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HPLIP 3.22.2 Released with RHEL 8.5 & Many New Printers Support

Last updated: February 28, 2022

HP’s Linux printer and scanner driver, HPLIP, released new 3.22.2 version today with many new printers support!

According to the release note, HPLIP 3.22.2 adds official support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.5, Elementary OS 6.1, and Linux Mint 20.3.

And,

HP LaserJet Tank MFP 1602a, 1602w, 1604w
HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2602dn, 2602sdn, 2602sdw, 2602dw
HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2604dw, 2604sdw
HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2603dw, 2603sdw
HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2605sdw
HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2606dn, 2606dsn, 2606sdw, 2606dw, 2606dc
HP LaserJet Tank MFP 1005, 1005w, 1005nw
HP LaserJet Tank 1502a, 1502w
HP LaserJet Tank 1504w
HP LaserJet Tank 2502dw, 2502dn,
HP LaserJet Tank 2504dw
HP LaserJet Tank 2503dw
HP LaserJet Tank 2506dw, 2506d, 2506dn
HP LaserJet Tank 1020, 1020w, 1020nw

Download & Install HPLIP 3.22.2

To get the software package, download the “hplip-x.xx.x.run” file from the link page below:

Download HPLIP

Next, search for and open a terminal window from start menu. And, run command to grant executable permission, and run the installer script to install it:

cd ~/Downloads && chmod +x hplip-*.run && ./hplip-*.run

Just follow the terminal output and answer questions. It will build and install the software automatically.

Tip: For those still using Python 2 and getting into python-pyqt5 dependency issue, see this workaround.

How to Remove HPLIP:

Running the “hplip-x.xx.x.run” installer will generate a source folder in user Downloads directory. If you don’t see it, re-run it via command:

~/Downloads/hplip*.run --target ~/Downloads/hplip

Then in file manager, go to “Downloads”. Right-click on ‘hplip’ folder and select ‘Open in Terminal’, finally run the uninstall script in pop-up terminal window:

sudo python3 uninstall.py

That’s all. Enjoy!

In Howtos hp

TeXworks 0.6.7 Released! How to install it in Ubuntu via PPA

Last updated: February 27, 2022

TeXworks, the free open-source application for authoring TeX (LaTeX, ConTeXt, etc) documents, released 0.6.7 today. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and Ubuntu 22.04.

TeXworks 0.6.7 added some minor new features, improved dark mode support, and fixed various bugs.

Add a ruler with draggable guidelines to the PDF previewer
Improve preservation of Unicode characters during loading/saving
Prevent concurrent typesetting in multi-file sources
Disable “Remove Aux Files” during typesetting
Add full paths as tool tips in the “Open Recent” menu
Use native separators (/ or \) in the recent files menu
Add “Fit to Content Width” to the PDF preview zoom context menu and to the scaling preferences
Improve interoperability with docstrip by adding support for “%^^A ! TeX…” magic comments

Install TeXworks via PPA in Ubuntu:

Ubuntu includes the software package in its official repositories, but it does not provide package updates. To get the latest version, an official PPA is available which so far support all current Ubuntu releases and the next Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. As well, the old Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 16.04 are supported!

1. Add the PPA:

Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, paste the command below and hit Enter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:texworks/stable

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

2. Update system package cache:

Ubuntu 20.04 and higher now refresh the package cache automatically after adding PPA. However, Ubuntu 18.04 and old releases need to do it manually by running command:

sudo apt update

3. Install or Upgrade TeXworks:

If an old package was installed, using ‘Software Updater‘ may upgrade the package to the latest:

Or, run the command below in terminal to install (or upgrade) the package:

sudo apt install texworks

How to Remove TeXworks:

To remove the software package installed via PPA repository, simply run the command below in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove texworks

To remove the PPA repository, either run the command below:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:texworks/stable

Or, open ‘Software & Updates‘ utility, navigate to ‘Other Software’ tab and remove the relevant source line.

In Howtos LaTeX editor

The Fourth Point Release Ubuntu 20.04.4 is out with New / Updated Hardware Support

Last updated: February 25, 2022

The Ubuntu team announced the release of Ubuntu 20.04.4 last night, with hardware enablement stacks, many security updates and bug-fixes.

