With Ubuntu 24.04 LTS out and the weekend upon us you may be planning to upgrade a previous Ubuntu install to the newest version. But you shouldn’t. For one, “officially” you can’t since Ubuntu 24.04 LTS upgrades are not enabled yet (for reasons I’ll get in to in a second) from e … | Continue reading
Arriving alongside the main Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release are new versions of the official Ubuntu flavours, including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Cinnamon. What follows is a concise, top-level overview of the key new features and changes in some of the most popular Ubuntu flavours, p … | Continue reading
Among the many new features in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is the ability to access your Microsoft OneDrive files through the Nautilus file manager. No 3rd-party app downloads, no dodgy scripts to run, and no paid plans to cough up for because this nifty feature is part of GNOME 46 (and ava … | Continue reading
After 6 frenzied months of development the final stable Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release has arrived and is available for download. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (codenamed ‘Noble Numbat’) includes a rich array of new features ranging from an enhanced desktop installer and a the latest GNOME desktop … | Continue reading
A new version of Clapper, a GTK4-based video player for Linux desktop has been released — the first major update in nearly 2 years. I first wrote about Clapper back in 2021 having been seduced over by its slick user interface (a superficial reason to like a media player, I know), … | Continue reading
Those making the upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 from 22.04 LTS are going to be blown away by the sheer amount of improvements included. Because in addition to benefitting from all of the great new features Ubuntu 24.04 offers compared to Ubuntu 23.10, LTS upgraders benefit from the chan … | Continue reading
Next time you stop by the Flathub website you will notice it’s had a bit of a revamp. The latest UI refresh lands a year after its last big redesign and builds on that look by adding new on-page features. These changes make it easier for Linux users to find the apps they are look … | Continue reading
Using Linux on a 64-bit ARM device and longing to use Firefox Nightly builds? Well, you’re in luck — Mozilla has finally made ARM64 Linux builds available to download. As I understand it most Linux distributions that support ARM64/AArch64 offer a native ARM version of Firefox in … | Continue reading
A new version of Audacity, a popular open-source audio workstation, is available to download. Audacity 3.5 introduces major new features and improvements, fixes a number of issues in earlier builds, and removes a number of older, less-used options. The headline addition is sure t … | Continue reading
Among the many new features in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is out-of-the-box support for HEIF/HEIC images. Anyone using Ubuntu 24.04 won’t have to manually install any extra packages to be able to see HEIF/HEIC thumbnails previews in the Nautilus file manager or open HEIF/HEIC files in the … | Continue reading
You know the drill by now: a new month rolls around, and a new version of the inimitable Mozilla Firefox rolls off the release server for us all to enjoy. And bang on cue, Firefox 125 has arrived. The big-ticket new feature in this update is URL paste suggestions: Mozilla says th … | Continue reading
If you want to relax or need to concentrate on a task at your computer then listening to ambient sounds can often help — and the best Linux app for this task just got a big update! Blanket is a free, open-source GTK4/libadwaita app that comes packaged with a variety of ambient lo … | Continue reading
I think most of us are familiar with the way that APT, the package management tool underpinning Ubuntu and all other Debian-based Linux distributions, looks and behaves. But some (much needed) visual changes are coming in the next major stable release, APT 3.0 — and they look gre … | Continue reading
The Ubuntu 24.04 beta is now available to download — one week later than originally planned! Ubuntu 24.04 will become the next long-term support release (LTS) and this beta will provide developers, testers, and enthusiasts time to try it out, track down bugs, and road test its ne … | Continue reading
It’s always sad to hear a long-standing bit of open-source software put itself out to pasture (a euphemism for going way of the dodo, which is a metaphor for dying out). A few weeks back iconic IRC client HexChat announced it is no longer under active development. This week the d … | Continue reading
A handy new translations feature is in the works for Mozilla Firefox that should help speed up translating short snippets of text from one language to another. Firefox 118 introduced a privacy-respecting web page translation feature, and Mozilla devs have continued to improve on … | Continue reading
