For Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 23.10, Fedora 38 and other Linux with GNOME 44 ~ 46, there’s now an extension allows to change display name of audio output devices from the top-right aggregation menu (aka Quick Settings).

By default,  the speakers and headphones in the sound output sub-menu is a bit too explicit, that are not very clear to understand. To make the menu easy to read, you may rename them to just “headphones”, “built-in speaker”, or whatever that you want.

1. To install the extension, first open Ubuntu Software, search and install “Extension Manager”:

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+

For Ubuntu 23.10/24.04, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run the command below instead to install it:

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-manager

2. Then launch “Extension Manager”, navigate to ‘Browse’ tab, finally search and install the “Quick Settings Audio Devices Renamer” extension.

For Fedora and other Linux, go to this web page and use ON/OFF switch to install the extension.

3. Once installed the extension, switch back “Installed” tab in Extension Manager (or open GNOME Extensions app). Then, click open the settings for that extension, finally click on the ‘pencil’ icon to edit the name of corresponding output device.

You can even insert emojis in the name, either by using a emoji picker or copy from “Gnome Characters” app.

Got a Logitech or SteelSeries headset? This app may help to adjust sidetone, get battery state, toggle LED, and set inactive time in Ubuntu Linux.

It’s HeadsetControl, a free and open-source application that supports:

• Logitech G430, G432, G433, G533, G535, G633, G635, G733, G930, G933, G935, G Pro.
• Logitech Zone Wired/Zone 750
• SteelSeries Arctis 1, Arctis 1 for XBox, Arctis (7 and Pro), Arctis 7+, Arctis Nova 7, Arctis 9, Arctis Pro wireless.
• HyperX Cloud Flight Wireless
• Corsair Void (Every void-version*, regardless whether Elite, Pro, HS70 Wireless)
• Roccat Elo 7.1 Air

The application is a command line tool, though it has a graphical interface for GNOME 42+ (Ubuntu 22.04 / Fedora 35 and higher).

Image borrowed from extension web page, as I don’t have a headset at hand

How to Install the HeadsetControl app

The app so far does not have binary package for Ubuntu Linux, though it’s not hard to build it from source. The following steps is tested and works in my case in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, run command to install build dependencies:

sudo apt install build-essential git cmake libhidapi-dev

2. Then, clone the source by running the git command in terminal, and then navigate to the source folder:

git clone https://github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl && cd HeadsetControl

3. Create ‘build’ sub-folder, navigate to that sub-folder and start building it:

mkdir build && cd build && cmake ../

4. Finally, run make and then make install to build and install the tool:

make -j4

sudo make install

Once successfully installed, it will output that ‘/usr/local/bin/headsetcontrol‘ and ‘/usr/local/lib/udev/rules.d/70-headsets.rules‘ installed.

How to Install the Extension for graphical UI

For Ubuntu 22.04 and higher, first search for and install “Extension Manager” from Ubuntu Software.

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+

Then, use “Extension Manager” to search and install the ‘HeadsetControl’ extension under ‘Browse’ tab.

Once installed, it should show the indicator applet in system tray area immediately with menu options to control your headset! Other Linux can go to this page to use ON/OFF switch to install the extension.

Uninstall:

To remove the extension, either go to the link page above and use ON/OFF switch, or use “Extension Manager” or Gnome Extensions tool.

To remove the command line application, open terminal and run command:

sudo rm /usr/local/bin/headsetcontrol /usr/local/lib/udev/rules.d/70-headsets.rules

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.

The lightweight DeaDBeef music player got an update recently. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04.

Just like Audacious did in v4.3, DeaDBeef 1.9.5 added the low-latency PipeWire sound server support. Meaning Ubuntu 22.10+, Pop! OS 22.04 and all current Fedora Linux users can select use the new sound output in ‘Preferences’ settings page.

The release also added new LibRetro resampling plugin, updated DUMB plugin with Chiptune voice muting support. Other changes include $itematindex(index,value) function to title formatting, improved drawing of spectrum analyzer, and various bug-fixes. See release note for details.