‘Like previous LTS series, 20.04.4 includes hardware enablement stacks for use on newer hardware. This support is offered on all architectures.’

Linux Kernel 5.15 is still in proposed repository at the moment of writing, while Kernel 5.13 has been distributed for a period of time. So I’m kinda confused about the ‘hardware enablement stacks’.

Perhaps they are the following updates:

Update hardware support for Dell XPS 13 9300.
Add support for Alder Lake P graphics (ADL-P).
Add support for AMD’s Yellow Carp.
Update hardware support for Lenovo ThinkStation P340 Tiny, Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q/M80q/M90q.
Update hardware support for HP Z8 G4 Workstation, HP Z2 Mini G5 Workstation, SFF G5 Workstation, TWR G5 Workstation.
Add support for AMD’s Beige Goby.
Support Foxconn SDX55 T99W175 5G sub6 PCIE and Quectel SDX24 EM160R-GL 4G LTE CAT16 PCIE wireless Modem

In the release, it also enabled native Wayland support for thunderbird package, and restored nautilus copying filenames functionality. See the change summary for more.

How to Get Ubuntu 20.04.4:

For Ubuntu 20.04.x, simply run regular system update via either ‘Software Updater‘ or the command below will bring you to the new release.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

To verify, either run cat /etc/issue or see the ‘About’ page in settings.

Or download Ubuntu 20.04.4 from the official website:

Download Ubuntu

In Howtos Ubuntu 20.04

GIMP 2.99.10 is out! New ‘Layer set’, ‘.cur’ file & Improved Wayland Support

Last updated: February 27, 2022

The new development release for the next major 3.0 of the popular image editor, GIMP 2.99.10, is out last night!

The GIMP website ~~does not announce the release at the moment~~. According to the welcome dialog, the new release introduced the new ‘Layer set’ concept to replace ‘Linked layers’. It also added Microsoft Windows Cursor file format (.cur files) support, and improved support for Wayland, macOS Big Sur, as well as PSD / JPEG-XL / HEIF files.

other changes in GIMP 2.99.10 include:

Lock icons in item dockables (Layers, Channels, Paths) moved next to the visibility (eye) icon
Alt-click on visibility and lock icons in item dockables massively toggles visibility and locks among selected items
Item dockables now display icon headers for visibility and locks column
The System theme shows visible hints around unset visibility and locks icons when hovering them in item dockables
New checkbox to enable or disable dynamics in paint tools’ options (replacing “Dynamics Off” dynamics)
“Fill by line art detection” in Bucket Fill tool has a new option
Channels and paths multi-selectable with part of relevant actions working
Removed KDE and GNOME screenshot portals in favor of Freedesktop one
Windows screenshot implementation now has an “Include mouse pointer” option
New and modified libgimp API for plug-in developers

Install GIMP 2.99.10 in Ubuntu:

The develop team publishes the Dev package via Flatpak package. Just open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. Then run the commands below one by one will install it:

sudo apt install flatpak

flatpak remote-add --user flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo

flatpak install --user flathub-beta org.gimp.GIMP

For more, see this detailed how to install guide.

In Howtos image editor

The Tiling Terminal Emulator Tilix 1.9.5 Released

Last updated: February 23, 2022

Tilix, the popular tiling terminal emulator, released v1.9.5 with a few new features and some bug-fixes.

Tilix is a GTK+3 terminal emulator supports for splitting app window horizontally or vertically. It supports drag and drop re-arranging terminals, quake mode, custom hyperlinks, as well as many other features.

After a year of development, it finally announced the new 1.9.5 with only a few new features due to lack of maintainers.

New features in Tilix 1.9.5 include:

Disable advanced paste when there is no linebreak like iTerm2
Add environment variable when in quake mode
Add possibility to configure always enabled regex

Get Tilix 1.9.5 in Ubuntu:

There’s no binary package for current Ubuntu releases so far, though it’s proposed to be included in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS repository.

User may download the source code and build manually via the link below:

Download Tilix (Source)

In Howtos terminal

‘AppImage Pool’ – Software Center for Linux Apps as AppImage Packages

Last updated: February 24, 2022

Prefer running Linux apps via AppImage package format? ‘AppImage Pool’ is an app center for searching and downloading your favorite apps as AppImage.