A new version of Power Profiles Daemon in Ubuntu 24.04 offers power efficiency improvements for laptop users, but those with modern AMD devices may see the biggest gains. Release notes for the power-profiles-daemon package uploaded to Ubuntu 24.04 this week state that it is now “ … | Continue reading
If you were hoping to help test the upcoming release of Ubuntu 24.04 by way of the official beta that was due for release this week, I’ve some bad news: it’s been delayed. However, I think you may have been expecting this. Ubuntu 24.04 beta was scheduled for release on April 4, g … | Continue reading
The next version of Linux Mint is set to include a number of modernisations over earlier versions. First up, Linux Mint 22 will ship with Pipewire as its default sound server. Most major Linux distros now use Pipewire. The tech modernises and standardises multimedia processing, i … | Continue reading
Pop!_OS users are now able to install Linux kernel 6.8, which has just begun rolling out as a package update (so no PPAs or other hoops to jump through to get it). Although the Pop!_OS Linux distro is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which currently tops out at Linux 6.5 back ported as … | Continue reading
8BitDo, makers of retro-themed gaming goods, have unveiled their latest nostalgia-indulging mechanical PC keyboard — and fair warning: it’s way nerdier than their NES-inspired one. The new edition is sure to press all the right buttons for geeks of a certain age as it pays visual … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 24.04 is switching its default webcam app from Cheese to Snapshot, a modern GTK4/libadwaita camera tool that’s part of the GNOME Core Apps set. Cheese has been part of Ubuntu’s default software lineup since 2010, having first been added in the Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix owi … | Continue reading
It’s been a little while since the last #UbuntuintheWild spot but this one feels like a fitting return given it’s quite literally in the wild! The wilds of the Eastern Himalayan forests, in fact. Nature documentary Nocturnes, directed and produced by Anirban Dutta and Anupama Sri … | Continue reading
Ubuntu’s long-term support releases just got even longer, with Canonical today announcing they are eligible for up to 12 years of security coverage from initial release. As you know, every Ubuntu LTS release receives 5 years of standard security (and select application) updates f … | Continue reading
Gamers can look forward to more epic top-tier titles working out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, which is due for release in late April. Following a user suggestion Ubuntu developers have massively increased the distro’s virtual memory mapping limit. This small change should have … | Continue reading
App Center, Ubuntu’s Flutter-based replacement for the Ubuntu Software app, has picked up a redesigned app icon in the latest Ubuntu 24.04 daily builds. This isn’t the first icon change that the App Center has received in recent months. An updated build of the software installati … | Continue reading
If you only started using Ubuntu sometime after 2012 then you have my apologies: this article won’t make a whole lot of sense. But if your roots with the distro reach back farther then the following curio might appeal (though that ‘might’ is, I accept, doing a lot of lifting). Wh … | Continue reading
A big update to Extension Manager, a popular 3rd-party tool to browse, install, and manage GNOME Shell extensions without the need for a web browser, has been released. If you’re into customising Ubuntu, be it changing the look and layout, adding animated effects, patching in new … | Continue reading
This week I heard about Plattenalbum, a modern GTK4/libadwaita Music Player Daemon (MPD) client and it looks good so figured I’d give it a shoutout! Y’know, cheesy 1980s DJ style 🧀. MPD remains a popular way to access music that’s stored on a server, another computer, or … | Continue reading
The GNOME project today formally announced the release of GNOME 46 “Kathmandu”, the latest update to its hugely popular open-source desktop environment. And what an update it is. I ran through the best GNOME 46 features earlier this week. Suffice to say there’s a lot of improveme … | Continue reading
Esteemed adherents of the arts rejoice, as the official Ubuntu 24.04 wallpaper has finally been unveiled! As you no-doubt know, every new Ubuntu release comes with its own unique desktop background and the upcoming release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS “Noble Numbat” doesn’t abdicate the r … | Continue reading
Mozilla Firefox 124 is now officially available to download. The latest update to the open-source web browser includes a small clutch of improvements. Firefox View can now sort of open tabs by recent activity (default) or tab order making it a touch faster to find specific tabs u … | Continue reading
