Archives For November 30, 1999

Wine 5.17 Released with Initial NDIS Network Driver

Last updated: September 12, 2020

Wine Stable

Wine 5.17, a new development release of the compatibility layer allows to run Windows apps on Linux and Mac OS, was released with new features and various bug-fixes.

Wine 5.17 release highlights:

  • ADVAPI32 library converted to PE.
  • Beginnings of an NDIS network driver.
  • Still more restructuration of the console support.
  • Various bug fixes.

How to Install Wine 5.17 in Ubuntu:

Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, or by searching for ‘terminal’ from system application menu. When it opens, run following steps one by one.

1.) Run command to enable 32 bit architecture (if you haven’t already):

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

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

2.) Install the repository key by running command:

wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -

3.) Add wine repository via command (for Ubuntu 20.04 and Linux Mint 20):

sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ focal main'

NOTE: You may replace focal in the code with:

  • bionic for Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint 19.x
  • xenial for Ubuntu 16.04

4.) Add PPA for the required libfaudio0 library:

For Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint 19.x only, libfaudio0 library is still required to install from a third-party repository by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cybermax-dexter/sdl2-backport

5.) Finally install Wine 5.17 via command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-devel

NOTE: installing the latest development release will automatically remove the stable version (if installed).

And for the unmet dependencies issue installing 32-bit libraries, try running command:

sudo apt-get install libgnutls30:i386 libldap-2.4-2:i386 libgpg-error0:i386 libxml2:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386 libsdl2-2.0-0:i386 libfreetype6:i386 libdbus-1-3:i386 libsqlite3-0:i386

(Optional) After successfully installed Wine 5.17, you may remove the PPAs by launching Software & Updates utility and navigating to Other Software tab.

KeePass2

KeePass Password Safe 2.46 was released a day ago with new features, improvements and bug-fixes.

KeePass 2.46 release highlights include:

  • Secure connections (e.g. for WebDAV) now support TLS 1.3, when running on .NET 4.8 +.
  • Add keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+*, Ctrl+/ for the ‘Expand Recursively’, ‘Collapse Recursively’ group command.
  • The {VKEY ...} command now supports some flags
  • Add option to protect KeePass windows against certain screen capture operations.
  • Added command line parameter ‘-wa-enable:’ for enabling specific Mono workarounds.
  • With the KPUInput plugin on Wayland, it can auto-type the default sequence and manually selected sequences of the currently selected entry.
  • Generic CSV Importer improvements, and bug-fixes.

How to Install KeePass 2.46 in Ubuntu:

Julian Taylor’s PPA maintains KeePass2 packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, and Ubuntu 20.04.

NOTE the PPA is not updated for v2.46 at the moment of writing, check the PPA link before getting started.

1. Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching for “Terminal” from app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/keepass2

Type user password (no visual feedback due to security reason) when it asks and hit Enter.

2. Then upgrade KeePass password safe via Software Updater if you have a previous version installed:

upgrade KeePass2

Or run commands to install / upgrade the software:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install keepass2

Uninstall:

The PPA repository can be removed via Software & Updates utility under Other Software tab. To remove KeePass password safe, simply run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove keepass2

digiKam 5.6.0

digiKam photo management software 7.1.0 was released a few days ago with some new features and plenty of bug-fixes.

digiKam 7.1.0 release highlights include:

  • Better Canon CR3 metadata support.
  • New Batch Queue Manager plugin to fix Hot Pixels automatically.
  • New Batch Queue Manager plugin to apply texture over images.
  • Improve the IPTC compatibility with UTF-8 characters encoding.

digiKam 5.0 beta splash screen

Download / Install digiKam:

Non-install single executable .appimage package is available in the download page.

digiKam is also available as Flatpak package, you can get it either from flathub repository, or by running following commands one by one in Ubuntu:

1. Open terminal from system application launcher. When it opens, run command to install flatpak framework:

sudo apt install flatpak

2. Then add Flathub repository which hosts a large list of flatpak packages:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

3. Finally run command to install digiKam flatpak package:

flatpak install flathub org.kde.digikam

Already installed the flatpak package? You may update the application via:

flatpak update org.kde.digikam

For any reason, you can remove the package via command:

flatpak uninstall org.kde.digikam

GTK+ Twitter App Cawbird 1.2.0 Released (PPA)

Last updated: September 8, 2020

Cawbird, an open-source fork of Corebird Twitter client, released version 1.2.0 a few days ago with many improvements and bug-fixes.