More and more apps today publish Linux packages via universal Flatpak, Snap and AppImage. The former two are easy to install since they are well integrated in Ubuntu or other Linux. But, AppImage is a non-install portable package. It uses one file per application. Just run the file will launch the app.

To make it easy to find out and download an app as AppImage, the free libre and open-source software ‘AppImage Pool’ is created as a simple, modern AppImageHub client.

AppImage Pool

The tool uses Google’s flutter to provide a Gnome Software and Ubuntu Software look like user interface, allows user to browser, search for, and download AppImage packages. Though, it so far has sharp window borders that looks not native in GNOME.

Instead of using ‘Install‘ option, each app has a blue ‘Download‘ button. By clicking on it will pop up the dialog to choose package to download. Not only the latest, history packages are also available. And, it downloads from github directly, no extra-server involved

Downloaded packages are listed under ‘Installed‘ tab, with ability to click to launch app as well as delete buttons.

Other features include:

Dark / Light mode.
Store files by default in ‘Applications‘ folder in user home.
Multi download support.

How to Install AppImage Pool:

The app itself is available as AppImage package, which can be downloaded from the GitHub releases page (via Assets section):

Download AppImage Pool

It’s also available as universal Flatpak package. Ubuntu user may firstly press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run command to install Flatpak daemon:

sudo apt install flatpak

Then install the tool via command:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/io.github.prateekmedia.appimagepool.flatpakref

Uninstall AppImage Pool:

For the Flatpak package, run the command below in terminal to remove it:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data io.github.prateekmedia.appimagepool

And clear useless library via flatpak uninstall --unused.

In Howtos appimage

SF Tube – A Stylish YouTube App with Downloading Support

Last updated: February 21, 2022

There are quite a few YouTube apps for Linux today. SF Tube is a new one that has an elegant user interface with easy to use download options.

SF Tube, formerly FluTube, is a free libre and open-source app made using Google’s flutter. So far, it provides packages for Linux, Android, and Windows.

The app provides a beautiful user interface with Home, Like, Downloads, and Settings tabs. A ‘search‘ button is available in top-right corner, allows to search in YouTube. And, the results are displayed along with download buttons.

By clicking on download, it pop-up a dialog allows to choose download ‘Video + Audio‘, ‘Audio only‘, or ‘Video only‘ with quality options.

On the ‘⤓’ tab, it shows history downloads as well as current downloading process if any. As well, each video/audio has a delete button in the right.

In any page clicking on a video will open the detail page with descriptions, comments, as well as share, like, download buttons. Sadly, the video playback is not implemented at the moment of writing though the developer is now working on it!

SF Tube Dark Mode

Other features of SF Tube include:

Download via YouTube url via ‘+’ button.
Dark / Light mode.
Lightweight and fast.
No Login Required.
Playlists support.
Ads free forever.

Install SF Tube in Ubuntu & other Linux:

The app provides packages in the Github releases page under ‘Assets’ section:

Download SF Tube

Linux user may choose the non-install .Appimage package. Add executable permission via file’s ‘Properties’ dialog, and finally click run it to launch the app.

Ubuntu, Debian and Linux Mint based systems may just download the ‘.deb‘ package and double-click on file to install the app.

As well, a Linux tarball is available. Grab and then extract the package, then user may run the executable from extracted folder to launch the YouTube app.

That’s all. Enjoy!

In Howtos youtube

Re-Enable Tab/Arrow Key Navigation in Overview & App Grid in GNOME 40/41

Last updated: February 19, 2022

Can not navigate in Activities overview and app grid screen using Tab or arrow keys? Here’s how to re-enable the feature via extension in GNOME 40 & 41.

In GNOME 3.x, user may press Tab or down arrow and then left/right keys to navigate between app windows in the overview screen. Also, the keys can be used to navigate in ‘Show Applications’ app grid.

Navigation via Tab/Arrow keys in overview screen

However, in Ubuntu 21.10, Fedora 35 or other Linux with recent GNOME 40/41 desktop, you’ll find the keys no longer navigate unless you first hover over an app window in overview.

