Firefox’s Nova redesign will go live this month

Firefox’s redesign will be enabled for all users in Firefox 157, out the end of September – barring any last minute hiccups, of course. Mozilla’s engineers have been working on Nova since March. The original pitch showed lots of round UI elements, floating toolbars, framed web co … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 16 hours ago

GNOME Sushi gets a GTK4 revamp, new features

Sushi, the spacebar preview utility for Nautilus file manager, has been ported to GTK4 for GNOME 51. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Sushi is like Quick Look on macOS: you highlight a file (image, music, video, document, etc) in Nautilus, press the spacebar and an instant preview … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 day ago

Ubuntu 24.04 splits firmware packages for faster updates

Firmware updates on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS have got smaller, as Canonical has backported the split Linux firmware packages it introduced in 26.04. To make the change in noble, the linux-firmware package is now a meta-package that pulls in all of the individual firmware packages. Functi … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 3 days ago

Ubuntu 26.10 Snapshot 3 is now available for testing

The third, and potentially final, monthly snapshot of Ubuntu 26.10 is available for download. There were no monthly snapshots of the ‘Stonking Stingray’ in August or July, and the Ubuntu 26.10 beta release is due on 24 September. This could be the final snapshot of the cycle, tho … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 3 days ago

Vivaldi 8.2 is out with a calculator in the address bar

Vivaldi 8.2 rolled out today (3 September 2026) and lets you do quick and private math calculations directly in the address bar. This may prove useful when you don’t want to open to a new tab or a calculator app. I’ve often narrowed my eyes at an online checkout page after applyi … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 3 days ago

Audacity 4.0 released with brand-new look

Audacity 4.0 has been released with a new Qt user interface, a new clip editing model and project file format – as well as a swathe of smaller improvements. The Qt port of Audacity is more than a superficial – some would say much-needed – facelift, as the toolkit switch brings na … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 4 days ago

Canonical joins the Open Secure AI Alliance

Canonical recently joined the Linux Foundation’s Open Secure AI Alliance to help make open-source security tools for AI systems and autonomous agents. The alliance formed in July 2026 in response to the security breach at Hugging Face, when OpenAI models undergoing a safety test … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 4 days ago

Arduino’s VENTUNO Q went up for pre-order, sold out

Arduino's VENTUNO Q is now up for pre-order, priced from $299. The development board comes with Ubuntu preinstalled and is built around Qualcomm's Dragonwing IQ8 platform. You're reading Arduino’s VENTUNO Q went up for pre-order, sold out, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not rep … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 4 days ago

LibreOffice 26.8 is the most downloaded first-week release ever

LibreOffice 26.8 was download more than 1 million times in its first week of release, which The Document Foundation say is the highest first-week figure of any release of the free office suite. Released on 26 August, LibreOffice 26.8 saw 1,031,162 downloads from the official webs … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 4 days ago

Linux App Release Roundup (August 2026)

August saw a number of slew of notable Linux app updates, and in this post I roundup a few that might have passed you by. But unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock you’ll have already heard about Firefox 153, the big OpenShot 4.0 release with colour grading and the latest upda … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 5 days ago

Firefox 155 brings AI-powered Smart Window to more countries

Firefox 155 is out, the first to arrive as part of the browser’s new twice-monthly release schedule. This update brings Firefox’s AI-powered Smart Window browsing mode to users in the USA, Canada and France. It’s still opt-in (for now), and is powered by your choice of AI model f … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 6 days ago

Ubuntu’s IRC support channels to be ‘sunset’, some aren’t happy

Getting is planning to ‘sunset’ IRC as an official support method, and some long-time users aren’t happy. The recently Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS release announcement didn’t include a link to the Ubuntu Support IRC channel under its “if you have a question” section – though, from looking … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 6 days ago

Why Ubuntu 26.04 upgrades from 24.04 are currently delayed

If you’re wondering why you can’t do a directly upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 from 24.04 yet, despite the Resolute Raccoon’s first point release being live, there is a reason. Canonical’s Oliver Reiche said in the mailing list announcement for Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS that upgrades will be d … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 7 days ago

OpenShot 4.0 gains colour grading tools, recording dock & Qt 6 port

OpenShot 4.0 sees the open-source video editor add colour grading tools, a recording dock for audio and screen capture and new AI effects. Plus, Qt 6 and better Wayland support on Linux. You're reading OpenShot 4.0 gains colour grading tools, recording dock & Qt 6 port, a blog po … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 7 days ago

Calibre ebook manager now lets you generate AI book covers

A new version of open-source ebook manager Calibre is out – and it lets you create custom book covers using generative AI. Calibre 9.14, released August 28, lets you edit metadata for any book in your library and click an “AI Generate button” to make new ebook covers in “styles s … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 9 days ago

Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS point release is now available to download

Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS is now available to download, the first of 5 point releases scheduled for the ‘Resolute Raccoon’ in the 3 years. The release doesn’t add new features, but brings a refreshed installation image (.iso) that includes all of the bug fixes, security patches and pack … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 10 days ago

