A set of four cool new window opening and closing animations got added to gaudy GNOME Shell extension Burn My Windows this weekend. A veritable Linux eye-candy essential, Burn My Windows makes it easy to apply a variety of visual effects to Ubuntu when opening and/or closing app … | Continue reading
A new alpha release of System76’s emergent Rust-based COSMIC Desktop environment is out with a clutch of important improvements, bug fixes, and new features. Although very much a work-in-progress, unfinished, and lacking polish, COSMIC desktop is already in use as a daily driver … | Continue reading
The Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS release is now available to download, albeit week later than originally planned. Serving as the second point release in the current Ubuntu 24.04 LTS series, this release combines the myriad security, bug, and software updates pushed out to the Noble Numbat … | Continue reading
Mozilla Corporation’s president, Mark Surman, today announced plans to tackle what he says are ‘major headwinds’ facing the company’s ability to grow, make money, and remain relevant. “Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new … | Continue reading
A new version of the Mesa graphics library has been released. Mesa 25.0 features Vulkan 1.4 support, which the team bill as the ‘flashiest addition’ in this new development release as it spans Anv (Intel), Asahi (Apple), Lavapipe (software), NVK (NVIDIA), PanVK (Mali), RADV (AMD) … | Continue reading
A new version of the Power Profiles Daemon (PPD) was uploaded to the Plucky archives today, and should soon make its way out to Ubuntu 25.04 daily builds —but what’s changed? The power-profiles-daemon is what those of who run Ubuntu (or Linux Mint 22.1, which finally added PPD) i … | Continue reading
This week sees the (belated) release of Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS, the first point release update in the noble series to deliver an updated hardware enablement (HWE) stack. Ubuntu’s HWE backports newer Linux kernel and Mesa GPU drivers to LTS users in an effort to ensure the latest LTS … | Continue reading
When you log in to Ubuntu 24.10 the desktop plays an audio clip to greet you — a lengthy audio motif that slowly builds to a plinky-plonky crescendo that you (or people around you) may tire of having to listen to! But you can turn it off — or replace it. Startup and login sounds … | Continue reading
A new version of Tiling Shell, the flexible window snapping assistant for GNOME Shell, is available. Tiling Shell v16.2 now surfaces nifty ‘Window Suggestions’, a feature introduced in last month’s v16.0 release, when using edge tiling. Edge Tiling (as no doubt you well know) is … | Continue reading
Ever looked at Ubuntu’s default icon theme Yaru and found yourself thinking: “Eh, some of those icons look too big”? —No, can’t say I had either! But it turns out some of the icons are indeed oversized. The Yaru icon theme in Ubuntu uses 4 different shapes for its app, folder and … | Continue reading
Bad news for anyone expecting Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS to drop tomorrow – the release has been delayed by a week. An ‘unfortunate incident’ caused some Ubuntu 24.04.2 images to be built without the HWE kernel on board (Linux 6.11), Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta reports. Since including a n … | Continue reading
GNOME rolled out a huge revamp to its official website today and I have to say: it’s a solid improvement over the old one. The official GNOME website has an important role, serving as both showcase and springboard to those looking to learn more about the desktop environment, the … | Continue reading
A new version of the slick Clapper media player is out with several neat improvements Not newly out, I should say; I hadn’t run a flatpak update in Ubuntu for a while so I only recently noticed an update pending for this nifty little media player. What’s new? Well, Clapper 0.8.0 … | Continue reading
A new version of the KDE Plasma desktop environment is out and, as you’d expect, the update is packed with new features, UI tweaks, and performance boosts. KDE Plasma 6.3 is the fourth major update in the KDE Plasma 6.x series and it also marks the one-year anniversary of the KDE … | Continue reading
A new version of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, a free, open-source office suite for Windows, macOS, and Linux, is now available to download. ONLYOFFICE 8.3 brings a bunch of new features and nimble enhancements spread throughout the full suite, which is composed of word processor, … | Continue reading
Finding yourself annoyed at those ‘window is ready’ notifications which pop-up when you open some apps in GNOME Shell on Ubuntu? If so, you can disable them by installing a GNOME Shell extension. Now, notifications are helpful—heck, vital when they inform, alert, or indicate that … | Continue reading
