Kodi 21 “Omega” Stable Officially Released! [How to Install]

Last updated: April 8, 2024 — Leave a comment

After more than a year of development, Kodi media player 21, code-name “Omega”, is finally released!

Kodi 21 is a new major release. It’s now based on FFmpeg 6.0, that features Radiance HDR image support, VAAPI decoding and QSV decoding for 10/12bit 422, 10/12bit 444 HEVC and VP9, MediaCodec decoder, and various other exciting new features, see ffmpeg.org for details.

For macOS, the release supports HiDPI (retina) displays using its native implementations for window displays. And, it fixed crash on speech recognition activation, improved window resizing when moving (or fallback when display disconnected) from one display to another, and implemented Hotkeycontroller for media keys.
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Install & Manage Flatpak Apps with This Full-Featured Tool

Last updated: April 7, 2024 — Leave a comment

Have many Flatpak app packages installed on your Linux desktop or mobile? Here’s an app to install, remove, downgrade, and manage app data with a simple graphical interface.

Flatpak is getting popular in today’s Linux, and some (e.g., Linux Mint, Fedora, and Pop!_OS) even have it support out-of-the-box. User can install (or uninstall) a Flatpak package by either using system package manager or running a Linux command in terminal. And, there’s a popular graphical tool Flatseal to manage permissions for each app package.

For users who want to get more controls for their Flatpak app packages, there’s a free open-source tool warehouse available for choice.


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Install FFmpeg (7.1 Updated) via PPA in Ubuntu 22.04 | Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: October 5, 2024 — 1 Comment

FFmpeg announced new major 7.0 release yesterday! Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, Linux Mint 21.

The new version of this popular multi-media library came with name “Dijkstra”. It features native decoding support for VVC (aka H.266) through the libavcodec library, though it’s so far experimental.

The libavformat library can now read and write IAMF (Immersive Audio) files. And, a new -stream_group option is added into CLI tool to configure the IAMF structure.

As announced at the end of last year, the CLI (command-line) tool now is multi-threaded. Meaning, the transcoding process now runs in parallel that can be much faster than before.

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How to Install & Update Discord in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: April 4, 2024 — Leave a comment

This is a step by step guide shows how to install Discord instant messaging app and keep it up-to-date in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Discord is a popular instant messaging and VoIP social platform, that supports voice & video calls, text messaging, media and files. It works in Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS/iPadOS, and web browser.

Discord for Linux so far supports only x86_64 (AMD/Intel CPUs) platform with following packages:

  • Deb – native for Debian/Ubuntu.
  • tar.gz – portable package for most Linux.
  • Flatpak – runs in sandbox for most Linux.
  • Snap – runs in sandbox for most Linux.


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Ubuntu 24.04 Beta Delayed Due to XZ Open Source Attack

Last updated: April 3, 2024 — 2 Comments

The Beta release of Ubuntu 24.04, Noble Numbat, has been pushed to April 11, 2024, one week after the previous date (April 4, 2024)!

It’s because an attack publicly disclosed on March 29, 2024.

An attacker using the name “Jia Tan” installed a backdoor into liblzma library. It’s a part of xz, which happens to be a dependency of OpenSSH in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. The backdoor sends hidden commands at the start of an SSH session, allowing the attacker to run an arbitrary command on the target system without logging in.

Russ Cox, Google’s Golang developer, post a page talking about timeline of the xz open source attack. According to the post, “Jia Tan”, the attacker, started contributing to xz since October 2021, and became a maintainer since the second half of 2022.

Attack began on 2024-02-23, and Debian Unstable, Ubuntu 24.04 (Dev), Fedora 40 Beta and Fedora Rawhide have been affected.
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How to Install Google Chrome in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Last updated: April 3, 2024 — 3 Comments

This is a step by step guide shows how to install Google Chrome web browser and keep it up-to-date in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Google Chrome is the top popular web browser today. It is a proprietary software free for use. For those who prefer open-source, then Google also offers Chromium browser for choice.

Google Chrome is available to install in Linux on only Intel/AMD platform through 2 ways! They are:

  • official and native .deb/.rpm package.
  • unofficial community maintained Flatpak package, runs in sandbox environment.

Here I’m going to show you how to install the browser in both ways. Choose either that you prefer.


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How to Install Spotify Client in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: April 2, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to install the popular Spotify music app in Ubuntu Linux though Snap, Deb, or Flatpak packages.

Spotify supports for Linux officially through Snap package which runs in sandbox environment, and Deb package that’s native in Debian and Ubuntu. For choice, there’s also a community maintained Flatpak package, which also runs in sandbox environment. All of them is available for only x86_64 (Intel/AMD CPUs) platform so far.

Spotify for Linux packages:

  • Snap package, runs in sandbox and receives updates automatically.
  • Deb package, the classic package format runs natively in Debian and Ubuntu.
  • Flatpak package, unofficial community maintained package, runs in sandbox and works in most Linux desktop.


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Add Google Gemini AI Chatbot in Ubuntu 24.04/23.10 Panel

Last updated: April 2, 2024 — Leave a comment

Want an AI chatbot in Ubuntu Desktop? There’s now an extension can do the job by adding Gemini AI into GNOME Panel.

Gemini, formerly known as Bard, is an AI chatbot developed by Google. It’s initially released last year in 2023, and available in 239 countries for 46 languages. The AI chatbot is a proprietary software, but available in both free and paid versions.

If you want to try out the Gemini AI, then  this is a step by step guide shows you how to do the trick in Ubuntu Desktop.


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Flowblade Video Editor 2.14 Adds Editable Titles, Slowmo Playback & USB Shuttle

Last updated: March 31, 2024 — Leave a comment

Flowblade video editor released new major 2.14 version few days ago with exciting new features!

Flowblade is a free open-source multi-track non-linear video editor for Linux, that features built-in G’Mic Tool, batch encoding, and GPU accelerated (Vaapi and NVENC) video encoding.

The new major 2.14 version was released last Friday. It features initial USB jog/shuttle support, so far with following 3 devices support:
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Kodi Announced Discontinuation of its Ubuntu PPA

Last updated: March 30, 2024 — Leave a comment

The popular Kodi media player (formerly XBMC) finally discontinued its official PPA for Ubuntu users.

Meaning that there’s no official Kodi .deb package any more. Users are recommended to use Flatpak package instead!

Ubuntu PPA is a popular way to host up-to-date versions of software packages in .deb package format. And, Wolfgang Schupp has been maintaining the Kodi Team PPA for many years for Ubuntu users. The last version stuck at Kodi 20.2, though there are still add-on updates now and then.

Now, the developer team officially announced the discontinuation of the PPA:
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