UbuntuHandbook | News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux

How to Install Inkscape 1.4 in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: October 21, 2024 — 1 Comment

This tutorial shows how to install Inkscape, version 1.4 so far, in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 24.10.

Inkscape is a popular free open-source vector graphics editor, that works in Linux, Windows, and macOS. It uses SVG as default file format, and can also import/export various other file formats, including AI, EPS, PDF, PS and PNG.

The software is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, and logos. So far, the latest version is v1.4 that was released a week ago.

In Howtos image editor, Inkscape

Set Ubuntu PC/Laptop Speaker as AirPlay Audio Player

Last updated: October 19, 2024 — 1 Comment

This tutorial shows how to set up Ubuntu Linux as AirPlay receiver, so your PC speaker can play audio streamed from iPhone, iTunes, iOS devices and third-party AirPlay sources.

For Linux, there’s a popular free open-source app called Shairport Sync. It’s a AirPlay and AirPlay 2 audio player forked from the original Shairport (discontinued).

Shairport Sync offers full audio synchronisation. It means that audio is played on the output device at exactly the time specified by the audio source.

In Howtos airplay

How to Install GNU Octave 9.3.0 in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: December 16, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows you how to install the latest GNU Octave (version 9.3.0 so far) in all current Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04.

GNU Octave is a free open-source scientific programming language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It features powerful mathematics-oriented syntax with built-in 2D/3D plotting and visualization tools, cross-platform, and drop-in compatible with many Matlab scripts.

The latest version of the programming language has reached version 9.2.0. Features in the 9.x release series include:

Overhauled dec2base, dec2bin, and dec2hex. They now accept negative inputs and fractional inputs.
Re-architected the inputParser function to get a 60% performance improvement.
The perms function has been made faster.
New functions, including isenv, ismembertol, isuniform, tensorprod.
Removed disable_diagonal_matrix, disable_permutation_matrix, and disable_range functions. 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
Support Qt6.
Deprecate FLTK backend, in favor of Qt.

See the news page for more about Octave 9.

In Howtos programming

How to Open Certain URL Links in Specific Web Browsers

Last updated: October 15, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to configure Ubuntu or other Linux to redirect certain URLs or domains to specific web browser, while leaving all others open in the default browser.

When clicking an URL in email reader, chat app, and other apps, it by default opens the linked page in system default web browser. However, some users may prefer to open certain websites in non-default browser. For example, use Google Chrome for watching YouTube, while using Firefox as default.

In Howtos web

How to Install qBittorrent 5.0.2 in Ubuntu

Last updated: November 30, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to install the most recent qBittorrent 5.0.2 in all current Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 24.10.

qBittorrent announced new major 5.0.0 release few weeks ago, with many new features, including create .torrent with larger piece size, support for Mark-of-the-Web, ability to pause/resume entire BitTorrent session, option to set BitTorrent session shutdown timeout.

The webUI now supports dark theme, and supports running concurrent searches. The web API can now send binary data with filename and mime type specified, support SSL torrents, and allow to download .torrent file using search plugin.

For Linux, qBittorrent 5.0.0 now supports systemd power management. For Windows 10+, it uses Fusion style, which has better compatibility with dark mode. And, the app in macOS now displays download/upload speed in dock icon. See HERE for more about the release.

In Howtos qbittorrent

Ubuntu 24.10 Released! Kernel 6.11, GNOME 47, & More

Last updated: October 11, 2024 — Leave a comment

Ubuntu 24.10, code-name “Oracular Oriole”, was officially released!

This is the latest short term release with 9 months support until July 2025. It features Linux Kernel 6.11 and GNOME Desktop 47.

And, there are official flavors feature other desktop environments, such as KUbuntu 24.10 and Ubuntu Studio 24.10 with KDE Plasma 6.1, XUbuntu 24.10 with XFCE 4.18, Ubuntu MATE 24.10 with 1.26.

In News Ubuntu 24.10

Python 3.13.0 Released! New Interactive Shell & Free-threaded Mode

Last updated: October 9, 2024 — Leave a comment

Python, the popular free open-source programming language, finally announced 3.13.0 stable this Monday!

Python 3.13 introduced new interactive shell. It’s enabled by default and based on code from the PyPy project.

When you start the new shell in an interactive terminal, it uses colors by default for prompts and tracebacks and supports multi-line editing.

As well, it supports REPL-specific commands such as help, exit, and quit without call them as functions. And, I can finally use clear command in the shell to clear screen.

The new interactive shell also supports interactive help browsing using F1, history browsing using F2, and ‘paste mode’ with F3 for pasting larger blocks of code.

Just in case for those who don’t like the new shell, it can be disabled by setting environment variable. PYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1.

Python 3.13 shell, with colors, multi-line editing, etc support

In News programming, python

How to Completely Disable Suspend/Hibernate in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: October 8, 2024 — 6 Comments

This tutorial shows how to completely disable suspend and/or hibernate function, so your Linux computer will never go to sleep.

Linux can automatically go to sleep when system is idle or laptop lid is closed, though user can configure to disable that behavior via either graphical options or logind.conf configuration file.

But, if you never want to sleep your computer, e.g., for server, then you can completely disable this function. So even the suspend option in power-off menu or the corresponding Linux command won’t work!

image from pixabay.com

In Howtos hibernate, suspend, systemd

Auto-run Custom Actions When Waking up Your Ubuntu from Sleep

Last updated: October 8, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to automatically run custom command, script, or other actions after resuming your Linux PC/laptop from suspend or hibernate.

As you may know, there are quite a few ways to run something automatically at Ubuntu startup. You can use “Startup Applications” utility to run apps or custom commands at login, use crontab to schedule startup jobs, udev rules to auto-configure devices on detection, and systemd-tmpfiles service to auto create, delete, and write configuration files.

But what if your computer does not function properly, or some personal settings do not persist after waking up from sleep?

Without waiting for upstream fixes, you can workaround by creating custom systemd services, to auto-restart the function, or re-configure the settings, and trigger it automatically when waking up from sleep.

In Howtos hibernate, suspend

FFmpeg 7.1 Added VVC decoder, Vulkan H.264/HEVC Encoder [Ubuntu PPA]

Last updated: October 5, 2024 — 3 Comments

The popular FFmpeg media library released new version 7.1 a few days ago. Here are the new features and Ubuntu PPA for Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 users.

The new release of FFmpeg library added official VVC decoder support. Versatile Video Coding (VVC in short), also known as H.266, has about 50% better compression rate for the same quality compared to HEVC (aka H.265). It supports resolutions ranging from very low up to 4K, 16K, and 360° videos, as well as YCbCr 4:4:4, 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 with 8–10 bits per component, HDR, variable and fractional frame rates from 0 to 120 Hz, and more.

FFmpeg added experimental VVC decoding support since the last 7.0 version. Now, the decoder goes official and it’s compatible with DVB test content. The release also supports for decoding VVC with Intel Quick Sync Video acceleration. As well, it supports encoding VVC using libvvenc library.

In News ffmpeg, multimedia

Newsletter