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Archives For November 30, 1999

Audacity 3.4.1 Released with BSD & ARM Builds & Other Fixes

Last updated: November 17, 2023 — Leave a comment

Audacity audio editor announced the first point release for the Audacity 3.4.0 feature release today!

The release can now built again in ARM devices and BSD. And, it has various stability and other fixes that 3.4.0 users are urged to upgrade to the new release.

They include:

Fix 24-bit recording.
Fix a crash with .aup importing.
Fix crossfading of clips and tracks.
Exporting multiple files honors sample rate settings again.
Fix crashes related to external program exports.
Ctrl+J is now a standard shortcut for joining clips.
Stereo tracks no longer randomly split into mono.
When exporting a file, the file extension is now always added
Fix a crash when exporting Opus with older CPUs that don’t support AVX.

How to Install Audacity 3.4.1 in Ubuntu:

Option 1: AppImage (official)
It provides official macOS .dmg, Windows .exe, and Linux .AppImage packages available to download at the link below:

Download Audacity

For Linux, click expand the “Assets” section and choose download the .AppImage package.

Then, right-click on the .AppImage file and go to its ‘Properties’ dialog. Add executable permission by enable ‘allow executing file as program‘. Finally, right-click on it and select “Run” to launch Audacity.

Forgive me for the old image.

Option 2: Ubuntu PPA

For choice, I’ve uploaded the new release package into unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 22.04, 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10 with amd64, arm64, and armhf support.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. For Linux Mint users, you may manually update system package cache by running command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, install Audacity 3.4.1 either by running the command below in terminal:

sudo apt install audacity audacity-data

Or, launch ‘Software Updater’ to update from an existing version:

Option 3: Flatpak

Audacity is also available to install as universal Flatpak package, that run in sandbox.

First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then, Ubuntu users can install Audacity as Flatpak by running the 2 commands below one by one:

sudo apt install flatpak

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.audacityteam.Audacity.flatpakref

Uninstall:

To uninstall Audacity 3.4.1 PPA package, you have 2 choices:

Purge the Ubuntu PPA, which also downgrade the installed packages to the stock versions in your system:
```
sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity
```

Or, remove Audacity package by running command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove audacity audacity-data

Then, remove the Ubuntu PPA via command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity

To uninstall the Flatpak package, use command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.audacityteam.Audacity

Also run flatpak uninstall --unused to remove useless runtimes.

In News audacity

BleachBit released New Stable 4.6.0! How to Install in Ubuntu

Last updated: November 6, 2023 — Leave a comment

Bleachbit, the popular system cleaner app, announced new major 4.6.0 release this Sunday!

It’s been almost 2 years since the last stable v4.4.2. While, version 4.5.x is there for beta testing purpose.

Compare to the latest stable release, the new Bleachbit 4.6.0 features:

Microsoft Edge on Linux support.
Firefox, Thunderbird, and Google Chrome installed as Flatpak support.
Firefox installed as Snap (default in 22.04+) support.
“shred with bleachbit” context menu for KDE (not enabled by default).
Clean recent documents list on KDE 5

Shred with Bleachbit context menu for KDE

The release also has various other changes and bug-fixes. When cleaning Firefox, it does no longer show “no such table” error. And, it fixed admin mode launching issue when working on Linux with Wayland session. Other changes include:

Clean recently-closed tabs on Firefox
Clean autofill data in Chromium-based browsers
Fix detection of invalid .desktop files
Remove Windows-specific files from Linux packages
And more. See release note for details.

BleachBit 4.6 can clean Firefox Snap in Ubuntu

How to Install Bleachbit in Ubuntu

The software provides official .rpm packages for CentOS, Fedora, and openSUSE, as well as .deb packages for Debian, Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

They are available to download at the link below:

Download Bleachbit for Linux

Tips: for Linux Mint 21, click download the package for Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish. In case you don’t even know which Linux Distribution version is running, open terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command cat /etc/os-release to tell.

Once you got the .deb package, either click open with “Software Install”, or open with “Gdebi package installer” if you have it installed.

Install Bleachbit .deb via Software Install

Or, right-click on blank area in your Downloads folder, and select “Open in Terminal”. Finally, run the command below to install it:

sudo apt install ./bleachbit_4.6.0*.deb

Once installed, search for and launch the tool from either start/applications menu or ‘Activities’ overview depends on your desktop environment.