DeadBeef custom layout

How to Install DeadBeef 1.9.5

The music player website provides official packages for Linux, Windows, and macOS, available to download at the link below:

However, I personally prefer using the PPA repository, which provides both GTK3/2 and Qt5 user interface, as well as a few more plugins. Sadly, the PPA so far supports only Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and their based systems.

1. 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:spvkgn/deadbeef

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

   

2.  After adding PPA, update system package index by running command below, though it’s done automatically in Ubuntu 20.04+.

   sudo apt update

3. Finally, install the music player with your favorite UI interface (GTK3 for example):

   sudo apt install deadbeef-gtk3

   As you see in the screenshot, you may also install the mpris2 plugin, Qt5 UI, file browser plugin, etc.
   

Uninstall DeadBeef

To remove the PPA, use command:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:spvkgn/deadbeef

And remove the music player via:

sudo apt remove --autoremove deadbeef*

Audacious music player finally announced the release of version 4.3 after a few weeks of beta testing.

As you may already know, the new release features PipeWire output plugin. Meaning Ubuntu 22.10 + users can switch sound output using the new low-level multimedia framework.

Pop! OS 22.04 (have PipeWire support out-of-the-box) and Ubuntu 20.04 that have switched to Pipewire to replace PulseAudio are also supported.

The release also added GTK3 support again, which has much better appearance in my case compare to the old GTK2 interface. It now has a new set of tool-bar icons with both light and dark mode support. Though, the icons in the Settings page are still too big.

Other changes in Audacious 4.3 include:

• Native Opus decoder plugin, previously done via FFmpeg plugin.
• Qt6 support goes mature, though still defaults to Qt5.
• Meson built system support
• Allow copying file path in song info dialog.
• Support Ogg FLAC audio streams
• Support reading embedded lyrics tags.
• Account for album artist in Search Tool.
• Support new song length database format in SID plugin.
• Support Publisher and Catalog Number tags
• Add file filter to Export Playlist file dialog
• Remove alarm plugin.
• Add Romanian translation.

How to Install Audacious 4.3 in Ubuntu:

Without building from the source, Ubuntu users can install the audio player in 2 ways: Flatpak and Deb.

1. Flatpak

Audacious 4.3 is available to install as Flatpak package, though it runs in sandbox. Linux Mint user can easily search for and install it from Software Manager.

Ubuntu user can press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run the 2 commands below one by one to get it.

• Enable Flatpak support:

  sudo apt install flatpak

• Install Audacious as Flatpak:

  flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.atheme.audacious.flatpakref

2. Ubuntu PPA

For those who prefer the classic .deb package, I’ve upload the new package into this PPA repository.

It now supports the package for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, and Ubuntu 23.04. Besides the modern PC and laptop with x86_64 architecture type, arm64/armhf devices such as Raspberry Pi are also supported!

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) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then, update system package index in Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint via the command below. For Ubuntu 20.04+, it’s done automatically while adding PPA.

sudo apt update

3. If you have an old version of the music player installed, you can now update the package to the latest using “Software Updater” utility.

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

sudo apt install audacious audacious-plugins

Uninstall Audacious

Remove the Flatpak package

To remove the audio player installed as Flatpak, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and use command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.atheme.audacious

Also clean up runtime library via flatpak uninstall --unused.

Remove Audacious installed from PPA

If you want to restore the music player to the stock version available in system repository. Run command below to purge PPA as well as downgrade installed packages:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Or, simply remove the software packages, use command:

sudo apt remove audacious audacious-plugins-data libaudcore5

And remove the PPA either via “Software & Updates” under ‘Other Software’ tab or use command:

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

That’s all. Enjoy!

The lightweight audacious music player announced the beta release of the next v4.3 a few days ago.

Usually, the final release will be out in next or next few months with mostly no change since beta. So far, this beta release include the following new features.

The new release added plugin support for Pipewire, which is a low latency sound server that is default in Ubuntu since 22.10.

Also, it added a plugin for Opus audio decoding support. Though it previously supports Opus through FFmpeb library compiled with --enable-libopus.

