News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
Free open-source software updates and Linux news
The 140.0 release of Firefox web browser is available to download after 4 weeks of development and beta testing.
In addition to Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Wikipedia, the new release introduced custom search engine support. User now can either right-click search field of a supported website and select Add Search Engine, or go to “Settings -> Search” to add search engine with custom name, URL, and optional keyword.
Darktable, the popular free open-source photography app and raw developer, released new 5.2.0 version few days ago!
The new release introduced side-by-side view (aka split view) to preview the different between snapshot and current images. And, it can be enabled by clicking on the “X|Y” icon next to “take snapshot” button.
OnlyOffice, the popular free open-source office suite, released new 9.0 version for its offline use desktop editors hours ago.
The new release introduced 2 new themes Modern Light and Modern Dark with redesigned UI elements and icons, as well as redesigned start window with focus on simplicity.
For KDE Plasma users, the new 6.4 release of this Linux desktop environment is out today!
Except the major 6.0, KDE Plasma usually rolls out new feature releases every 4 months. And Plasma 6.4 is the new update since February, which improved color rendering, tablet support, and the built-in screenshot tool.
Scrcpy, the popular Android screen mirroring and controlling app, release new 3.3 version few days ago.
As you may know, Scrcpy is a free open-source application that can mirror and control your Android screen on Linux, Windows, and MacOS Desktop either wirelessly or using USB cable.
It uses Android Debug Bridge (adb) to communicate with Android device. Nothing needs to be installed on Android, you only need to enable USB debugging mode (no security issue and performance lost).
Visual Studio Code announced new monthly 1.101 (aka May 2025) releases few days ago.
The new release of this free open-source code editor allows you to define tool sets through either the UI or a proposed API. Tool set can group related tools together, making it easier to use them in your chat.
For NVIDIA users who want to enable hardware acceleration for Firefox video playback, NVIDIA VA-API driver released v0.0.14 few days ago with improved compatibility and various fixes.
As you may know, Firefox in Linux does NOT support NVDEC (NVIDIA Video Decoder) to accelerate video decoding. As a workaround, user may use the free open-source nvidia-vaapi-driver as VA-API implementation that uses NVDEC as a backend.
Warehouse, the popular Flatpak app management software, released new 2.1.0 version today!
Warehouse is a free open-source application that provides a simple user interface to manage all installed Flatpak apps. With it, you may view app info, change app version (upgrade/downgrade), manage user data and left overs.
To follow the upstream GNOME’s road-map, Ubuntu confirmed to remove the classic X11/Xorg session in the next Ubuntu 25.10 release!
GNOME development team is planning to disable X11 session by default in next GNOME 49 and remove the code in v50.
TLDR: The X11 session for GNOME 49 will be disabled by default and it’s scheduled for removal, either during this development cycle or more likely during the next one (GNOME 50).
QDiskInfo, the free open-source S.M.A.R.T. utility, released new 0.4 version in last week!
For those who don’t know about QDiskInfo, it’s a frontend for smartctl to control and monitor SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) Disks, such as SATA and NVMe SSD.