A new version of Ghostty emerged this week and in this post I run-through the key changes. For those unfamiliar with it, Ghostty is an open-source terminal emulator written in Zig. It offers a “fast, feature-rich, and native” experience — doesn’t claim to be faster, more featured … | Continue reading
LibreOffice 25.2 has been released, this year’s first major update to the leading open-source office software for Windows, macOS, and Linux. As you’d expect, the update delivers a sizeable set of changes spread throughout the productivity suite, including notable UI changes, acce … | Continue reading
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) user? If so, you will be pleased to hear that Ubuntu is now available in Microsoft’s new tar-based distro format — no need to use the sluggish Microsoft Store. Canonical announced the news today, noting that “the new tar-based WSL distro format a … | Continue reading
Right on schedule, a new update to the Mozilla Firefox web browser is available for download. Last month’s Firefox 134 release saw the New Tab page layout refreshed for users in the United States, let Linux go hands-on with touch-hold gestures, seeded Ecosia search engine, and fi … | Continue reading
Do you use the official Spotify DEB on Ubuntu (or an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution like Linux Mint)? If so, you’ll be used to receiving updates to the Spotify Linux client direct from the official Spotify APT repo, right alongside all your other DEB-based software. Thing is: if … | Continue reading
Fans of the Papirus icon theme for Linux desktops will be happy hear a new version is now available to download. Paprius‘s first update in 2025 improves support for KDE Plasma 6 by adding Konversation, KTorrent and RedShift tray icons, KDE and Plasma logo glyphs for use in ‘start … | Continue reading
GNOME has announced a change to its default UI and monospace fonts ahead of the upcoming GNOME 48 release — a typographic turnabout that won’t impact Ubuntu users directly, though. Should you feel a sense of deja vu here it’s because GNOME trialled a font switch last year, during … | Continue reading
Want to find out if something you’re reading online was written by a human or spat out by a large language model (LLM)? Mozilla’s Fakespot Deepfake Detector Firefox add-on may help give you an indication. Like other online AI detector tools, Mozilla’s Fakespot Deepfake Detector a … | Continue reading
Linux users hunting for a native client to stream music from TIDAL will want to keep an eye on a promising new open-source app called High Tide. High Tide is an unofficial but native Linux client for the TIDAL music streaming service. It’s written in Python, uses GTK4/libadwaita … | Continue reading
The Thunderbird email client is making its monthly ‘release channel’ builds the default download starting in March. “We’re excited to announce that starting with the 135.0 release in March 2025, the Thunderbird Release channel will be the default download,” Corey Bryant, manager … | Continue reading
Ubuntu’s key developers have agreed to switch to Matrix as the primary platform for real-time development communications involving the distro. From March, Matrix will replace IRC as the place where critical Ubuntu development conversations, requests, meetings, and other vital cha … | Continue reading
A new beta release of open source graphics editing app Pinta is available for testing. Pinta 3.0 (beta) gives fans of this cross-platform raster image editor, which is directly inspired by the iconic Paint.NET Windows app, an early opportunity to try out the changes it brings — a … | Continue reading
Did you ever own (or covet) one of those e-ink Pebble smartwatches of yore? Well, good news if you did: Google today open-sourced the PebbleOS operating system it used (minus proprietary bits) having acquired Pebble’s assets when buying Fitbit in 2021 (and Fitbit bought Pebble in … | Continue reading
A new version of the Varia download manager was released at the weekend – an update described by its developers as probably the “biggest since the first release”. I’ve written about Varia before and, as I said then, I appreciate that the idea of using a dedicated download manager … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS is scheduled for release on February 13th – in time for Valentines Day, aww. Canonical’s Florent Jacquet shares the date on the Ubuntu Developer mailing list today along with a note to developers to be mindful of their package uploads to noble in the coming wee … | Continue reading
Vivaldi web browser has just released its first major update of the year – a corker it is, too! Fans of the Chromium-based browser—though Vivaldi Technologies doesn’t appear to be part of the new Linux Foundation-led Supporters of Chromium Browsers project—will discover a bunch o … | Continue reading