Audacious 4.3 also added again GTK3 as well as Qt6 support. In current v4.2 stable, I prefer to use Qt UI since GTK2 interface looks ugly due to incorrect icon size.

However, Qt UI lacks automatic light and dark mode switch depends on system color scheme in GNOME (default desktop environment in Ubuntu). With the new GTK3 build, it now looks good in my case in Ubuntu 22.04 with better integration.

Audacious 4.3 GTK3 UI

Other changes in Audacious 4.3 Beta include:

• Implement Meson build system.
• Allow copying file path in song info dialog
• Support Ogg FLAC audio streams
• Support reading embedded lyrics tags
• Support new song length database format in SID plugin
• Increased M3U file size limit from 16 MB to 256 MB
• Support Publisher and Catalog Number tags
• Add file filter to Export Playlist file dialog
• Removed alarm plugin due to serious bugs

How to Get Audacious 4.3 Beta:

Audacious website provides the Windows EXE and source code for downloading at the link below:

For all current Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, just open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the commands below one by one to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
sudo apt update
sudo apt install audacious audacious-plugins

Uninstall:

To uninstall Audacious packages installed from PPA, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove libaudcore5 audacious-plugins-data

And remove the PPA repository via command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Want to hear your sound in microphone? Here’s a stupid simple tool to the job in Linux.

It’s Whisper, a new free and open-source GTK4 application, allowing listen to microphone through your speaker. Which, is useful for testing your microphone or for listening to your voice.

As the screenshot shows, the app is quite easy to use. Just select the microphone and speaker from the list, and click ‘Connect’. Then, you can say something or make some noise through microphone to see the magic.

As a GTK4 application, it follow system color scheme by switching between light and dark automatically. However, it needs both PulseAudio and Pipewire to make things work, which is default in Pop! OS 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Ubuntu 23.04, Fedora 35/36/37, etc.

How to Install Whisper in your Linux

As mentioned above, this application requires Pipewire audio server. For current Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, it’s NOT the default, though you can enable it by following this tutorial (NOT recommend for beginners).

Whisper is available to install as universal Flatpak package. You can install it by following the steps below one by one:

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to install Flatpak daemon:

sudo apt install flatpak

Other Linux can follow this setup guide to enable Flatpak support.

2. Then, run command to install Whisper as Flatpak package:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/it.mijorus.whisper.flatpakref

3. After installation, search for and launch it from start menu (Show Applications) like normal app and enjoy!

How to Remove Whisper

To remove the software package, also open a terminal window and run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data it.mijorus.whisper

Also run flatpak uninstall --unused to remove useless runtime libraries.

Ubuntu by default play a short alert sound when you plug in/out USB drive, power supply, or hit tab function key in terminal.

This is useful for indicating certain type of system messages and events, but it’s easy to mute these type of sounds in case you don’t like them. And, here’s the quick tutorial show you how.

Single command to disable event sound

There’s a dconf database option to toggle on/off this feature for GNOME and Cinnamon desktop.

Simply, press Ctrl+Alt+T key combination on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.sound event-sounds false

Not only for Ubuntu, this command should also work for Fedora workstation, Debian, Arch and other Linux with GNOME desktop.

For Linux Mint cinnamon desktop, use the command below instead:

gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.sound event-sounds false

Disable event sound via Dconf Editor (graphical way)

In case for those who hate Linux commands, there’s an advanced configuration tool Dconf Editor, that provides a graphical interface to do the job.

1. Firstly, search for and install Dconf Editor from Ubuntu Software (or App Center for 24.04).

2. Then launch Dconf Editor, and navigate to org/gnome/desktop/sounds. Finally, turn off the option for ‘event-sounds’.

Similarly, navigate to org/cinnamon/desktop/sounds or org/mate/desktop/sounds and set the key depends on your desktop environment.

That’s all. Enjoy!

Want to display audio/music visualizer on the desktop? This extension can do the job for Ubuntu 22.10, Fedora 37, Arch/Manjaro Linux with GNOME.