GNOME 46 is released on March 20 and the update will be at the heart of the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 release — so are you wondering what sort of improvements it brings? Well, I gotcha’ covered, innit. In this post I run-through the best GNOME 46 features, changes, and usability enha … | Continue reading
Mozilla has announced it is retiring its Mozilla Location Service (MLS), which provides accurate and privacy-respecting geolocation data. Developers and third-party projects currently use MLS to provide location data, such as FreeDesktop location framework GeoClue, leveraged by a … | Continue reading
Proton Mail has released a brand new desktop app for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The app means subscribers to the privacy-focused mail service no longer need to use a web browser to read, send, and manage their mail. For privacy-conscious folks, Proton needs little introduction. For … | Continue reading
VLC media player has now been downloaded over 5 billion times across desktop and mobile devices, with the most recent release clocking up an impressive 335 million downloads alone! Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VideoLAN, the non-profit company who develop VLC, shared this mon … | Continue reading
The second bug-fix update to KDE Plasma 6 is now available, arriving just over a week after the first one rolled out. KDE Plasma 6.0.2 brings a bunch of band-aids to resolves crashes, quirks, and other odd-ball behaviours reported by users since the KDE Plasma 6.0 stable release … | Continue reading
After a solid couple of months of development the Linux 6.8 kernel has been officially released. This kernel is of particular note to Ubuntu users as it’s the version selected to ship in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS – the GA kernel and thereby supported for the duration of the release. Annou … | Continue reading
A new GNOME Shell extension lets you turn any app in to a picture-in-picture window on Ubuntu. You’re probably already familiar with picture-in-picture mode (PiP) through your web browser. The likes of Mozilla Firefox and Chrome let you to “pop-out” video playing on web pages to … | Continue reading
A new version of Zorin OS is available for download. Zorin OS 17.1, which is based on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS, brings a wealth of improvements to its (nifty) Windows app support, as well as a new Education Edition that “pairs the latest improvements to Zorin OS with educational softwa … | Continue reading
A new IRC client (but don’t call it an IRC client) is being developed by Linux Mint. The Ubuntu-based distro currently includes Hexchat in its default software selection. IRC isn’t as trendy as Discord or Telegram but it a free, open standard that no one-entity controls, is relat … | Continue reading
A new open-source nostalgia project lets you turn back time in web browser aesthetics. Silverfox is a custom theme for Mozilla Firefox ESR that recreates the look of Google Chrome in its early days. We’re talking trapezoid tabs, parallelogram new tab button, pared back speed dial … | Continue reading
Avid users of Varia, a modern download manager for Linux desktops, may want to check out official browser extensions. By installing the official Varia browser extension in Google Chrome/Chromium or Mozilla Firefox you no longer have to copy and paste download links from the brows … | Continue reading
Want to mirror your iPhone screen on your Ubuntu desktop? There’s a free, open-source app you can install from the Ubuntu repos to do it. If you’re looking to mirror your iPhone or iPad to Ubuntu UxPlay is the easy way to do it — and it’s free, open-source software The app is cal … | Continue reading
Next time you stop by Launchpad.net you’ll notice it has a new look. Canonical’s designers have given Launchpad’s landing page a lithe new look that allows text to breathe and is more in-keeping with Canonical’s other websites. It’s the first major redesign to the project hosting … | Continue reading
About a week ago I noticed that the default icon for App Center (the Flutter-based software store-front that replaced Ubuntu Software in 23.10) had changed — and not for the better! At first I assumed it was an intentional change, but a snafu caused by me (I was playing with disp … | Continue reading
Ubuntu developers have decided to stop shipping games in future installs. While Ubuntu 23.10 defaults to a minimal install offering only core software essentials (like a terminal and web browser) users may opt for a “full installation” which preinstalls additional software, inclu … | Continue reading
KDE Plasma 6 has arrived. The first stable release in an all-new series of the phenomenally popular Linux desktop environment is available to download. KDE Plasma 6 improves security, performance, usability, and hardware support Naturally, a major milestone like this one includes … | Continue reading