For users of Liferea feed reader, new version 1.14.1 and 1.12.10 were released few days ago. All users are urged to upgrade due to an important security fix.

Liferea is a free open-source GTK3 feed reader that brings together all of the content from your favorite subscriptions into a simple interface. It can synchronizes with Reedah, TinyTinyRSS, and Google Reader API.

Just few days ago, it release new point releases for its 1.14 and 1.12 release series with an important security fix.

It’s CVE-2023-1350 Remote code execution on feed enrichment.

If you have enabled “Extract full content from HTML5 and Google AMP” for one or more of your feed subscriptions it is possible for a an attacker to inject a script command that would run any command on your system.

All users are recommended to upgrade to the new release with this bug-fix.

Without the upgrade, user can alternatively disable “Extract full content from HTML5 and Google AMP” for all the feeds via following steps:

  1. Close Liferea
  2. Open ~/.config/liferea/feedlist.opml in an editor
  3. Replace all occurences of html5Extract="true" with an empty string

How to Install Liferea 1.14.1 in Ubuntu:

For most Linux, Liferea is available to install as Flatpak package, that runs in sandbox.

Ubuntu users can also use the unofficial PPA, which so far supports for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Linux Mint 20/21, and their based systems.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then, install the Liferea package by running command:

sudo apt install liferea

Linux Mint user may have to run sudo apt update first to update cache.

Uninstall:

The PPA also contains some other software packages, so you may remove it immediately after installed Liferea.

To do so, either run the command below in terminal, or remove the source line under “Other Software” tab in Software & Updates tool.

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

To remove the feed reader package, simply run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove liferea-data liferea

That’s all. Enjoy!

The first point release of Kodi 20 ‘Nexus’ is out today after almost 2 months of development.

As the title said, the new Kodi 20.1 includes mainly bug-fixes. It introduced a new algorithm to look to overcome some audio issues on Android devices. Fixed DVD playback folder structures over network sources (e.g. SMB/NFS/HTTP, etc.)

Other changes include:

  • Assorted fixes to the new Savestate Manager to improve usability.
  • An assortment of OSD improvements
  • A number of performance improvements (memory reads, faster dialogs/savestates).
  • Input fixes allow resetting multitap controller inputs
  • Sync of some of the common controller types
  • Fixes various overflows when using new chrono infrastructure.
  • A fix for an issue on 32-bit systems that affected the sorting of items.
  • Resolve PVR Channel Groups to correctly show channels ordered as provided by a PVR backend.
  • A couple of fixes for WebVTT subtitles

How to Install Kode 20.1 in Ubuntu

Kodi website provides the downloads for all supported platforms.

For Ubuntu and Linux Mint users, the official PPA repository is one of the best choices to install the media play. So far, it supports Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Ubuntu 23.04, Linux Mint 20/21.

1. First, open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

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

2. Software Updater may not upgrade the media center if an old version was installed in Ubuntu 22.04. Instead it show ‘Partial Updates’ issue.

As a workaround, either run apt install command below:

sudo apt install kodi kodi-bin

Or run sudo apt full-upgrade to install all available updates (you may still need to install kodi-bin manually). For Linux Mint, run sudo apt update before doing updates!

How to Uninstall:

For choice, you can either run command in terminal to purge the PPA, which will downgrade Kodi to stock version in system repository:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

Or manually remove the software package via command:

sudo apt remove kodi kodi-bin --autoremove

And remove the PPA via command as you prefer:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

The free open-source Android screen mirroring and remote control application, Scrcpy, released version 2.0 today!

The new release feature audio forwarding support! Meaning it’s not only mirroring your Android screen, but also sending the sound from Android to your PC speaker. The new feature supports Android 11 and higher. It’s enabled by default, though there’s --no-audio flag available to disable it.

Another big change in the release is that the device screen can now be encoded in H.265, or even AV1 if your device supports AV1 encoding.

The release also includes new --list-encoders option to list audio and video encoders available in the device, and --list-displays to list displays available on the device. For more about Scrcpy 2.0, see the official release note.

How to Install & Use Scrcpy in Ubuntu 22.04 to control your Android Phone Wirelessly or via USB cable

NOTE: This tutorial is tested and works in Ubuntu 22.04, though it should also work in all current Ubuntu releases.

Step 1. Prepare your Android device

To use the software, you need to first enable USB Debugging Mode in Android.

1. First, go to Settings in Android. Navigate to “About Phone”, and tap on “Build Number” several times (usually 7 times). It should prompt you something like “You are now in Developer Mode“.

TIP: there’s NO security issue or performance loss with developer mode enabled.

2. Then navigate to “Developer Options” in Settings menu or ‘Additional Settings’ sub-menu, and turn on the option for “USB Debugging“.

Step 2. Install adb

adb (Android Debug Bridge) package is also required for this software. Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run command to install it:

sudo apt install adb

Step 3. Install scrcpy

There are few ways to install scrcpy, choose either one that you prefer.

