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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:

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.

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System Cleaner BleachBit 4.1.0 Released with Pale Moon / Zoom Support

Last updated: September 3, 2020

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:

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

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Blender 2.90 Released with Intel Embree, NVLink Support for CUDA / OptiX

Last updated: September 1, 2020

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.

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Puddletag Audio Tagger 2.0.1 Released with Python 3 Port

Last updated: August 31, 2020

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:

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
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3D Arcade Racer SuperTuxKart 1.2 Released [How to Install]

Last updated: August 28, 2020

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:

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

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
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LaTex Editor TeXstudio 3.0.0 Released [How to Install]

Last updated: August 25, 2020

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:

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.

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NVIDIA 450.66 Released with Matrox D1450 D1480 Support

Last updated: August 18, 2020

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
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Kdenlive 20.08 Released with New Interface Layouts [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: August 17, 2020

Kdenlive, KDE Non-Linear Video Editor, released version 20.08 today with nifty new features, stability and interface improvements.

Kdenlive 20.08 release highlights:

  • New interface layouts.
  • Multiple audio stream support
  • A new cache management interface to maintain / control the size of cached and proxied files as well as backup-ed data.
  • Zoom bars in the Clip Monitor and Effects Panel
  • Some new keyboard shortcuts.
  • Performance boost to audio thumbnail generation as well as JPG image sequence playback
  • And miscellaneous improvements

See the video about the new Kdenlive video editor:

How to Install Kdenlive 20.08 in Ubuntu 20.04:

The software offers single executable Appimage which is available in files.kde.org.

For those prefer native .deb packages, the kdenlive team ppa has built the packages for Ubuntu 20.04 and derivatives.

1.) Open ‘terminal’ from your system application menu, and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

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

2. ) If an old version of kdenlive was installed, upgrade it via Update Manager:

Or simply run command in terminal to install the video editor:

sudo apt install kdenlive

NOTE for non-KDE users, Kdenlive will be installed along with a large list of KDE libraries.

Uninstall:

To purge the PPA as well as downgrade Kdenlive package, run command in terminal:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

To remove the PPA only, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

And to remove Kdenlive, run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove kdenlive kdenlive-data
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Ubuntu 18.04.5 Released with Linux 5.4 Kernel

Last updated: August 14, 2020

The Ubuntu team announced the release of Ubuntu 18.04.5 and Ubuntu 16.04.7 last night.

While Ubuntu 16.04.7 comes with only security package updates and other fixes, Ubuntu 18.04.5 includes an updated hardware enablement stack from Ubuntu 20.04.

With Linux Kernel 5.4, WiFi should work out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 18.04.5 with RTL8723DE (tests in my HP 246 G6 laptop).

Also users of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS will be offered an automatic upgrade to 18.04.5 via Update Manager.

Get Ubuntu 18.04.5 / Ubuntu 16.04.7

For Ubuntu 18.04.4 and previous, you’ll be automatically update to v18.04.5 after installing all system updates.

If you were updated from the original Ubuntu 18.04, and you never installed the hardware enablement stack, you may run command to get the latest kernel:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04

For ISO images, go to releases.ubuntu.com

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GNU Emacs 27.1 Released with Native JSON Parsing Support

Last updated: August 12, 2020

GNU Emacs 27.1 was released after almost one year of development. Here is what’s new and how to install it in Ubuntu.

Emacs 27.1 contains a wide variety of new features, including:

  • Built-in support for arbitrary-size integers
  • Text shaping with HarfBuzz
  • Native support for JSON parsing
  • Better support for Cairo drawing
  • Portable dumping used instead of unexec
  • Support for XDG conventions for init files
  • Additional early-init initialization file
  • Lexical-binding is used by default
  • Built-in support for tab bar and tab-line
  • Support for resizing and rotating of images without ImageMagick

How to Get Emacs 27.1 in Ubuntu:

Emacs is available Snap Store, v27.1 will be available very soon.

To install Emacs Snap, simply search for and install Emacs in Software utility.

Emacs flatpak package has been updated. It’s available to install in flathub repository.

To install Emacs flatpak, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run following commands one by one:

sudo apt install flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub org.gnu.emacs
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