Proton, once famed for its VPN offers, these days provides a full suite of secure services, including e-mail, cloud storage, and password manager (Proton Pass Linux app launched last month). Now, it’s adding another string to its privacy-focused bow, and takes aim at Google Docs … | Continue reading
A new version of the Audacious music player popped out a few weeks back, but I totally missed hearing about until today (when sifting through my GitHub stars to make sure no other apps I like have joined the FOSS graveyard). Audacious 4.4 is a sizeable update which existing fans … | Continue reading
If you’re yet to try Miracle-WM, a tiling window manager made for the Mir Wayland compositor, the latest version would be a stellar place to star. Created by Canonical engineer Matthew Kosarek (in his free time; it’s not an official Canonical project), miracle-wm wants to marry t … | Continue reading
And we’re off — the Linux Mint 22 beta release is now available to download. The beta of Linux Mint 22 ‘Wilma’ lands ahead of an expected stable release, tentatively scheduled for late July or early August, depending on how many bugs, issues, and quirks are identified during the … | Continue reading
Sad news for fans of Gradience, the 3rd-party tool to customise the look of GTK4/libadwaita apps, as this weekend (June 29, 2024) the Github project page was made read-only and archived. News is sure to drain the colour from those who avidly use this tool, as it has proven popula … | Continue reading
If you’ve been experiencing issues getting some apps to run or work properly in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS it may be down to the distro using AppArmor to restrict the creation of user namespaces. This change (which I touched on in my article look at what’s new in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS) is there … | Continue reading
Does it seem like I’m a bit obsessed with Tiling Shell, the super-charged window snapping extension for GNOME Shell, which works beautifully on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and above? It might do given this is my 3rd article about it in less than a fortnight — but when the updates and new fe … | Continue reading
A new version of FreeOffice has been released. FreeOffice 2024 is a free (as in beer) version based on SoftMaker Office 2024, a commercial, cross-platform office suite. Any users of SoftMaker Office reading this needn’t feel short-changed: the free version comes with fewer featur … | Continue reading
System76’s COSMIC desktop environment (ecosystem?) is shaping up to be something truly out of this world, combining modern design with intuitive navigation, embracing customisation, and taking full advantage of the benefits that being built in Rust brings. But every project needs … | Continue reading
A new version of open-source video editor OpenShot is available to download. OpenShot 3.2 is the first update to the app since early last year, and the editor’s chief developer, Jonathan Thomas, describes this release as a “game-changer with new themes, improved features, and enh … | Continue reading
As the Cinnamon 6.2 release indicated, the Linux Mint 22 release is getting close. But, before a stable release can be made, there needs to be a beta. Oh, sorry—don’t get excited; a Linux Mint 22 Beta isn’t available to download just yet! But it seems one will be along very soon. … | Continue reading
A new version of Celluloid, an open-source media player for Linux, has been released. Celluloid (originally called GNOME MPV, albeit many moons ago) is an MPV-based media player able to leverage many of MPV’s ‘powerful playback capabilities’, but wrapped up within a more modern-l … | Continue reading
Tiling Shell, the Windows 11-esque window snapping extension I spotlighted last week received an update at the weekend, adding enhancements I feel are worthy of mention. This includes a request to support snapping windows in the active tiling layout using the keyboard only. Becau … | Continue reading
As you may know, Mozilla has big plans for its browser this year, and among the spate of new features is greater personalisation of the new tab page. While the ability to set a new tab background image is the most eye-catching (literally) customisation change in the immediate off … | Continue reading
A new version of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, a free, open-source, and cross-platform office suite, is now available to download. If you’ve not yet found a reason to try this productivity powerhouse out, this latest update could well change that. Last autumn’s ONLYOFFICE 7.5 relea … | Continue reading
A new version of Vivaldi, the power-user’s preferred browser (right?) is out with a symphony—don’t groan—of improvements. While most people use the Vivaldi web browser for browsing the web — and it has plenty of features which enhance that experience — it’s able to do a fair bit … | Continue reading
