OBS Studio, the popular free open-source live streaming software, announced new major 30.2.0 release a day ago.
The new release has some improvements for Linux support. They include native NVENC encoder interface for NVIDIA GPU hardware accelerated encoding, and NVENC AV1 support. And, Linux shared texture support to the NVENC encoder, QuickSync encoder, as well as VA-API encoder.
OBS Studio 30.2.0 also added multi-track video streaming support, aka Enhanced Broadcasting on Twitch.
To improve the experience for viewers with poor network conditions or those watching on older devices, the streaming service usually creates multiple video qualities of original high-quality source content.
Now, OBS Studio itself can produce multiple video qualities, though, it so far supports only Windows and requires NVIDIA GTX 900, GTX 10, or RTX 20 series GPU or newer or an AMD RX 6000 series GPU or newer. And, it will collect info, such as OBS version and audio/video settings, CPU, GPU, Memory, and OS info and set to the streaming service.
This simple tutorial shows how to easily turn your Ubuntu or Debian into home media server, so that you can listen to the music, watch photos and videos that are stored in Linux PC remotely using your mobile phones and/or smart TVs.
GNOME, the default desktop in Ubuntu and Fedora Workstation, has built-in option to enable this feature. It uses Rygel home media solution as backend.
It automatically transcode media to a format compatible with the client device. And, client machines that supports DLNA/UPnP, such as Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, smart TV, Android, iOS, can access them through the local network. Continue Reading…
Looking for an app to transfer files and send messages over local network? LocalSend is good choice that works for most devices.
LocalSend is a free and open source application which promotes itself as alternative to Apple’s AirDrop. It’s a cross-platform app that allows to securely send files and messages over local network without an internet connection.
It works in Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Fire OS. Meaning you can use the file transfer app in most PC and mobile devices. And, the app doesn’t require an internet connection or external servers. It uses REST API for secure communication. All data is sent securely over HTTPS, and the TLS/SSL certificate is generated on the fly on each device.
This is a step by step beginner’s guide shows how to install and set up a lightweight Socks5 proxy server in Ubuntu or Debian.
Due to poor network connection, I decided to set up a proxy server on my remote VPS for playing an online game. However, the tutorials on the web are mostly using Dante, which consumes too much RAM, and makes my cheap VPS server frequently run out of memory.
After digging around, I found a lightweight socks5 proxy server called Microsocks. And, here’s how to install & use it in Debian & Ubuntu.
This tutorial shows how to change the MAC Address, aka hardware address, for your network interface in Ubuntu 24.04. Though the title said for Ubuntu 24.04, it should work in all current Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04.
MAC address, stands for Media Access Control address, is a unique identifier primarily assigned by device manufacturers. Therefore, it’s often referred to hardware address or physical address. However, many network interfaces support changing their MAC addresses. And, here’s how to do the trick in Ubuntu. Continue Reading…
This simple tutorial shows how to get rid of the “Mobile Broadband” menu option from the upper right system status menu in GNOME Desktop.
GNOME, the default desktop in Ubuntu and Fedora Workstation, has built-in support for mobile broadband. If your computer (usually laptop) has a built-in SIM card slot, then it will show you the “Mobile Network” page in Settings and “Mobile Broadband” option in upper right menu.
For those who rarely use this feature, the option is useless but makes the menu longer. So, it’s a good choice to completely disable it!
Network diagnostic is useful when you getting internet connection issue. And, here’s a brand new graphical tool for Linux beginners.
It’s PingPath, a free open-source tool written mostly in C, and use GTK4 toolkit for its user interface.
PingPath uses the popular command line tool ping to send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to networks hosts. Simply type the host-name or IP address in header input box, hit Enter, then press Ctrl+S to get started.
It will then show you all the host IPs (if you start with host-name), as well as their autonomous system numbers and country code. For each, it shows the real time information about
numbers of pings set.
loss in percentage.
best, worst, last, and average delay in milliseconds.
as well as ping jitter (variation in delay).
Besides digital information, it also has a Graph tab to show all the info in graph lines with or without legend. This makes it easier to identify connectivity problems, measure network latency between your machine and the destination host.
The app by default sends 100 packets with 1 seconds time interval. You can change the numbers and other settings using the header-bar button menus.
How to Install PingPath in Ubuntu
The tool has an official PPA which so far supports for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04.
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:lrou2014/pingpath
Type user password for sudo authentication, and hit Enter to continue.
2. If you’re following this tutorial on Linux Mint, then you may either use Software Manager or manually refresh package cache by running command:
sudo apt update
3. Finally, install the network diagnostic tool by command:
sudo apt install pingpath
Once installed, search for and launch it from either start menu or Gnome overview screen depends on your desktop environment, and enjoy!
Uninstall:
To uninstall the tool, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:
sudo apt remove --autoremove pingpath
And, remove the PPA, either by running the command below in terminal:
This simple tutorial shows how to install Nicotine plus, the graphical client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network, in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and Ubuntu 24.04.
Soulseek is an ad-free, spyware free, and plain free file sharing network, make it easy for you to find people with similar interests, and make new discoveries!
And, Nicotine is a lightweight, pleasant, free and open source (FOSS) alternative to the official Soulseek client, while also providing a comprehensive set of features.
The app used to be available in Ubuntu system repository, but removed due to lack of development. It’s later revived and finally added back to Ubuntu 24.04 repository.
For current Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and even Ubuntu 18.04, user can install it from the official PPA.
Got local music files in your Ubuntu PC/laptop? Here’s how to transfer them to your iPhone.
It’s NOT hard to install iTunes in Ubuntu using Wine in today’s Linux. However, iTunes running in wine does not detect my iPhone, at least in my case in 22.04.
If you just want to transfer music from PC to your iOS device, then you don’t have to struggle with iTunes in Linux. There are easy alternatives! And, VLC is a very popular one of them.
This tutorial is tested on iPhone with iOS 16.1.1, and Ubuntu 22.04 with default GNOME.
Transfer Music from PC to iOS via VLC
1. First, go to “App Store” and install the free open-source VLC media player in your iPhone or other iOS device.
VLC media player in App Store
2. Not sure if it required, but you may launch VLC in iOS for the first time to generate app folder.
3. Now, connect your iPhone or other iOS device into Ubuntu. Then, open “Files” and go to the mounted folder from left panel.
In my case, it’s a phone icon with text “Document on iphone”. In that folder, click VLC icon. Finally, drag’n’drop your music files into the VLC sub-folder.
When done, you can now open VLC in iphone/iOS, and find out the local music files under “Audio” bottom tab.