Uninstall Bleachbit

To remove Bleachbit 4.6.0 in Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and their based systems, simply open terminal and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove bleachbit

In News system cleaner

Audacity 3.4.0 Released! Ubuntu PPA Updated for 22.04 & Higher

Last updated: November 3, 2023 — Leave a comment

Audacity audio editor and recording tool announced the new major 3.4.0 release after almost 2 weeks of beta testing.

The new release features Beats and measures grid, allows to easily align audio clips to the musical tempo and rhythm. It shows you the subdivisions of each measure depending on zoom level, and you can snap clips to the nearest beat.

It also features new time stretching algorithm, allows to change the duration of your audio clips without affecting their pitch non-destructively. Just hold “Alt” (macOS: Option) while hovering over the top third of a clip edge to stretch it.

The 3.4.0 also features a new export dialog with easier access to options such as sample rate and custom mapping (for 5.1 or 7.1 audio). Additionally, the “Browse” button uses the native file browser now!

New Export dialog

Other changes include:

always uses Joint Stereo mode for MP3.
Simplified pasting logic, and stereo tracks.
uses Conan 2.
Built-in Opus support.
And stability fixes.
See change-log for more details

How to Install Audacity 3.4.0:

Option 1: AppImage (official)
It provides official macOS .dmg, Windows .exe, and Linux .AppImage packages available to download at the link below:

Download Audacity

For Linux, click expand the “Assets” section and choose download the .AppImage package.

Option 2: Ubuntu PPA

For choice, I’ve uploaded the new release package into unofficial PPA for Ubuntu 22.04, 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10.

NOTE: Due to bug, arm64 and armhf packages are excluded in the PPA until the bug-fix due in next point release.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. For Linux Mint users, you may manually update system package cache by running command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, install Audacity 3.4.0 either by running the command below in terminal:

sudo apt install audacity audacity-data

Or, launch ‘Software Updater’ to update from an existing version:

Option 3: AppImage

Audacity is also available to install as universal Flatpak package, that run in sandbox.

However, it’s not updated to v3.4.0 at the moment of writing, see this page for details.

Uninstall:

To uninstall Audacity 3.4.0, you have 2 choices:

Purge the Ubuntu PPA, which also downgrade the installed packages to the stock versions in your system:
```
sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity
```

Or, remove Audacity package by running command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove audacity audacity-data

Then, remove the Ubuntu PPA via command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity

In News Audio

NVIDIA 545.29.02 is out! Support Night Light for GNOME/KDE Wayland

Last updated: November 1, 2023 — 1 Comment

NVIDIA announced 545.29.02 graphics driver for Linux yesterday, as a new release series for its New Feature Branch Version.

For Ubuntu 22.04 + and Fedora Workstation with default GNOME on Wayland, as well as KDE on Wayland, the new driver adds support for the CTM, DEGAMMA_LUT, and GAMMA_LUT DRM-KMS CRTC properties, which, finally make the ‘Night Light’ and ‘Night Color’ feature work for NVIDIA users.

Night Light finally works on Wayland with NVIDIA driver

For desktop GPUs, the release adds initial experimental support for runtime D3 (RTD3) power saving mode. When all the PCI functions are idle, and all required conditions are satisfied, your GPU will go to the lowest power state resulting into maximum power savings.

The new driver also added experimental support for framebuffer consoles. On kernels with implement features, nvidia-drm will install a framebuffer console when loaded with both modeset=1 and fbdev=1 kernel parameters. Though, when an nvidia-drm framebuffer console is enabled, unloading nvidia-drm will cause the screen to turn off.

Other changes in NVIDIA 545.29.02 include:

Experimental HDMI 10 bits per component support
Support for virtual reality displays
CERTIFIED-quality support for GeForce and Workstation GPUs to open kernelmodules.
Support for PRIME render offload to Vulkan Wayland WSI
Support for HDR signaling
Add support to NVIDIA VDPAU driver for running in Xwayland
Support EGL_ANDROID_native_fence_sync EGL extension.
Support VK_EXTERNAL_SEMAPHORE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT
Support VK_EXTERNAL_FENCE_HANDLE_TYPE_SYNC_FD_BIT

For more about the new driver, see the official release note.

