”, 14.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

This beta release includes images from not only the Ubuntu Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, but also the Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio and Xubuntu flavours.

The beta images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of 14.10 that should be representative of the features intended to ship with the final release expected on October 23rd, 2014.

see the official release note.

According to Ubuntu 14.10’s release schedule, there will be:

  • Kernel Freeze on October 9th
  • Final Freeze and Release Candidate on October 16th
  • Final Release of Ubuntu 14.10 (Stable) on October 23rd

What to expect in the Ubuntu 14.10 Final:

  • Both Unity 8 (Mir) and Unity 7 (X.org) available.
  • Ubuntu 14.10 will bring better 3G mobile modems.
  • Kubuntu 14.10 will be using KDE Plasma 5.

Download Ubuntu 14.10 Beta 2:

For Unity: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/14.10/
For Kubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/14.10/
For Lubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/14.10/
For Ubuntu Gnome: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/14.10/
For UbuntuKylin: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/14.10/
For UbuntuStudio: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/14.10/
For Xubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/14.10/
For Ubuntu Cloud: http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/utopic/

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Ubuntu MATE 14.10 Beta 2 Available for Download

Last updated: September 25, 2014

Ubuntu MATE 14.10, an unofficial Ubuntu flavor maintained by Ubuntu community, has just reached its second beta release.

What’s Ubuntu MATE?

Ubuntu MATE is a new Ubuntu flavor started a few months ago. The first release will be Ubuntu MATE 14.10, Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic integrated with MATE Desktop Environment.

Ubuntu MATE is a Ubuntu community project developed by the core MATE Desktop development team, and maintained by the heroes from the Debian packaging team.

At the moment, Ubuntu MATE is not an official Ubuntu “flavor”. The team are working towards that.

MATE Desktop Environment is the continuation of classic GNOME 2. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

Ubuntu MATE

The Beta2 release has been focused on fixing broken things and improving what was already present in Beta1. See the official release note for details.

Download Ubuntu MATE at: https://ubuntu-mate.org/download/

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PlayOnLinux 4.2.5 Adds Compatibility with Debian 8 & Mac OS 10.10

Last updated: September 8, 2014

PlayOnLinux, Wine GUI for installing Windows applications and games in Linux, has just released version 4.2.5 which added compatibility with Debian 8 & Mac OS 10.10.

PlayOnLinux is a graphical front-end for the Wine software compatibility layer which allows Linux users to install Windows-based video games, as well as many other applications such as Apple iTunes, Safari, Microsoft Office (2000 to 2010), Microsoft Internet Explorer. See a list of supported software.

The latest PlayOnLinux 4.2.5 was released with below changes:

  • Fix reading/writing values containing ‘=’ symbol in configuration files
  • Make POL_Wine_InstallFonts preserve current directory (regression since 4.2.3)
  • Disable “Install” component button until a component is selected
  • Compatibility with wxpython 3.0, Debian 8, Mac OS 10.10
  • Mention URL in POL_Download and POL_Download_Resource error messages
  • Add POL_Config_Win16 to check if the host can run win16 programs.

How to install PlayOnLinux:

For Ubuntu, you can install always install the latest PlayOnLinux via its official repository:

1. First of first install wine. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and run one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install wine1.7:i386

2. Then install PlayOnLinux from its repository. For Ubuntu 12.04, replace trusty with precise in the code.

wget -q "http://deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget http://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_trusty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install playonlinux

For Debian, Fedora and other Linux Distributions see the official download page.

In News
 

Open Source Racing Game ‘Stunt Rally’ Gets A New Release

Last updated: August 10, 2014

 

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.

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:

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Native Music Player DeaDBeeF Updates With Lots of Fixes and Improvements

Last updated: August 9, 2014

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.

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:

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

In News
 

Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS Is Available For Download

Last updated: July 25, 2014

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

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Nvidia 340.24 Add Support For G-SYNC Monitors

Last updated: July 12, 2014

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
    In Howtos, News , ,
     

    HP Drivers for Linux ‘HPLIP’ Added Linux Mint 17 Support

    Last updated: June 5, 2014


     

    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:

    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.

    In Linux Mint, News ,