News, Tutorials, Howtos for Ubuntu Linux
Audacity audio editor released new 3.7.2 version today. PPA updated for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 24.10, and Linux Mint 21/22.
The new Audacity 3.7.2 is a maintenance release contains primarily bug-fixes. There’s however a new UUID system that automatically generates random numbers for each copy of the app.
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“.
Audacity audio editor announced 3.6.2 release a week ago, then version 3.6.3 a day ago with a quick-fix.
As you may know, Audacity 3.6.0 introduced new compressor and limiter effects, replacing the old ones. For those who prefer the classic effects, the new point release added a “Legacy” effects section, under “Effects” menu, that contains the old Limiter, Compressor and Classic Filters.
Kid3, the free and open-source Qt app for editing audio tags, now is 20 years old!
It was January 12, 2003, exactly 20 years ago, when the first version 0.1 of Kid3 was released. And, it’s the first app that I used to edit music tags in Ubuntu when in 2008.
To celebrate it, the developer team announced the new 3.9.3 release, but with only following changes:
The software offers official binary packages available to download at the sourceforge page.
For all current Ubuntu releases (Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 22.10), there’s an official PPA repository contains the latest package.
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:ufleisch/kid3
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.
2. For the old Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint, you have to manually update the package cache by running command in terminal:
sudo apt update
3. Finally, either update Kid3 using Software Updater (Update Manager) if an old package installed on your system.
Or, run command in terminal to install the tag editor.
sudo apt install kid3-qt
To remove the PPA repository, either open ‘Software & Updates‘ and remove the source line under ‘Other Software’ tab:
Or, open terminal and run the command instead to remove the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ufleisch/kid3
To remove the audio tag editor, run command:
sudo apt remove kid3 kid3-qt kid3-core
That’s all. Enjoy!
DeaDBeeF audio player 1.8.8 was released as the 8th bugfix release for the 1.8 series.
The new release introduced some new features, including reading WAV RIFF tags, handling of Disc subtitle frames in ID3v2 and APE tags, and handling samplerates higher than 192KHz to pulseaudio.
New context menu options “Play Next” and “Play Later” are now available to choose your favorite song to play next, or set one-time play order for songs in play list. It will add marks at the beginning that indicates the sequence.
It also redesigned the plugin page in Preferences. Now each plugin has the configuration along with basic info and license in tabs.
Other changes in DeaDBeef 1.8.8 includes:
$rgb() title formatting functionThe software offers official .deb package for 64-bit Ubuntu & Linux Mint systems.
Grab the package, ‘deadbeef-static_1.8.8-1_amd64.deb’, then install it by running command in terminal:
sudo apt install ~/Downloads/deadbeef-static*.deb
There’s also an Ubuntu PPA for DeaDBeeF, though it’s not updated at the moment of writing. And note that the PPA package conflicts to the official ‘deadbeef-static‘ package due to packaging issue. Remove the old package first if you’re going to install it from another source.
To remove the music player, simply run command in terminal:
sudo apt remove --autoremove deadbeef-static deadbeef
Audacity audio editor and recorder 3.0.3 was released a few days ago. Finally it adds official Linux binary via Appimage.
Audacity 3.0.3 comes with minor bug-fixes, and binary changes. For Windows users, now it provides 64-bit EXE and 32-bit plug-ins will not work on the release.
The release introduced automatic app update checking. According to the updated Privacy Notice, Audacity needs a network connection for update checking. And this shares your IP address, OS, and Audacity version. You can disable the feature in the Preferences.
And when an app error occurs, error report dialog will pop up asking you whether to send report.
For Linux users, Audacity now provides Appimage package. It’s a single executable that launches the software directly without installation required. Just right-click on file, add execute permission in “Properties” dialog, and finally run it.
For the official binary and source tarball, you can download it from the github release page:
It’s also available to install via the universal Flatpak package which runs in sandbox. And here’s how to guide for those new to flatpak.
Audacity adds Conan package manager as the its new dependency library. It make me crazy again since it’s not available in Ubuntu repositories, and so far I can’t find any compile instruction.
So may be it’s time to abandon my personal PPA for Audacity package. :)
The Audacity audio editor 3.0.0 was release as a new major update a day ago.
Audacity 3.0.0 features .aup3 project format. The audio project was previously saved as large number of small data files, with an ‘.aup’ file to coordinate the lot. Now it saves project as the new all-in-one-file aup3 file format.
Working with the new .aup3 projects editing audio should be a little faster than before, however, finishing and closing a project at the end can be quite a lot slower.
You can open your older .aup projects in the new version, where they will be converted to the new .aup3 format.
Other changes in the Audacity 3.0.0 include:
No binary package for Ubuntu at the moment of writing, only the source tarball is available to download at the link:
And you can follow this guide to build it on Linux.
Kid3 audio tag editor released version 3.8.2 a few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, and Ubuntu 19.10.
Kid3 3.8.2 is a small but important release for those who have a lot of M4A files. The release fixes a crash that happens when frames are removed from M4A files. Additionally it brings new Catalan, Portuguese and Ukrainian translations.
The official Kid3 PPA has built the packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, and, Ubuntu 19.10.
1. Open terminal either from application launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ufleisch/kid3
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it prompts and hit Enter to continue.
2. If an old version was installed, upgrade Kid3 using Software Updater:
or run commands one by one in terminal to install or upgrade to the latest tag editor:
sudo apt update sudo apt install kid3-qt
You may replace kid3-qt with kid3 in the code for KDE integration, or with kid3-cli for the command-line interface
To remove the PPA repository, either open Software & Updates -> Other Software tab, or run command:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ufleisch/kid3
To remove the audio tag editor, either use your system package manager or run command:
sudo apt remove --auto-remove kid3 kid3-*
Kid3 audio tag editor released version 3.8.1 today with some improvements, fixes for Linux and Android binary packages.
According to the changelog, Kid3 3.8.1 includes following changes:
The official PPA has built the packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, Ubuntu 19.10.
1. Open terminal either from application launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ufleisch/kid3
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it prompts and hit Enter to continue.
2. If an old version was installed, upgrade Kid3 using Software Updater:
or run commands one by one in terminal to install or upgrade to the latest tag editor:
sudo apt update sudo apt install kid3-qt
You may replace kid3-qt with kid3 in the code for KDE integration, or with kid3-cli for the command-line interface
To remove the PPA repository, either open Software & Updates -> Other Software tab, or run command:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ufleisch/kid3
To remove the audio tag editor, either use your system package manager or run command:
sudo apt remove --auto-remove kid3 kid3-*
Kid3 audio tag editor 3.8.0 was released today. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, and derivatives.
According to the changelog, Kid3 3.8.0 features:
The official Kid3 PPA has made the new release packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 19.04, and derivatives.
Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by searching for ‘terminal’ from application menu. When it opens, do following steps one by one.
1. Copy and paste following command in terminal and hit run to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ufleisch/kid3
Type user password (no asterisk feedback due to security reason) when it prompts and hit Enter to continue.
2. Then you can upgrade Kid3 from a previous version via Software Updater:
or run commands one by one in terminal to install or upgrade to the latest tag editor:
sudo apt update sudo apt install kid3-qt
For KUbuntu user, replace kid3-qt with kid3 in the last command for KDE integration.
To remove the PPA repository, either open Software & Updates -> Other Software tab, or run command:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:ufleisch/kid3
To remove the audio tag editor, either use your system package manager or run command:
sudo apt remove --autoremove kid3 kid3-*
