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Audacity 3.7.0 Released! No New Features, But only Fixes & Improvements

Last updated: November 1, 2024 — 1 Comment

The popular free open-source Audacity audio editor announced new 3.7.0 release few days ago!

Unlike v3.5.0 or v3.6.0, this is NOT a feature release but maintenance updates with many bug-fixes and performance improvements. While, the developers are working on next major Audacity 4.0.

The new release improved contrast in the light theme. Which, fixed the issue that the focus border was hard to discern as it was blue against a blue-based background.

To not make disabled and neurodivergent people uncomfortable while they use Audacity, it renamed the word “Insane” in the Quality drop-down menu in the Export Audio dialog with “Excessive“.

In News Audio, audio editor

Install Howdy in Ubuntu 24.04 for Windows Hello Style Facial Authentication

Last updated: November 15, 2024 — 6 Comments

This tutorial shows how to install and setup howdy to get Windows Hello™ style authentication in Ubuntu 24.04 and Ubuntu 24.10.

Howdy is a free open-source Python program, that can use your built-in IR emitters and camera in combination with facial recognition to prove who you are.

With it, you will no longer need to type password anymore for login, un-lock screen, sudo commands, or launching apps that need root permission (e.g., Grub Customizer and Synaptic).

In Howtos password

Disable Mouse Side Buttons in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: October 28, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows how to disable your mouse forward/backward buttons in Ubuntu. Though the title said for Ubuntu 24.04, this tutorial should also work in most modern Linux, such as Debian, Fedora, and Arch.

Many mouses today have extra buttons on the side, allowing to navigate forward and back when working with web browsers, file explorers, etc applications.

If you don’t like the side-buttons, like me, then you can disable them in Linux.

Without using third-party apps (e.g., input-remapper), here I’m going to show you how to do the job by creating an udev rule that works in most Linux on both Xorg and Wayland sessions.

A Mouse with side buttons

In Howtos input, mouse

Control GPU/CPU Fan Speed with CoolerControl in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: October 24, 2024 — 1 Comment

This tutorial shows how to install and use CoolerControl to control your CPU or graphics card fan speed in Ubuntu desktop computer or laptop.

I’ve written about how to control fan speed for Thinkpad laptops. But for those who are looking for how to do the job for NVIDIA/AMD GPUs and other laptops, then try CoolerControl.

CoolerControl is a free open-source feature-rich cooling device control application written in Python programming language.

It depends on Hwmon kernel drivers and liquidctl to access and control supported hardware, including Thinkpads, some ASUS and HP laptops, as well as most NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

CoolerControl user interface

In Howtos fan speed

How to Set Your Video as Animated Wallpaper in Ubuntu 24.04

Last updated: October 22, 2024 — 1 Comment

This tutorial shows how to easily set your video playback as animated desktop wallpaper in Ubuntu and other Linux!

I’ve written about how to do the job in Ubuntu using Komorebi and Gpu Video Wallpaper. However, both seems no longer being actively development.

So here I’m going to introduce you Hidamari, a free open-source video wallpaper application written in Python. Which, provides an easy to use interface to play local video, steam online video (e.g., YouTube), or set a web page as desktop wallpaper.

play local video as wallpaper in Ubuntu

In Howtos animated wallpaper

Clementine Music Player Released 1.4.1 Stable after 8 Years of DEV

Last updated: October 23, 2024 — Leave a comment

It’s been more than 8 years since the last 1.3.1 stable. Clementine, the old popular music player and library organizer, finally got a new stable release!

Clementine is a free open-source music player inspired by Amarok 1.4. It provides an easy to use Qt5 user interface to play and manage large music collections, while keeping fast and lightweight.

Besides local music playback, the player also supports internet radios, such as last.fm, radio-browser.info, Subsonic. And, it can search and play you music from cloud, including Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and more.

Moreover, it provides handy tools to transcode music, open and rip audio CD. See Clementine website for more about it.

Clementine Music Player

In News Clementine, music player

How to Install Inkscape 1.4 in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: October 21, 2024 — Leave a 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 9.2.0 in Ubuntu 24.04 | 22.04

Last updated: October 17, 2024 — Leave a comment

This tutorial shows you how to install the latest GNU Octave (version 9.2.0 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

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