How to Install NVIDIA 545 Driver

Ubuntu will build the new driver series and publish through official system repositories. So, just wait! It will be available in “Additional Drivers” utility when it’s ready.

For those who can’t wait, the “Graphics Drivers” team PPA has made the driver package for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and higher.

Simply, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. Then, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

Finally, launch the ‘Additional Drivers’ utility for installing the new driver.

In News nvidia

Linux 6.6 Released as the Latest Kernel Series

Last updated: November 1, 2023 — Leave a comment

Linux Torvalds announced the release of Kernel 6.6 this Monday.

It’s the latest mainline kernel so far, that features EEVDF scheduler, and per-policy CPUFreq performance boost control.

For Intel, the new kernel added Intel Shadow Stack support to prevent ROP attacks; Initial PECI support for 4th Gen Xeon Scalable “Sapphire Rapids” platforms; And, initial support for the Intel Lunar Lake VPU4.

For old laptops with Intel 4th/5th CPU, the kernel enabled Panel Self Refresh (PSR) support for power-savings.

For AMD, the kernel has Dynamic Boost Control support, Zen 5 temperature and EDAC support for AMD 1Ah processors, and FreeSync Panel Replay support with better power saving for upcoming AMD Ryzen laptops.

The cpupower utility has been updated. Now it supports for adjusting new AMD P-State driver features, include changing the AMD P-State mode, and turbo-boost mode.

For Linux system installed on EXT4 file partition, Kernel 6.6 will have 34% improvement with many concurrent writes and Apache Kafka 10% performance boost.

Linux 6.6 has many new hardware support, they include:

GameSir T4 Kaleid Controller.
SteelSeries Arctis 1 Xbox headset
New Ethernet hardware supported, including the Broadcom ASP 2.0 72165 controller, MediaTek MT7988 SoC, TI AM654 SoC, TI IEP, Atheros QCA8081 PHY. Marvell 88Q2110 PHY, and the NXP TJA1120 PHY.
MediaTek MT7981 wireless chipset
Bluetooth support for Intel Gale Peak, Qualcomm WCN3988 and WCN7850, NXP AW693 and IW624, and the MediaTek MT2925.

Other changes include:

Better protect against the illicit behavior of NVIDIA’s proprietary kernel driver.
New driver for Azoteq IQS7210A/7211A/E touch controller
Force feedback (rumble) support for the Google Stadia controller.
New sysctl interface for disabling IO_uring system-wide
Supports AP mode on the RTL8192FU, RTL8710BU (RTL8188GU), RTL8192EU, and RTL8723BU.
USB MIDI 2.0 gadget function driver
Toggle charge mode, middle fan control for ASUS WMI supported devices.
dGPU and CPU tunables for ROG laptops

How to Install Linux Kernel 6.6

The Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA somehow stuck at v6.6 RC5. So, there’s no proper way to get the Linux Kernel 6.6 at the moment of writing besides building from the source code.

Though, you can keep an eye on the third-party trustworthy Zabbly repository, which should update for the 6.6 Kernel in next few days.

In News kernel

BleachBit system cleaner adds Edge, Firefox Snap & Chrome Flatpak Support

Last updated: October 29, 2023 — Leave a comment

BleachBit, the popular free open-source system cleaner application, updates recently with many new features.

It’s BleachBit 4.5.1, the beta development release series for the next major 4.6 version. The new release adds new applications support, including cleaning caches for GIMP, FileZilla, and Microsoft Edge.

As Flatpak and Snap apps are getting more and more popular today, the release also adds support for Firefox as Snap (pre-installed in Ubuntu), Thunderbird and Google Chrome installed as Flatpak.

BleachBit clean Firefox Snap in Ubuntu

For KDE user, it can now clean recent documents. And, in Preferences dialog, user can enable “shred with bleachbit” context menu option for KDE Dolphin file manager.

The release also has various bug-fixes. When cleaning Firefox, it does no longer show “no such table” error. And, it fixed admin mode launching issue when working on Linux with Wayland session. For more, see the release note.

How to Install BleachBit 4.5.1 in Ubuntu

BleachBit 4.5.1 refreshed the installers for newer Linux Distros, making it easy to install in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.04, Ubuntu 23.10, Debian 11/12, and Fedora 37/38. While the old Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, Debian 10 are also supported!