Cawbird 1.2.0 release highlights include:

  • Resolved major accessibility issue with timelines.
  • Added ability to add and read descriptions on images
  • App window can be reduced to a narrower width and has a “responsive” layout for tweets
  • Improved thumbnail and image loading to reduce resource usage.
  • Image gallery loop back.
  • Made “Replying to” on Tweet info page list all users.
  • Reworked @-mention completion so it works with multilingual text.
  • And various bug-fixes.

How to Install Cawbird 1.2.0 in Ubuntu:

The software developer maintains Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04, as well as other Linux packages via the repository at the link below:

Download Cawbird

Select Ubuntu, then click ‘Grab binary packages directly‘ and download the .deb package for your system.

Finally install the .deb via Gdebi package installer (available in Ubuntu Software) and enjoy!

You can also add the repository to receive future updates via Software Updater (Update Manager), by running following commands one by one in terminal:

echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/IBBoard:/cawbird/xUbuntu_20.04/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/home:IBBoard:cawbird.list

curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:IBBoard:cawbird/xUbuntu_20.04/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/home:IBBoard:cawbird.gpg > /dev/null

sudo apt update

sudo apt install cawbird

For Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint 19.x, replace xUbuntu_20.04 in the commands with xUbuntu_18.04.

System cleaning software BleachBit 4.1.0 was released a few days ago with support for cleaning Pale Moon and Zoom.

With BleachBit you can free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn’t know was there. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean thousands of applications including Firefox, Adobe Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, and more. Beyond simply deleting files, BleachBit includes advanced features such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to make it faster. Better than free, BleachBit is open source.

BleachBit 4.1.0 is marked as development release for the next 4.2.0 major release. It features:

  • Clean Pale Moon.
  • Clean Zoom.
  • Fix bug that not deleting whole Firefox URL History.
  • Fix that cleaning LibreOffice erase all its extensions.

How to Get BleachBit 4.1.0:

The deb packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, as well as packages for Debian, CentOS, Fedora, Windows, and source code are available to download at the link below:

Download BleachBit

Grab the .deb package for your Ubuntu edition, open & install file with either ‘Software Install’ or ‘Gdebi package installer’ if installed.

Blender 2.79

Open source 3D creation software Blender 2.90 was released as the new major series with huge feature updates and performance improvements.

Blender 2.90 release highlights include:

  • Faster motion blur with Intel Embree.
  • NVLink support for CUDA and OptiX.
  • New search menu.
  • Motion blur in EEVEE rewritten from scratch
  • New physically based texture for smulating the colors of the sky.
  • Initial Wayland Support

And improvements to EEVEE, Cycles, sculpt, VR, animation, modeling, UV editing and so much more. See the release note for details. Or see what’s new with the Youtube video:

How to Install Blender 2.90 in Ubuntu:

The official Blender snap package has been updated for the new release. You can install it either from Ubuntu Software or by going to https://snapcraft.io/blender

Or run command in terminal to install Blender Snap package:

sudo snap install blender --classic

If you have already installed the Snap package, it will be automatically updated to the latest.

Also the Blender download page offers Linux portable package, which you can extract and run the executable file to launch the software.

Puddletag audio tag editor 2.0.1 was released 2 days ago with official Python 3 and PyQt5 support.

Since Ubuntu 20.04 dropped Qt4 and old Python 2 libraries, Puddletag 1.2 as well was removed from Ubuntu universe repository.

The Python 3 & PyQt5 branch was started a few months ago by sandrotosi. Now it’s finally merged into Puddletag 2.0.1.