Option 1: .deb package from system repository

Scrcpy is available in Ubuntu system repository. It’s working good in my case, though a little bit old that lacks new features.

To install the package, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

sudo apt install scrcpy

Option 2: Snap package in Ubuntu Software

The snap package in Ubuntu Software can be the easiest way to install the app, though it runs in sandbox.

The snap package at the moment is the last 1.25 version, though it will automatically update to v2.0 once maintainer updated the package.

Scrcpy Snap in Ubuntu Software

Option 3: Install Scrcpy from the source

If you can’t wait to use the latest release, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the command below one by one to install it from source:

  • First, run command to install dependency libraries:
    sudo apt install ffmpeg libsdl2-2.0-0 adb wget gcc git pkg-config meson ninja-build libsdl2-dev libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswresample-dev libusb-1.0-0 libusb-1.0-0-dev
  • Then, clone the source code via command:
    git clone https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
  • Finally, navigate to source folder and start the installer script:
    cd scrcpy && ./install_release.sh

    NOTE: After building process it may ask you to type user password for the permission to install files into system directories.

Step 4. Remote control your Android in Ubuntu

Now, connect your Android device into Ubuntu using USB cable. Then, click “Allow” in Android to confirm the “Allow USB Debugging” dialog.

1. First, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and start adb in your favorite mode:

  • To remote access via USB cable, run command:
    adb usb
  • To remote access using wireless network, run commands:
    adb tcpip 7676
    adb connect 192.168.0.150:7676

    Here, change port number 7676 and the Android’s IP address accordingly! When done successfully, you can then remove the USB cable.

2. If the previous step goes well without any error! You can now start scrcpy:

  • Run scrcpy command in terminal if you installed from system repository.
  • Launch it from start menu (or ‘Activities’ overview) if installed from source. For debugging purpose, use scrcpy(console).

That’s all. Your android screen should appear in the Ubuntu desktop after launching scrcpy. Enjoy!

Uninstall scrcpy

To remove the adb package, open terminal and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove adb

To remove Scrcpy installed as .deb package, use command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove scrcpy

For the snap package, just use Ubuntu Software again to remove it.

And, for the package installed from source, navigate to the source folder again in terminal window and run command to uninstall it:

sudo ninja -Cbuild-auto uninstall

Free DJ mixing software Mixxx announced the 2.3.4 release a few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 22.10, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 via PPA.

The new release added controller mapping for the Traktor Kontrol S2 Mk1, and initial mapping for Numark Party Mix.

It now shows ‘date added’ as local time, supports macOS 13.0 Ventura by using portaudio 19.7.0, again allows searching in external libraries. For Ubuntu, it fixed the menu bar issue when working in full-screen mode.

There are as well many other bug-fixes in the release, see the changelog for details.

How to install Mixxx in Ubuntu via PPA

The DJ software has an official PPA for Ubuntu, Linux Mint based systems. So far, it provides the latest 2.3.4 packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Ubuntu 22.04, and Linux Mint 20/21.

1. Add Mixxx PPA

Open terminal either from app launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mixxx/mixxx

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

2. Update package cache:

For Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint, users need to manually refresh the package cache after adding new software sources. To do so, simply run command:

sudo apt update

3. Install or Upgrade Mixxx:

If an old Mixxx package was installed on your system, you may try upgrading the DJ software using Software Updater:

Or just run the command below in terminal to either install or upgrade the DJ software:

sudo apt install mixxx

Uninstall Mixxx:

You can easily remove the software by running command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove mixxx

And remove the PPA repository via Software & Updates, by removing relevant line utility under Other Software tab.

Peek, the popular animated GIF screen recorder application, has been discontinued!

It was one of my most favorite applications, that provides an easy to use interface for recording rectangle screen area into animated GIF.

The software developer announced that “With this announcement I officially declare the Peek project deprecated. This is something I should have done for a while now, but I always told myself that I will eventually do a last release, fixing some issues. As you know this never happened.

The big reason is because of Wayland. Peek is working good in Ubuntu 20.04, though it cannot record the top-bar. But Ubuntu 22.04+, Fedora Workstation and other Linux with recent GNOME have switched to Wayland that cause problems.

Wayland session does not provide the classic way that Peek uses to determine the recording area. It’s even not working properly when running as X11 app in Wayland via XWayland. The issue can’t be resolved unless completely rewritten the app in different UI in different way, but the developer is not interested in it.

However, Peek is still working in classic Xorg session that is default so far in most other desktop environments, and optional in GNOME. Though, it may have bugs and won’t receive fixes!

Alternative apps for recording animated GIF

As far as I know, Kooha is a good alternative that can record screen as GIF and supports Wayland session. And it’s available to install as Flatpak in Flathub repository.