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0 A.D. Alpha 25 Released! Implement Single Player Campaigns [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: August 9, 2021

Real-time strategy video game 0 A.D. released version Alpha 25 a day ago. Code name is “Yaunã”.

0 A.D. (pronounced “zero ey-dee”) is a free and open-source RTS game under development by Wildfire Games, that works on Windows, Linux, and MAC. It is a historically-based war/economy game that allows players to relive or rewrite the history of Western civilizations, focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D.

“Yaunã” comes with the twenty-fifth alpha version that initially implements Single Player Campaigns, along with other big ones including:

Improved Pathfinding, Performance And Reduced Game Lag.
Push new orders to the front Of their production queues.
Improved Unit AI.
New Biomes incorporating wew 2k textures and normal/specular maps.
GUI improvements.
Extended Graphics options.
Improved Mod support and game filtering in the multiplayer lobby.
Ongoing civilization balancing.
Various other game stability bug fixes and speedups.

See video about 0 A.D. Alpha 25:

How to Install 0 A.D in Ubuntu:

The game package is available in Ubuntu repository but always old! To get the latest version, keep an eye on this Ubuntu PPA while the official one is not being updated for long time.

Usually, maintainers update the latest software packages a few days after the release note. For beginners, you can follow this tutorial to add the PPA and install 0 A.D. once the new package published.

In News game

Ubuntu 21.10 Finally Removed “Standard” Theme-box, Only Light & Dark Mode Now

Last updated: August 7, 2021

Ubuntu 21.10 daily build got an update for its gnome-control-center package(System Settings) recently. The ‘Standard’ mode is finally removed from the Appearance settings.

The Yaru theme developer team submitted the request to remove the ‘Standard’ theme when in June, since both GTK3 and GTK4 do NOT support having different background / text colors for headerbar than in the rest of the window.

The development build of Ubuntu 21.10 finally apply the change in the recent update. The ‘Window colors’ options under Appearance settings are now only fully dark and fully light. There’s no longer dark header bar with light window color called ‘Standard’.

Along with the new thumbnail preview, the context menus for the desktop, file manager, and other Gnome apps also inherit the dark and light appearance setting.

They are still some apps, e.g, Gnome Terminal and Ubuntu Software, that are not implemented for the changes.

As before, the settings do not change the color of top-bar menus, notification, and left dock menu, etc. However, a patched version of gnome-control-center is available to easily toggle the WHOLE system to Dark or Light.

In News Gnome

DeaDBeeF Audio Player 1.8.8 Now Reads WAV RIFF Tags

Last updated: August 3, 2021

DeaDBeeF audio player 1.8.8 was released as the 8th bugfix release for the 1.8 series.

The new release introduced some new features, including reading WAV RIFF tags, handling of Disc subtitle frames in ID3v2 and APE tags, and handling samplerates higher than 192KHz to pulseaudio.

New context menu options “Play Next” and “Play Later” are now available to choose your favorite song to play next, or set one-time play order for songs in play list. It will add marks at the beginning that indicates the sequence.

It also redesigned the plugin page in Preferences. Now each plugin has the configuration along with basic info and license in tabs.

Other changes in DeaDBeef 1.8.8 includes:

Non-modal preferences window
$rgb() title formatting function
Group title colorization support via title formatting
Plugin report and filtering in Plugin list
Focusable playlist tabs with keyboard navigation support
Sorting plugin list alphabetically
Improved album path handling, especially for Windows
Drag-and-drop on the main window
Using scroll wheel with seek bar
Delete from disk dialog will highlight the Delete button as destructive action
And some stability fixes.

How to Install DeaDBeeF 1.8.8 in Ubuntu:

The software offers official .deb package for 64-bit Ubuntu & Linux Mint systems.