The audio tagger might be added back (hope so) into main repositories in future Ubuntu releases. Before it happens, you can either grab the source code or use an unofficial PPA.

See how to install puddletag in Ubuntu 20.04 via PPA.

Or grab the .deb package directly from PPA link:

Puddletag 2.0.1 (.deb)

And install it via either Gdebi package installer:

or by running command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T)

cd ~/Downloads/ && sudo apt install ./puddletag_2.0.1-0focal1_all.deb

SuperTuxKart 1.2, free and open-source kart racing game, was officially released a day ago.

What’s new in SuperTuxkart 1.2:

  • Support gamepad hotplugging
  • Use SDL2 for window creation
  • New “Cartoon” theme
  • Haiku support
  • Add support for IPv6 LAN servers
  • Team chat for team games
  • A new Kiki kart and improved Pidgin and Puffy karts
  • Fixed most gamepad related bugs
  • New settings to customize the game’s camera
  • And many many enhancements and fixes

How to Get SuperTuxKart 1.2:

Source code as well as packages for Android, Linux (portable), Mac OS, and Windows are available for download at the link below:

SuperTuxKart in Github

Also, there’s an Ubuntu PPA that contains .deb packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 20 / 19.x.

The PPA so far contains SuperTuxKart 1.2 RC1 package. It should be updated to v1.2 in days. Check the PPA link before getting started.

1.) Open terminal from system application launcher, then run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stk/dev

Type user password, no visual feedback, when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2.) After adding the PPA, either upgrade from an old version via Software Updater, or run commands in terminal to install the game:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install supertuxkart

Uninstall SuperTuxKart:

To remove the PPA, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:stk/dev

To remove the racing game, run:

sudo apt remove --autoremove supertuxkart supertuxkart-data

TeXstudio 3.0.0, an open-source cross-platform LaTex editor, was finally released after some alpha, beta, and rc tests.

According to the changelog, TeXstudio 3.0.0 features:

  • speed up document parsing, should result in faster document load times
  • spell checking is done asynchronously
  • custom verbatim/math env highlighting abandoned for a cwl based approach
  • better dark-mode support
  • qt4 support abandoned

How to get TeXstudio 3.0.0 in Ubuntu Linux:

The new release source code, as well as Windows, Mac OS, and Linux packages are available to download at:

Download TeXstudio

The official PPA also made the new release packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 19.x, 20, and their derivatives.

1. Open terminal either by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or by searching for ‘terminal’ from software launcher. When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sunderme/texstudio

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

2. If an old version was installed in your system, remove the texstudio-doc, texstudio-l10n (if any) package before upgrading the software:

sudo apt-get remove texstudio-doc texstudio-l10n

3. After adding the PPA, you can either upgrade it via Software Updater:

or run commands in terminal to install or upgrade the software:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install texstudio

Uninstall:

To remove the LaTeX editor, run command in terminal:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove texstudio

And go to Software & Updates -> Other Software to remove PPA repositories.

Nvidia Linux driver

NVIDIA for Linux driver 450.66 was released today as the latest long lived branch version.

NVIDIA 450.66 fixed triple buffering support of Vulkan X11 swapchains when applications are syncing to vblank.

It also added following GPUs support:

  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN31LP
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN50LP
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN51LP
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN70
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN71
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN72
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN90
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN91
  • EIZO Quadro MED-XN92
  • Matrox D-Series D1450
  • Matrox D-Series D1480

How to Get Nvidia 450.66 in Ubuntu:

The “Graphics Drivers” team PPA is a reliable source that contains most recent Nvidia packages for Ubuntu. Check the PPA link before getting started as it’s not updated to 450.66 at the moment of writing.

1. To add the PPA, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

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

Type user password for sudo prompt (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then launch Additional Drivers utility, choose Nvidia 450 and apply changes.

Sorry I can’t see these drivers as I don’t have a discrete graphics card in my laptop :(

(Optional) To remove the PPA repository, either go to Software & Updates > Other Software, or run command:

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