Just go to the official download page via the link below:

Download BleachBit 4.5

For Ubuntu user, select download the proper .deb package. Then, right-click on your Downloads folder and click “Open in Terminal“. Finally, install it by running the command below in pop-up terminal window:

sudo apt install ./bleachbit_4.5.*_all_*.deb

BleachBit is also available to install as Flatpak package, though it’s not verified (meaning unofficial).

To install the Flatpak package in Ubuntu, just open terminal and run 2 commands below one by one:

sudo apt install flatpak

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.bleachbit.BleachBit.flatpakref

After installing the tool, launch it from either start/applications menu or the Gnome overview screen depends on your Desktop environment, and enjoy!

Uninstall BleachBit

For the application installed through .deb package, simply open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to uninstall it:

sudo apt remove --autoremove bleachbit

While the Flatpak package can be removed by running command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.bleachbit.BleachBit

And, you may also run flatpak uninstall --unused to free up some more disk space by removing useless run-time libraries.

In News system cleaner

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Release Schedule is Out!

Last updated: October 27, 2023 — 1 Comment

Ubuntu 24.04, is in development now! Here’s when it will be released!

Ubuntu 24.04, code-name ‘Noble Numbat’, will be a new LTS release with 5 years support and another 5 years extend (ESM) support. It will probably features GNOME Desktop 46, and of course newer Linux Kernel.

The development was started this Thursday, according to this announcement. And, the final release is planned for April 25 2024.

Here’s the full release schedule according to the official discussion page.

Ubuntu 24.04 Release Schedule

February 29, 2024	Feature Freeze, Debian Import Freeze
March 21, 2024	User Interface Freeze
March 28, 2024	Kernel Feature Freeze, Documentation String Freeze
April 01, 2024	Beta Freeze, Hardware Enablement Freeze
April 04, 2024	Beta (mandatory)
April 11, 2024	Kernel Freeze
April 18, 2024	Final Freeze, Release Candidate
April 25, 2024	Final Release

In News ubuntu 24.04

Audacity 3.4.0 Beta is out! Musical View, Time stretching & New Exporter

Last updated: November 3, 2023 — 1 Comment

Audacity audio editor released the Beta version of the next 3.4.0. Here’s how to try it out in Ubuntu.

According to the project release page, the new release now features several music related features, such as switching between hh:mm:ss time and Beats & Measures, and time-stretching clips to align them to a song’s tempo.

The release also features Time stretching. Just hold “Alt” (macOS: Option) while hovering over the top third of a clip edge to stretch it.

The 3.4.0 also features a new export dialog with easier access to options such as sample rate and custom mapping (for 5.1 or 7.1 audio). Additionally, the “Browse” button uses the native file browser now!

New Export dialog

Other changes include:

always uses Joint Stereo mode for MP3.
Simplified pasting logic, and stereo tracks.
uses Conan 2.
Built-in Opus support.
And stability fixes.

How to Install Audacity 3.4.0 Beta:

Option 1: AppImage
It provides official macOS .dmg, Windows .exe, and Linux .AppImage packages available to download at the link below:

Download Audacity

For Linux, click expand the “Assets” section and choose download the .AppImage package.

Option 2: Ubuntu PPA

For choice, I’ve uploaded the new release package into unofficial PPA for x86_64 (amd64) bit Ubuntu 22.04, 23.04, and Ubuntu 23.10 support.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity-unstable

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. For Linux Mint users, you may manually update system package cache by running command:

sudo apt update

3. Finally, install Audacity 3.4.0 Beta via command:

sudo apt install audacity audacity-data

Uninstall:

To uninstall Audacity 3.4.0 Beta, you have 2 choices:

Purge the Ubuntu PPA, which also downgrade the installed packages to stock versions:
```
sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity-unstable
```

Or, remove Audacity package by running command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove audacity audacity-data

Then, remove the Ubuntu PPA via command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity-unstable

In News audacity

Firefox 119 Released with Improved PDF Editing Support

Last updated: October 25, 2023 — Leave a comment

Firefox web browser announced the release of 119.0 this Tuesday.

The new release improved PDF editing, by allowing to add images and alt text, in addition to text and drawings.

