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GNOME Considers Adding New Core Audio Player App

Last updated: March 24, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME Desktop considers adding a new core application for audio playback!

It’s Decibels, a basic free open-source audio player that is supposed to fill the gap of GNOME currently not having a Core app that is designed to open single audio files.

The app has a stupid simple user interface that works in both Linux Desktop and Mobile devices. It features:

Shows the waveform of the track
Adjust playback speed from 0.5x to 3.0x.
Easy seek controls – pause, play, skip back/forward 10s, volume up/down.

In News Audio, Gnome

GNOME 46 Released! New Global Search, Remote Login, and More

Last updated: March 21, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNOME, the popular Linux desktop environment, announced new 46 stable release this Wednesday!

The new GNOME 46, code-name“Kathmandu”, will be default desktop for Ubuntu 24.04 and Fedora 40 planned for next month, and optional for Arch, Manjaro, etc.

The Files, aka Nautilus, in the release features new global search, that can be triggered either by Ctrl+Shift+F or top-left search icon. It supports searching multiple locations simultaneously, including locations outside user home. Other changes for ‘Files’ include:
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In News Gnome

Oracle Announced the General Availability of Java JDK 22

Last updated: March 20, 2024 — Leave a comment

Oracle announced the release of JDK 22 GA this Tuesday.

“JDK 22 delivers 12 enhancements that are significant enough to warrant their own JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs), including seven preview features and one incubator feature. They cover improvements to the Java Language, its APIs, its performance, and the tools included in the JDK.”
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In News java, programming

Firefox 124.0 Released! Caret Browsing in PDF Viewer & Qwant to All Languages in France

Last updated: March 20, 2024 — Leave a comment

Mozilla announced a new monthly release of its Firefox web browser on March 19.

In the new release, the caret browsing mode, keyboard navigating just like in text editor, also works in the built-in PDF viewer.

The Qwant search engine has been expanded to all languages in the France region along with Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.

In MacOS, Firefox now uses the macOS fullscreen API for better user experience for fullscreen spaces, menubar and the Dock. In Windows, it populates the taskbar jump list more efficiently, for a smoother overall browsing experience.

Firefox Caret Browsing setting option

In News Firefox, web

Ubuntu 24.04 Default Wallpaper Revealed [Download Link]

Last updated: March 20, 2024 — Leave a comment

The default wallpaper for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Noble Numbat, was finally released this Tuesday!

Similar to the one for current Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the new wallpaper uses gradient color background (from purple in top-left to orange in bottom right?) with mascot in center.

I can’t say how it looks! Just see the image below for the new wallpaper:

In News ubuntu 24.04

Here are 8 Winner Wallpaper Images for Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: March 19, 2024 — Leave a comment

For Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, the top 8 photo images that won the wallpaper competition are out! They will be shipped by default in the .iso image as optional wallpapers for Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop.

Ubuntu Desktop team started the wallpaper competition for Ubuntu 24.04 on Feb 8. The submissions are grouped into 4 categories, including Mascot Theme, Digital / Abstract Art, Nature, Other. Each category has 2 winners and they are:

NOTE: The images here are optimized for faster loading. For original images, please scroll down and go to the competition web page.

Mascot Category:
Fuwafuwa Nanbatto-san (Dark/Light Variants)

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In News ubuntu 24.04

QMPlay2 Released 24.03.16 with Vulkan Video Decoding Support

Last updated: March 18, 2024 — Leave a comment

QMPlay2, the free open-source Qt media player, released version 24.03.16 few days ago.

QMPlay2 is a Qt based media player that uses FFmpeg as backend for most video and audio codecs support. It also supports Audio CD, raw files, Rayman 2 music and chiptunes, as well as ALSA, PulseAudio or PipeWire sound servers. And, it has built-in a browser to search & play YouTube videos.

The most recent 24.03.16 release added better support for FFmpeg 6.1, and experimental Vulkan Video decoder support. So, since this release, the media player now supports hardware accelerated video playback through following APIs:

Vulkan Video (needs FFmpeg 6.1).
CUVID (NVIDIA only)
DXVA2 (Windows Vista and higher)
D3D11VA (Vulkan, Windows 8 and higher)
VDPAU/VA-API (X11 for VDPAU, Linux/BSD only)
VideoToolBox (macOS only).

QMPlay2 YouTube browser

In News media player

GNU Octave 9.1.0 Released! How to Install it in Ubuntu

Last updated: March 17, 2024 — Leave a comment

GNU Octave, the free open-source application for numerical computations, released new major 9.1.0 version! Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04.

The GNU website has not yet announced the new release, but it’s available in the download page.

According to the changelog, the new Octave 9.1.0 overhauled dec2base, dec2bin, and dec2hex. They now accept negative inputs and fractional inputs.

It re-architected the inputParser function to get a 60% performance improvement. And, the perms function has been made faster. The audiowrite function now supports writing to MPEG audio formats (including MP3) if the sndfile library supports it. The current directory of oruntests now changes to the directory containing the files with the tests for the duration of the test.

The release features new functions, including isenv, ismembertol, isuniform, tensorprod.

The disable_diagonal_matrix, disable_permutation_matrix, and disable_range functions have been removed! Replacements are optimize_diagonal_matrix, optimize_permutation_matrix, and optimize_range

Operators, such as .+, .+=, **, and .**= are removed. Replacements are +, +=, +=, ^, and .^=. And, following function are obsolete:

idx_vector::bool()
all_ok(const Array&) in Array-util.h.
octave_base_value::count

In Howtos, News GNU Octave, programming

CopyQ Clipboard Manager 8.0.0 Add ARM64 for Debian, Ras Pi, & MacOS

Last updated: March 15, 2024 — Leave a comment

CopyQ, the popular free open-source clipboard manager, announced new 8.0.0 release today!

The new release features new arm64 build packages for MacOS, Debian, and Raspberry Pi. The packages for Windows and MacOS are now based on Qt6 framework. The 64-bit Windows packages now install the app to “Program Files” instead of incorrect “Program Files (X86)“. User has to remove the old path after installing the new version.

For Linux, CopyQ 8.0.0 adds cmake option -DWITH_X11=OFF to disable X11 support, and build option to disable auto-start, which is useful for Flatpak package so far does not support this feature due to permission issue.

For security, the release also disallows storing and processing data from password managers, such as KeePass, KeePassXC, 1Password, and some browsers in private mode.

CopyQ indicator and clipboard history editor

In News clipboard manager, CopyQ

OBS Studio 30.1 Released! Enabled HDR for HEVC, AV1 for VA-API

Last updated: March 14, 2024 — Leave a comment

OBS Studio, the popular free open-source live streaming app, announced new major 30.1 release this Wednesday!

The new release enabled HDR for HEVC over the RTMP protocol, AV1 HDR is not currently supported by YouTube.

OBS Studio 30.1 reworked Image Slideshow source to load files asynchronously, and fixed an issue where the slideshow would loop before showing all images. Existing Image Slideshow sources will continue functioning as before. To change them to the new version, you have to re-create them.

The release also added AV1 support for VA-API video hardware acceleration, and AV1 support for WebRTC/WHIP output.