Download DeaDBeeF (.deb)

Grab the package, ‘deadbeef-static_1.8.8-1_amd64.deb’, then install it by running command in terminal:

sudo apt install ~/Downloads/deadbeef-static*.deb

There’s also an Ubuntu PPA for DeaDBeeF, though it’s not updated at the moment of writing. And note that the PPA package conflicts to the official ‘deadbeef-static‘ package due to packaging issue. Remove the old package first if you’re going to install it from another source.

Remove DeaDBeeF:

To remove the music player, simply run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove deadbeef-static deadbeef

In News audio editor

PyCharm 2021.2 Released with Python 3.10 Support (Ubuntu PPA)

Last updated: July 29, 2021

JetBrains announced the release of PyCharm 2021.2. Features Python 3.10 support, auto-reload for browser HTML preview.

Starting with the new release, users from Asian can enjoy the a fully localized UI in Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. And it’s going to end support for several packages, e.g., mako, buildout, web2py, in next release.

Before Python 3.10 goes stable, the IDE starts working for Python 3.10 support with following features:

Adjust to the upcoming Structural Pattern Matching, such as the Unused local symbols and Unreachable code inspections, smart code completion and syntax highlighting for the match and case keywords, and the Complete Current Statement action.
Complete match statements and their corresponding case blocks.
Supports type inference for isinstance and issubclass arguments with the new syntax type.

And other changes include:

Working in the Python console is now supported on both the client and the host side.
Code completion for fields and operators in the MongoDB console (Pro only).
Context live templates from the data editor with SQL scripts action (Pro only).
auto-reload for browser HTML preview (pro).
Auto-import for require() (pro).
New Onboarding Tour in the IDE Features Trainer plugin.
Test runner auto-detection
The Test Management plugin includes Python support and available for PyCharm Community.
New Test Data plugin to generate random data.

How to Install PyCharm 2021.2 in Ubuntu:

Jetbrains provides official Linux package. They are portable tarballs, available to download at the link below:

Download PyCharm

To make life easier, you can install the community edition from the unofficial PPA. And it supports for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 21.04 so far.

1.) Open terminal from start menu, and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps

2.) Manually refresh system package cache, e.g., for Linux Mint:

sudo apt update

3.) Finally install PyCharm via command:

sudo apt install pycharm-community

Uninstall:

To remove the PPA, either run command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:xtradeb/apps

or open “Software & Updates” and navigate to “Other Software” tab to remove the relevant line.

And remove PyCharm by running command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove pycharm-community

In News python

Audacity 3.0.3 Released, Official Appimage for Linux /Auto Checking Updates

Last updated: July 29, 2021

Audacity audio editor and recorder 3.0.3 was released a few days ago. Finally it adds official Linux binary via Appimage.

Audacity 3.0.3 comes with minor bug-fixes, and binary changes. For Windows users, now it provides 64-bit EXE and 32-bit plug-ins will not work on the release.

The release introduced automatic app update checking. According to the updated Privacy Notice, Audacity needs a network connection for update checking. And this shares your IP address, OS, and Audacity version. You can disable the feature in the Preferences.

And when an app error occurs, error report dialog will pop up asking you whether to send report.

For Linux users, Audacity now provides Appimage package. It’s a single executable that launches the software directly without installation required. Just right-click on file, add execute permission in “Properties” dialog, and finally run it.

How to Get Audacity 3.0.3:

For the official binary and source tarball, you can download it from the github release page:

Download Audacity

It’s also available to install via the universal Flatpak package which runs in sandbox. And here’s how to guide for those new to flatpak.

About the Ubuntu PPA:

Audacity adds Conan package manager as the its new dependency library. It make me crazy again since it’s not available in Ubuntu repositories, and so far I can’t find any compile instruction.

So may be it’s time to abandon my personal PPA for Audacity package. :)

In News audio editor

Handwriting Notetaking App Xournal++ 1.1.0 Released for Linux

Last updated: July 21, 2021

Free open-source handwriting notetaking app Xournal++ 1.1.0 was released with many new features and improvements.