It’s “Sound Visualizer” extension for Gnome Shell based on Gstreamer specially for Wayland. And, it’s working good in my case in Ubuntu 22.04, though it’s said for Gnome v43.

Besides for music playback, it works when any sound play from your computer. And, it has a right-click menu to switch between input/output audio sources. Meaning, it supports sounds input from microphone.

How to Install this “Sound Visualizer” desktop widget

1. (For Ubuntu 22.04 only) As mentioned, the extension supports GNOME v43 at the moment of writing. If you want to try it out in 22.04, first disable extension version validation.

To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command (no longer required):

gsettings set org.gnome.shell disable-extension-version-validation true

2. Next, open Ubuntu Software. Search for and install ‘Extension Manager‘ tool for installing and managing Gnome Shell extensions. Or, run command in terminal in case the Software App does not work.

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-manager

Install Extension Manager in Ubuntu 22.04+

3. Finally, launch ‘Extension Manager‘, and navigate to ‘Browse‘ tab. Search for and install the ‘Sound Visualizer‘ extension. (For Ubuntu 22.04, just click on Unsupported button)

For Fedora 37, Arch and Manjaro Linux with GNOME, visit this page in web browser and use the ON/OFF switch to install it.

4. After installation, try playing some sounds and see your desktop for the result. To move the widget, you have to temporarily disable “Desktop Icons NG (DING)” under ‘Installed’ tab in Extension Manager.

You can also adjust the visualizer size by opening the extension preferences either via widget’s context menu or by clicking the gear button for that extension in Extension Manager.

Audacity audio editor got a new major update few days ago, features real-time effects and VST3 support.

In the new 3.2.0 release, there’s a new “Effects” button in the tracks menu, allowing to place realtime effects. However, it does not yet ship with any effect so far. User has to get effects via plugins, though only Audio Units (macOS only), VST3, LV2, and LADSPA formats are supported at the moment.

The release also merged the mixer bar with the meter bars. The device tool-bar has been replaced with a new Audio Setup button, though it can be re-enabled via “View -> Toolbars” menu.

As the screenshot above shows you, there also introduced a new “Share Audio” button, allowing to upload audio into audio.com either with login account or anonymously, then share the link with your friend.

Other changes in Audacity 3.2.0 include:

• Apple Silicon (arm64) is now supported on macOS. Though, need arm64 versions of FFMPEG and plugins.
• Add support for Wavpack
• Possible to compile without JACK present in Linux.
• Use XDG directories on Linux. Need to delete .audacity-data and .audacity folders in user home if exist.
• Use mpg123 as mp3 importer instead of mad.
• Update license to GNU General Public License V3, though most code files remain GPLv2 or later.
• Update icons, remove Zoom tool and various bug-fixes.

How to Install Audacity 3.2.0 in Ubuntu Linux

There seems no native .deb package for the latest Audacity. User can however get the application via the universal AppImage, Snap, or Flatpak that works in most Linux.

Option 1: AppImage

For the non-install AppImage, go to the github releases page and grab the package under “Assets” section:

Then, right-click on the package and open “Properties” dialog. Add executable permission under ‘Permissions’ tab and finally click run the package to launch Audacity.

Audacity AppImage

Option 2: Flatpak

User can also install Audacity via universal Flatpak package that runs in sandbox.

First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal in Ubuntu, then run command to make sure the daemon package is installed:

sudo apt install flatpak

Then install the audio editor as Flatpak by running command:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.audacityteam.Audacity.flatpakref

Like normal applications, search for and launch it from system start menu (‘Activities’ overview) after installation.

Option 3: Snap

Audacity is also available as Snap package that runs in sandbox. I put this method as last choice because it does not yet update to v3.2.0 at the moment of writing.

However, it’s quite easy to install for Ubuntu users. Simply open the Software App, search for and click install it:

Uninstall Audacity

Depends how you install the software package, uninstall the editor via:

• For AppImage, just remove the package file.
• For the Flatpak package, open terminal and run command:

  flatpak uninstall org.audacityteam.Audacity

• And remove the snap package by either using Ubuntu Software or running command in terminal:

  sudo snap remove audacity