Chrome moves a step closer to an official Flatpak

If you’ve installed Chromium or Google Chrome as a Flatpak, you’ve installed an unofficial, community-maintained package done independently of the search giant – that could be about to change. Chromium’s build system is now able to generate Flatpak packages of the browser itself, … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 10 days ago

Hands-on with Ubuntu’s AI speech-to-text dictation feature

AI-powered voice typing is coming to Ubuntu in Myna, a speech-to-text feature that lets you talk into any valid text field. It’s still a work in progress, but I grabbed an early build to see how it’s shaping up. With Ubuntu 26.10 now entering its freeze, the user-facing pieces of … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 10 days ago

LibreOffice 26.8 released with paragraph layout changes, draft view + more

The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 26.8, a major new version of the open-source office suite for Windows, macOS and Linux. Among the changes is a new Paragraph Composer. This improves the way Writer handles justified text. In many word processors, justified text is … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 11 days ago

A hidden Ubuntu feature I use to tidy up my desktop

Ubuntu’s Desktop Icons NG (DING) extension has a little-known way to bring order to a chaotic desktop: stacks. Stacks groups multiple files of the same type into a collapsible icon. Images in one stack, PDFs in another and so on. Folders aren’t grouped, and your files don’t get m … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 12 days ago

Ubuntu 26.10 ‘Stonking Stingray’ hits feature freeze

Ubuntu 26.10, codenamed ‘Stonking Stingray’, entered feature freeze on 20 August – though the formal announcement arrive later than usual. From this point onwards, development focus shifts from landing major changes to improving them, along with the rest of the package set, ahead … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 13 days ago

Ubuntu 24.04 gets a big open-vm-tools update

A major update to open-vm-tools, a package that integrates Linux virtual machines with VMware hypervisors, is rolling out to users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. “Without SRUing the newer version users get issues running on more recent hypervisors”, Canonical’s Lena Voytek explained in a b … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 13 days ago

Ubuntu Phone engineers reunited by a decade-old bug closure

A decades-old bug on Ubuntu’s Launchpad marked as invalid at the weekend lead to an impromptu reunion for many of Canonical’s former engineers. Bug #1589796 was filed in 2016 by a user who’d spent £700 on Ubuntu phone and tablet hardware but, on visiting the official website, fou … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 14 days ago

Postcard is a new email client for GNOME, built with AI

Postcard is a new email client for GNOME that has echoes of Geary. The app is the work of a solo developer, gxanshu on GitHub, who is upfront about using AI coding tools to bring his “modern mail client” to life. Postcard is built in Python with GTK4/libadwait. It uses imaplib an … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 16 days ago

GIMP is (finally) working on a new project file format

A new project file format is in the works for GIMP, as the existing one can’t handle larger, complex projects. The famed FOSS image editor has used a binary .xcf format since 1997 for saving projects and allowing them to be opened elsewhere, for editing, with layers, effects and … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 17 days ago

Dynamic clock, calendar and weather icons extension adds new styles

You can bring Ubuntu’s clock, calendar and weather app icons to life with the Dynamic Calendar, Clocks and Weather Icons [Reborn] GNOME Shell extension – which has been updated with new icon styles. The extension already provided Yaru, Adwaita, Paprius, Big Sur and other icon sty … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 18 days ago

Tuba 0.11.0 released with full Mastodon quote support

A big update to Tuba, the GTK4/libadwaita Fediverse client, has landed – along with an experimental version for Android. Tuba 0.11.0 is the first major update to the social app in a year and brings full support for Mastodon quotes. Quoting posts, whether others can quote your pos … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 18 days ago

PINE64 pulls the plug on Linux devices because of AI boom

If you’ve been eyeing up one of PINE64‘s Linux-friendly single-board computers, phones or tablets, now is the time to buy one. The open-hardware company has announced it will stop “producing more Linux devices” for the time being, and said it expects its existing stock of certain … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 18 days ago

Firefox 154 released, removes the ‘Firefox View’ toolbar icon

Mozilla has released Firefox 154 with some small AI changes, better full-page translations and up to 10x faster video seeking (only on macOS, that one). It is also the final monthly release of Firefox before the browser switches to a faster, twice-monthly release schedule. You’ll … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 20 days ago

Ubuntu’s App Center doesn’t know what went wrong

I recently re-encountered my favourite ‘error’ dialog in Ubuntu, which is thrown by the distro’s App Center (snap-store), which is the default GUI software management tool. I don’t see it often, but when I do it (un)helpfully informs me: “Something went wrong. We’re sorry, but we … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 20 days ago

Wordbook is a modern offline dictionary for GNOME

They say never judge a book by its cover, and few do if said book is a dictionary – but what about desktop dictionary apps? I recently discovered Wordbook, a modern English-English dictionary powered by OpenEnglish WordNet and eSpeak for pronunciations, that works entirely offlin … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 20 days ago

Linux 7.2 brings cache-aware scheduling, faster ext4 and Btrfs

Linux kernel 7.2 has been released, adding cache-aware scheduling, ext4 filesystem performance boosts and a slew of new and improved hardware drivers for laptops and peripherals. A merge-widow record was also set during the 9-week development cycle, with more than 2,100 individua … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 21 days ago