Xournal++ (aka Xournalpp) is a note taking app that support pen input from devices such as Wacom, Huion, XP Pen tablets. It also features PDF annotation, Lua scripting, and LateX support.

The Xournal++ 1.1.0 is a new major release follows the XDG Base Directory Specification. The config files will now be stored in user .config folder instead of user home.

A new plugin was introduced for those have non-default DPI settings, to fix incorrect text elements display issue for old documents.

Ubuntu 16.04 and Mac OS High Sierra are no longer supported. Other features include:

New “progressive mode” option to PDF export dialog.
New “Layerstack Preview” tab to show all layers up to the current layer.
Add seeking functionality during audio playback.
Remove the old input system and touch workaround.
Add a touchpad pinch gesture for zooming.
Rework LaTeX tool implementation.
Add snapping for vertical space, moving/resizing selections, recognized shapes.
Lua plugin support for Mac OS.
New action icons, and new app icon.
And tons more other improvements and changes.

How to Install Xournal++ 1.1.0 in Ubuntu:

The software offers official binary packages, available to download at the link below:

Xournal++ Release Note & Downloads

Grab the ‘xournalpp-xxx-bionic-xxx.deb‘ for Ubuntu 18.04, or ‘xournalpp-xxx-focal-xxx.deb‘ for Ubuntu 20.04/ Linux Mint 20.

You can then install the .deb by opening terminal and running command:

sudo apt install ~/Downloads/xournalpp*.deb

For other Ubuntu releases and other Linux, choose the non-install ‘xournalpp-xxx.AppImage‘ package. By adding execute permission in the right-click menu ‘Properties’ dialog under Permissions tab, you can finally run the Appimage to launch the software.

In News note-taking app

HandBrake 1.4.0 Released with 10 / 12-bit Encoding, How to Install in Ubuntu

Last updated: July 18, 2021

The open-source video transcoder HandBrake released new 1.4.0 version with exciting new features.

HandBrake 1.4.0 adds native 10 and 12-bit encoding support. Though it has limitations that some filters (e.g., Detelecine, Chroma Smooth, and more) do not currently support higher than 8-bit. With these filters enabled, you won’t benefit from the new feature.

You can select the new 10-bit / 12-bit encoder from the “Video codec” drop-down on the Video tab. For hardware encoders, the option will only be shown if the system supports it.

The release also adds new filters including Chroma Smooth and Colourspace Selection. New Media Foundation encoder for Windows based ARM64 devices powered by Qualcomm Chipsets.

Other changes in HandBrake 1.4.0 include:

HDR10 metadata passthru.
Added support for Apple Silicon based macs.
MP2 Audio Passthru support.
Added support for DVB Subtitles.
Added support for EIA608 Closed Captions.
Improved Static Previews to reduce temporary disk space usage
And much more.

How to Install HandBrake 1.4.0 in Ubuntu:

HandBrake has an official Ubuntu PPA though it’s not updated at the moment.

Besides the PPA, you can download & install the flatpak package.

Download HandBrake Linux Flatpak

First time installing a flatpak package? Make sure flatpak daemon is installed via command:

sudo apt install flatpak

Then install the downloaded package via command:

flatpak install ~/Downloads/HandBrake-*.flatpak

(Optional) To uninstall the package, open terminal and run command:

flatpak uninstall fr.handbrake.ghb

In Howtos, News video

Mozilla Firefox 90.0 Released with SmartBlock 2.0

Last updated: July 13, 2021

Mozilla Firefox released version 90.0 today with some new features and various security fixes.

Firefox 90 introduced the 2.0 version of SmartBlock. The built-in tracker blocking mechanism now provides robust privacy protection, while ensuring you can still use third-party Facebook logins. Facebook scripts are all blocked, just as before, except the short period for the sign-in to proceed smoothly.