I won’t lie: it’s easy to add or remove startup apps, commands, and scripts in Ubuntu. Just open the Startup Applications tool, click ‘Add’, and away you go. But while Ubuntu’s utility is adequate, it’s not as user-friendly as similar tools available elsewhere. Sure, Startup Appl … | Continue reading
VirtualBox 7.1.6 is out, the third maintenance release to the VirtualBox 7.1 stable series first released in September of last year. Headline offering in this update is initial support for the recently released Linux kernel 6.13 in Linux Guest Additions, plus improved support for … | Continue reading
A cork has popped on a new stable release of Wine, the open-source compatibility layer that makes it possible to run Windows apps and games on Linux and macOS. Over 6 thousand changes were distilled in the Wine 10.0 release – changes collected, collated and curated during the pas … | Continue reading
Ubuntu is mulling a switch to Matrix from IRC to handle real-time development discussion. Canonical’s Robbie Bask has has begin a discussion on the Ubuntu Developer Mailing list regarding a potential switch in an effort to find consensus for or against such a move, but urges devs … | Continue reading
A clutch of new customisation and configuration options were added to Refine, a GTK4/libadwaita app in the vein of GNOME Tweaks (but better), over the weekend. Refine is compelling due to its goal of offering the “convenience to add or remove options without touching a single lin … | Continue reading
The first new kernel release of the year has arrived — yes, Linux 6.13 has gone stable. Linux kernel 6.13 adds, as ever, a vast array of improvements, from an updated Raspberry Pi graphics driver promising speed gains, to lazy preemption logic, expanded Rust support and new drive … | Continue reading
A major new release of Linux Mint is now available to download. Linux Mint 22.1 is the first update in the Linux Mint 22.x series and, like that version, is built on top of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and uses Linux Kernel 6.8 (though the distro plans to release newer kernel updates more of … | Continue reading
Doing anything right now? Oh, you’re reading this – appreciated – but once you’re done go and install the pending update to Rsync, pushed out to all supported versions of Ubuntu desktop and server this week. Rsync is a command-line tool preinstalled in all versions and flavours o … | Continue reading
When GNOME 48 is released in March it will debut with a brand-new audio player. Per a recent merge request, Decibels graduates from GNOME Incubator to GNOME Core Apps as part of GNOME 48, making the software something GNOME recommends downstream Linux distributions include to giv … | Continue reading
A new stable release of Flatpak is out with a wealth of improvements in tow. Flatpak 1.16.0 is the first stable release in the new 1.16.x series, coming more than two years after the Flatpak 1.14.x cycle began and containing features, fixes, and other work undertaken from the 1.1 … | Continue reading
Enlightenment 0.27, released this week, brings a wealth of incremental improvements to users of this unique desktop environment. Though not as well known or widely used as GNOME, Xfce, KDE Plasma, et al, Enlightenment (often abbreviated as just ‘E’) differentiates itself through … | Continue reading
Window snapping GNOME extension Tiling Shell —not that you need an introduction to it by now— adds a nifty new feature in its latest update. Tiling Shell v16 introduces Windows Suggestions, a feature the add-on’s author described as being able to “provide intelligent recommendati … | Continue reading
Real-time AI subtitling is in the works for VLC, the phenomenally popular open-source media player. VideoLAN, the non-profit in charge of VLC development, demoed automatic subtitle generation in VLC during CES 2025 —where not using AI made you stand out this year— and shared a cl … | Continue reading
Google is teaming up with the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Meta, and Opera to form a new Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers group. Members of the group, managed by the Linux Foundation, will work together, pool resources, talent, time, and expertise to improve, innovate, and a … | Continue reading
A new alpha update to System76’s COSMIC desktop environment has arrived with a clutch of interactive improvements. This is the fifth alpha of the Rust-based DE since August 2024. More alphas will arrive each month until all the features planned to ship in the first stable release … | Continue reading
Raspberry Pi has today announced the launch of a Raspberry Pi 5 with 16GB RAM. A engorged-memory model had been oft-rumoured since the launch of the raspberry Pi 5 in 2024 – and long-desired by fans of this particular single-board computer (SBC). The launch of the new Raspberry P … | Continue reading