Add multiple picture widgets to your Ubuntu desktop

If you remember that desktop picture widget for GNOME I wrote about last year, but found it a bit too basic for your personalisation preferences, you weren’t alone. Another user felt it could lacked enough flexibility, so forked and improved it. Picture Desktop Widget Remake impr … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 23 days ago

GeForce NOW’s Linux app drops its beta tag, gets Flatpak repo

GeForce Now’s native Linux app has exited beta after seven months of testing, with official support for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and later. The app is a frontend for Nvidia’s game streaming service, with over 4,500 PC titles running in the cloud on Nvidia servers. Users get GeForce RTX-c … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 24 days ago

LightDM returns from the dark with first release in 4 years

LightDM, Ubuntu’s former display manager, has had its first new release in four years – the first under new maintainers. LightDM v1.33.0 is a ‘catch up’ release that adds Qt6 support (Qt5 still works) and clears a backlog of fixes that had built up since the previous release. The … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 25 days ago

GNOME 51 could bring a floating search overlay to the Shell

The next version of GNOME Shell, out in September, is likely to include a redesigned search experience. In current versions of the desktop, when you start a search from the GNOME Shell overview, a dedicated search results screen replaces the one you’re looking at, i.e., the works … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 26 days ago

ChatGPT desktop app is now available for Linux (in preview)

OpenAI has announced a preview release of the official ChatGPT Desktop app for Linux. Compared to using ChatGPT in a browser tab, the GUI desktop app can run Codex in your local repos, hook into your other apps (via extensions) for ChatGPT Work related tasks and probe your local … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 26 days ago

Linux Mint now deletes old kernel versions automatically

Linux Mint has overhauled kernel management and will now automatically delete old kernels once a week. Kernel management has also moved out of Update Manager and into the System Administration tool on both standard and LMDE versions, and the now tracks kernels by series rather th … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 27 days ago

Linux Mint 22.3 HWE released with Linux kernel 7.0

A refreshed Linux Mint 22.3 (Zena) OS installer is available for download, powered by Linux kernel 7.0. The distro made the first Linux Mint 22.3 HWE ISO available in March, with an installer that boots Linux 6.17 by default. That image remains available to download alongside the … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 28 days ago

Windows 11’s Weather app uses 1GB RAM, but are Linux apps better?

I flummoxed to read a report about how much memory Microsoft’s Weather app uses on Windows 11 – more than 1GB just to render what is, ostensibly, a fancy table of stats. I was less flummoxed to check the memory usage of Mousam, my current go-to weather app on Linux. It the same j … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 28 days ago

Orion for Linux beta updated with private browsing and

Kagi has released a new Linux beta of Orion, its GTK WebKit-based web browser. The v0.4.1 beta builds on the v0.3.0 public beta release in March with more features available on its macOS and iOS versions. Private windows, a working (if still bare-bones) download manager and an ov … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 29 days ago

Dynamic Music Pill adds word-by-word lyrics highlighting

An updated version of Dynamic Music Pill, the GNOME Shell extension to put now playing track info and lyrics in your panel or dock with animated flourishes, is out. If you’re prone to a bit of desk-side crooning, Dynamic Music Pill v1.3.0 adds two new lyrics provider APIs, Better … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 month ago

Calibre 9.13 fixes ebook search that wasn’t working in the content server

A new bug-fix release of Calibre, the open-source e-book manger, view and converter, is available for download. Calibre 9.13 fixes a number of PDF-related issues, including a conversion error that could occur on Linux distributions shipping an ‘ancient’ version of the libxml2 lib … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 month ago

Resources beta adds PowerPC temp, AMD NPU stats

Resources 51 beta, the system monitor Ubuntu now uses, adds AMD NPU stats, PowerPC CPU temps and alternative memory-usage metrics. You're reading Resources beta adds PowerPC temp, AMD NPU stats, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission. | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 month ago

Rhythmbox 3.5 lets you sync your podcast listening across apps

Rhythmbox 3.5.0 is out and it now lets you sync podcast subscriptions and listening progress across apps – the standout feature in the music player’s first major release in nine months You're reading Rhythmbox 3.5 lets you sync your podcast listening across apps, a blog post from … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 month ago

Paprius icon set gets first update in a over year with 80+ new icons

Fan of the the Papirus icon theme will be pleased to hear there a new update – the first since May 2025. For Papirus’s first update in 2026 (the tardiness of which its maintainer, Serhii Yeremenko, apologises) brings over 80 new icons or updated icons spanning apps, games and use … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 month ago

Dropbeat is yet-another slick music controller for GNOME Shell

Dropbeat is a new riff on a old tune, a panel-based music applet for GNOME Shell that gives you an alternate way to pause, play and skip tracks in MPRIS-friendly Linux media players. Applets of this ilk are legion, and this panel applet doesn’t do anything that different to ones … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 month ago

Ubuntu’s turning another system Deb package into a snap

Ubuntu is moving hwctl from Deb package to snap-only distribution, a change Canonical says improves security and desktop integration. You're reading Ubuntu’s turning another system Deb package into a snap, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permissio … | Continue reading


@omgubuntu.co.uk | 1 month ago