For HTTPS-Only Mode, there’s now an option to add exceptions. So that you can visit specified HTTP websites directly without HTTPS-only alerts.

Other changes in Firefox 90 include:

Apply updates in the background while Firefox in not running for Windows.
New about:third-party page to help identify compatibility issues
Print to PDF now produces working hyperlinks
The “Open Image in New Tab” context menu now opens images and media in a background tab
Improved software WebRender performance
Removed FTP support.

How to Get Firefox 90:

Normally, Ubuntu will publish the new Firefox packages through the security & updates repositories in next few days.

You can just wait until it being available to update in Software Updater:

Alternatively, see the release note and download the portable package from Firefox website:

Firefox 90 Release Note & Download

In News Firefox

Linux Mint 20.2 Released with Improved Update Manager, Bulky File Renamer, Cinnamon 5.0

Last updated: July 8, 2021

Linux Mint team announced the second point release for Mint 20 today. Features Kernel 5.4, Ubuntu 20.04 package base, and Cinnamon 5.0, Xfce 4.16, MATE 1.24 for each desktop edition.

Linux Mint 20.2 will be supported until 2025. It comes with improved Update Manager that supports installing updates for applets, desklets, themes, and extensions.

As well, it now displays software update notifications if it has been available for more than 7 logged-in days or older than 15 calendar days. However, you can change the time period or disable the notification entirely.

The release comes with the new Bulky batch file renamer out-of-the-box. As a desktop independent app, you can install it on Ubuntu easily via the .deb package.

For Cinnamon edition, the new Cinnamon 5.0 features file search and content search in Nemo file manager, memory limit for the desktop usage, new CLI and python3 module.

Other changes include:

Automated Flatpak updates in Update Manager preferences. It will automatically remove unused flatpak run-times to free up your disk space.
Replace GNote with Sticky Notes as default note taking app.
Improvements for the ‘Warpinator’ file transfer app.
HPLIP 3.21.2 as well as the latest ipp-usb and sane-airscan
The WebApp manager now supports for incognito/private browsing.
The NVIDIA Prime applet can now switch between AMD onboard chipsets and discrete GPUs.

How to Get Linux Mint 20.2:

You can get the Linux Mint 20.2 upgrade wizard easily via “Edit->Upgrade to Linux Mint 20.2 Uma” menu in Update Manager. However, it’s recommended to backup, disable screensaver, and update Cinnamon spices (applets, desklets, extensions, themes) before getting started.

For the ISO images as well as release notes, go to linuxmint.com.

In News Linux Mint

Converseen Adds Support for Batch Converting JFIF files to JPEG / PNG

Last updated: July 5, 2021

Batch image converting and scaling app Converseen released version 0.9.9.1, features JFIF file format support.

Converseen is a free open-source tool based on Qt5 framework. It provides a lightweight and easy to use interface to convert single or multiple photo images.

Thanks to Magick++, it supports 100+ supported file formats, including the most popular DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. And, it supports for converting PDF to image, and/or image to PDF.

In addition, it can scale, rotate, and flip images, and replace transparent background with specified color. For JPEG and PNG, you can set the quality level via ‘Image settings’ button.

By releasing Converseen 0.9.9.1, it now supports for converting JFIF file to any supported image format. As well, there are minor updates and various bug-fixes in the release.

How to Install Converseen 0.9.9.1 in Ubuntu:

Besides building from the source tarball, you can install the app from the unofficial PPA in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, as well as Linux Mint 20.

1.) Firstly, open terminal from system app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

2.) After that, run command to update package cache, though it’s done automatically in Ubuntu 20.04 and higher:

sudo apt update

3.) You can finally either upgrade the tool from existing release via Software Updater, or install it via command:

sudo apt install converseen

How to Remove Converseen:

To remove the software, simply run command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove converseen

As well, you can remove the PPA either via command:

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

or by removing relevant line from “Software & Updates -> Other Software”:

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