“Firefox View” icon has been replaced with a folder icon instead of the previous Firefox logo. And, it allows to see all open tabs from all windows, and all tabs from other synced devices.

The release also has some security improvements. They include Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) to extend TLS encryption to cover more of the handshake and better protect sensitive fields, supports the partitioning of Blob URLs for Total Cookie Protection, and restrict website fonts visibility to system fonts and language pack fonts in Enhanced Tracking Protection strict mode.

Other changes in Firefox 119 include:

Ability to import some extensions from Chrome.
Recently closed tabs now persist between sessions that don’t have automatic session restore enabled.
Updated Storage Access API web standard.
Santali (sat) language support.
Unexpected jumps in scroll position on Facebook.
Various security fixes, and development changes.

How to Get Firefox 119

The official release note as well as the download link is available at the link below:

Firefox 119 Release Note

For Ubuntu, the pre-installed Firefox Snap package has already been updated to v119. If you don’t have it, try running snap refresh firefox in terminal.

For the .deb package, Mozilla Team PPA is available though you have to manually block the Snap package.

In News Firefox

qBittorrent 4.6.0 Released with I2P Support & UI Editing (Ubuntu PPA)

Last updated: October 14, 2024 — Leave a comment

qBittorrent, the popular Qt-based BitTorrent client, released version 4.6.0 this Sunday!

The new release introduced experimental support for I2P, a peer to peer fully encrypted private network layer, allowing to transfer data in a more secure way.

The ‘Preferences’ dialog now have “Customize UI Theme” button in the behavior tab. It allows to set custom colors and icons, by double-clicking action, for both light and dark mode when using the default theme.

qBittorrent 4.6.0 also features many other changes, including option to add new torrents to queue top, filter torrent list by save path, option to stop seeding when torrent has been inactive, as well as:

‘socket send/receive buffer size’ options
‘max torrent file size’ setting
‘bdecode limits’ settings
Options to adjust behavior of merging trackers to existing torrent.
Expand the scope of “Proxy hostname lookup” option
Shortcut for “Ban peer permanently” function
Option to auto hide zero status filters
Allow to disable confirmation of Pause/Resume All
Add alternative shortcut CTRL+E for CTRL+F
Show filtered port numbers in logs
Add button to copy library versions to clipboard

How to Install qBittorrent in Ubuntu Linux

Option 1: AppImage
The software provides official Linux package through .AppImage package, available to download the link below:

Download qBittorrent

It’s a non-install package, that can be run directly to launch the torrent client. Just right-click on .AppImage file and go to ‘Properties’, then enable “Allow executing as program” option under Permissions tab. Finally, click run it to launch the app.

For choices, you can also install qBittorrent 4.6.0 through Flatpak and Ubuntu PPA.

Option 2: Flatpak

Like AppImage, Flatpak is another package format runs in sandbox. All current Ubuntu releases can easily install qBittorrent as Flatpak, by running 2 commands below one by one.

First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When terminal opens, run command to ensure Flatpak support:
```
sudo apt install flatpak
```

Then, install the torrent client as Flatpak by running command:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent.flatpakref

Option 3: Ubuntu PPA

UPDATE: Due to requirement of Qt > 6.5.0, the PPA will NOT update for Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and earlier.

For those who prefer the native .deb package format, qBittorrent has an official Ubuntu PPA. Though, it’s NOT updated at the moment of writing (check the previous link).

To add the PPA, and install the app package, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. And, run commands below one by one:

Add the PPA:
```
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:qbittorrent-team/qbittorrent-stable
```
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
Then, manually refresh system package cache (required for Linux Mint 21):
```
sudo apt update
```
Finally, install the torrent app via command:
```
sudo apt install qbittorrent
```

Uninstall qBittorrent

Depends on how you installed the software package, uninstall it by running either command below in terminal.

To remove the Flatpak package, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
```
flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent
```
Also run flatpak uninstall --delete-unused to remove useless run-time libraries.
To remove the PPA package, use command:
```
sudo apt remove --autoremove qbittorrent
```
Also remove the Ubuntu PPA, either by removing source line through “Software & Updates” utility under Other Software tab. Or, by running the command below in terminal:
```
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:qbittorrent-team/qbittorrent-stable
```