Fancy rubbing shoulders with the great and the good in the Ubuntu community, learning new things, seeing cool demos, and perhaps getting a bit merry with your fellow geeks? If so, make a date to attend the Ubuntu Summit, which this year is being held in The Hague, the Netherlands … | Continue reading
Those of you who own a Framework Laptop 13 —consider me jealous, btw— or are considering buying one, you may be intrigued to hear that a RISC-V motherboard option is in the works. DeepComputing, the company behind the recently-announced Ubuntu RISC-V laptop, is working with Frame … | Continue reading
KDE Plasma 6.1 has been released with a plethora of productivity and performance-minded improvements. Building on the KDE Plasma 6.0 release from earlier in this year, the 6.1 update sees KDE developers deliver “improvements and powerful new features to every part of your desktop … | Continue reading
If you’re looking forward to the upcoming Linux Mint 22 release you’ll be pleased to hear that the Cinnamon 6.2 desktop environment was “released” this weekend. Quote marks because we’re talking a tarball release rather than “it’s rolling out to all existing users”. Indeed, Cinna … | Continue reading
If you’re looking for a more powerful and configurable window tiling experience on Ubuntu, look no further than Tiling Shell, a new GNOME Shell extension which super-charges window snapping with a host of interactive features. Ubuntu improved its own window tiling capabilities la … | Continue reading
If you’re looking for a more powerful and configurable window tiling experience on Ubuntu look no further than Tiling Shell, a new GNOME Shell extension which super-charges window snapping. Last year, Ubuntu improved its window tiling capabilities by making the ‘Tiling Assistant’ … | Continue reading
One of the biggest drawback to Ubuntu’s new App Center, the Flutter-based replacement for GNOME’s Software Center, is that it doesn’t let you install DEBs downloaded from the web. To be clear (since confusion often creeps in) the Ubuntu App Center does allow you to install DEB so … | Continue reading
A RISC-V laptop preloaded with Ubuntu is in development, and Canonical is involved. The DC-ROMA RISC-V Laptop II is made by DeepComputing, a company formed by self-described “RISC-V pioneers” back in 2022, and based in Hong Kong. Their aim: develop and release all kinds of produc … | Continue reading
Streaming is the dominant way to watch video content these days. But a place remains for versatile, user-friendly, offline-first media player, even if only for infrequent use (like previewing a clip before uploading it online for others to stream). Ubuntu ships with Totem (aka Vi … | Continue reading
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me and I’m feeling… Like I ought to crack on with writing a post to say Mozilla Firefox 127 has been released — because it has! Yes, it’s already been a month since Firefox 126 made its way out into the wild, and Mozilla laid o … | Continue reading
A new version of Mission Center, the super-slick system monitor for Linux, has been released. I’ve written about this utility a number of times before, so if you read this blog regularly you—aside from being awesome—may be familiar with it. And if you’re not? Well, you’re in for … | Continue reading
Linux laptop vendor TUXEDO has confirmed plans to release a Linux ARM laptop based on the Snapdragon X Elite SoC. It recently showcased a prototype of a new ARM notebook at Computex, the annual computer event in Taiwan. Powered by the Snapdragon X Elite and running an ARM port of … | Continue reading
The popular, powerful, and cross-platform video converter HandBrake recently put out a new version with a notable improvement. HandBrake 1.8.0 now uses GTK 4 for the user interface, dropping GTK 3 entirely. This toolkit uplift (facelift?) has been in the works for a year or two. … | Continue reading
Ubuntu offers a powerful, configurable, and easy-to-use desktop experience out of the box, but as the saying goes: one size doesn’t fit all. Customising Ubuntu’s look and layout, installing apps, utilising awesome GNOME Shell extensions, and generally turning the distro into some … | Continue reading
A new version of VLC, the perennially popular open-source media player, is out with an assortment of improvements and new features. VLC 3.0.21 is the first maintenance release to be issued year, following on from last autumn’s 3.0.20 release. Maintenance and support for the VLC 3 … | Continue reading
Proton, the Swiss-based privacy company best known for its VPN and e-mail services, has announced the release of Proton Pass for Linux and macOS. The new desktop apps mean Proton’s encrypted password manager now supports all major desktop operating systems, as well as Android and … | Continue reading