This is a GNOME bug will be fixed in the next GNOME 42. In current releases, an extension is available to re-enable the function so you can:

use Arrow keys to navigate app windows in overview. However, Tab key does not work in my case.
use Tab and/or Arrow keys to navigate app icons in ‘Show Applications’ app grid.

Install the Extension to Fix Overview Keyboard navigation:

1. Firstly, install chrome-gnome-shell package if you’re running Ubuntu. To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard and run the command below:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

2. Next go to the extension web page and switch on the toggle button to install it:

GS 40/41 Overview Keyboard Navigation Fix

If you’re first time installing a GNOME Shell extension via browser, you may not see the on/off switch until clicking the link to install browser extension.

NOTE for Ubuntu 21.10: the pre-installed Firefox is Snap package so far does not support installing Gnome Shell extension, use another browser or install Firefox as classic deb package.

The extension should work immediately after installation, just press Super (Windows) key or click on upper-left ‘Activities’ to bring up overview and try out the shortcut keys.

In Howtos Gnome

How to Install FFmpeg 5.0 in Ubuntu 20.04 or Ubuntu 18.04 via PPA

Last updated: February 18, 2022

The popular FFmpeg multi-media library released version 5.0 recently. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04 and/or Ubuntu 16.04 via PPA.

FFmpeg 5.0, codename “Lorentz”, is a new major release that features:

remove the old encode/decode APIs and replace them with an N:M-based API.
new easy to use AVframe-based API for libswscale.
remove the entire libavresample library.
Many new filters.
ADPCM IMA Westwood encoder, Apple Graphics (SMC) encoder, VideoToolbox ProRes encoder
ADPCM IMA Acorn Replay decoder, GEM Raster image decoder.
DoVi support, and more in ffmpeg.org.

Install FFmpeg 5.0 in Ubuntu:

IMPORTANT: Upgrading FFmpeg is not recommended for beginners! It may conflict with other packages in your system. Use it at your own risk!

Rob Savoury has built the FFmpeg 5.0 packages into PPA for all the current Ubuntu LTS releases. Though the updates is suspend due to lack of donations. The PPA still works, and if you find it’s useful you may help by making donations (see the previous link).

1.) Add the PPAs

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg5

Also add the FFmpeg4 PPA which contains the dependency libraries:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4

2.) Update package cache:

If you’re running Ubuntu 18.04 or Ubuntu 16.04, you need to manually refresh the system package cache by running command:

sudo apt update

3.) Upgrade FFmpeg to 5.0:

Finally, run the command below to install all the available updates including FFmpeg 5:

sudo apt full-upgrade

NOTE: This command may remove some apps on your system due to package conflict! DO CHECK the terminal output before typing ‘y‘ to confirm installation!

When everything’s done successfully, verify via ffmpeg -version command.

How to Restore:

You may purge the two PPAs which also downgrade all the installed packages. Firstly, install the ppa-purge tool via command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge

Then purge the PPAs via the commands below one by one:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg5

sudo ppa-purge ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4

NOTE: The downgrade process may also remove some other apps. Keep an eye on terminal output before performing the action!

In Howtos media codec

Ubuntu 22.04 Adds Apparent Options to Hide Mounted Drives / Trash from Dock

Last updated: September 25, 2023

Boring with the external disk partitions, USB drive, as well as Trash icons displayed on the left panel (aka, Ubuntu Dock)? Ubuntu 22.04 now has the options in system settings to toggle display these icons.

It’s not hard to do the tweaks in previous Ubuntu editions. Usually, we just need to run single command in terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal):

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock show-mounts false

Or, install and use the advanced ‘Dconf Editor‘ configuration tool to look for and change the key values.

Hide Mounted Drives & Trash from left panel in Ubuntu 22.04

In the daily build of the next Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, it now includes the options in the ‘Appearance‘ tab of system settings. So, users don’t have to search for the commands or look through the keys to do the trick.

1.) Firstly, open ‘Settings‘ either from start menu or top-right corner system tray menu. When it opens, navigate to ‘Appearance’ tab and click on ‘Configure dock behavior‘ in the right.