A new version of the OMG! Ubuntu extension for Google Chrome, Chromium, and other compatible web browsers is now available on the Chrome Web Store. Didn’t know we had a browser extension? That’s on me; I suck at self promotion. In fact, this seems to be the first blog post I’ve e … | Continue reading
With the AI gold-rush in full swing the folks at Raspberry Pi have joined the fray, launching a new budget-friendly machine-learning module for their iconic single-board computer. The $70 Raspberry Pi AI Kit is composed of the company’s own official M.2 Hat board and a low-power … | Continue reading
The Software Manager app in Linux Mint 22 will deliver faster start-up times and a introduce a significant security-minded safeguard for search results. As you may know (and if you don’t, what’s living on Mars like? ;P) the Linux Mint Software Manager (package name mintinstall) a … | Continue reading
There are a number of ways to convert documents on Ubuntu but few are as quick and easy to use as Morphosis. Morphosis is a desktop app written in Python and GTK4/libadwaita and powered by Pandoc, a command-line document converter tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and WebkitGTK … | Continue reading
Those using Ubuntu on Windows through the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) may be interested to know that ‘significant updates’ are on the way. In a blog post to recap things discussed as the recent Microsoft BUILD event the company’s senior product manager for the Windows devel … | Continue reading
Few computer keyboards are as iconic, as influential, or as beige as the IBM Model-M, so it’s no surprise to see it chosen for a modern Bluetooth-equipped interpretation courtesy of gaming peripheral maker 8BitDo. Following on from its (awesome) Nintendo NES, Famicom and Commodor … | Continue reading
This month’s Firefox 126 release brought with it a modest set of improvements for Linux users — as well as an annoying bug which temporarily breaks drag and drop actions in the browser. And that bug was easy to trigger: select some text or an image on a web page, then ‘drag’ it o … | Continue reading
Ubuntu 24.04 is now available for the Milk-V Mars RISC-V single board computer (SBC). RISC-V is an open-source processor spec. Anyone can access its design to create their own chips freely, without having to pay licensing fees or royalties. Much like a Linux distro, people are ab … | Continue reading
Day Progress is a new GNOME Shell extension that does something really simple (perhaps too simple to appeal to a mass audience): it shows a progress bar in the panel to relay how much of the day has elapsed. A visual cue to stay motivated —deflated in my case: I realise how much … | Continue reading
Cascadia Code is an open-source monospaced font made by Microsoft first released in 2020 and serves as the default typeface for the official Windows Terminal app. Similar to Intel’s One Mono, JetBrains’ Mono and IBM’s Plex, Cascadia Code is an clear, legible, modern monospaced fo … | Continue reading
Rufus, a popular open-source tool for making bootable USB drives on Windows, just released an update that includes a ‘fix’ for working with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS ISOs. A truly versatile tool, Rufus is able to create bootable Windows installers from ISO files and disk images as well as … | Continue reading
Stop by the Snap Store website today you’ll see it’s undergone a revamp, and the second design rejig to the online storefront in the past 12 months is more substantive than the first. The search bar is now shorter and incorporated into the header section (which also drops the “Se … | Continue reading
It’s now possible to upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS from earlier versions officially, using the standard GUI mechanisms — no command-line developer flag required. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released on April 25 but the distro devs delayed direct upgrades to the new version due to bugs – one r … | Continue reading
Wondering what sort of features Mozilla has planned for upcoming versions of its Firefox web browser? You needn’t wonder too hard; Mozilla has shared an updated roadmap on its ideas platform outlining its near-term priorities, features, and enhancements that its engineers are alr … | Continue reading
If you use Slack on Ubuntu but were frustrated to find screen sharing under Wayland only showed a black screen (or made the entire app crash) you’ll be pleased to hear those issues are now fixed. I’m not a Slack user —who’d I talk to, myself?!— and while I hear that this popular … | Continue reading
Of the (many) handy new features in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is the ability to access OneDrive files through the Nautilus file manager as a remote mount. This is made possible by the msgraph package, a new gvfs backend that Nautilus can use, account integration through GNOME Online Accou … | Continue reading