COSMIC Alpha 4 Adds New Settings, Variable Refresh Rate Support
Development on COSMIC, a new open-source desktop environment created by developers a Linux-based hardware company System76, continues at pace, with a 4th alpha now available. System76 said new alpha releases of the COSMIC DE would roughly appear once a month (give or take), a cadence that enables them flesh out the features planned for its first stable release and get feedback from users, developers, and distribution packagers. Alongside the new alpha is a freshly-spun ISO of Pop!_OS 24.04 (Alpha), making it easy to check out the changes for yourself on a spare partition, USB drive, or virtual machine. But the 
#News #CosmicDe #System76
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/cosmic-desktop-alpha-4-changes
Mozilla Formally Unveils its Rawr-Some New Logo
Mozilla has finally announced its new branding, describing its first refresh in over a decade as not merely ‘a facelift’ but an effort to lay the foundation for the company’s next 25 years. Now, if you read this blog regularly you’ll already know what the Mozilla’s new branding looks like. I first reported on it back in August, and then again in October when a reader tipped me to the design agency Mozilla had contracted to undertake the work and I shared some of the cool animated mascot art created for it. As may be clear by this point: I
#News #Mozilla
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/mozilla-new-brand-identity-unveiled
How to Enable Tab Groups in Firefox
Among the new features Mozilla is working on for Firefox are tab groups, a nifty productivity feature already present in many other web browsers, including Google Chrome and Vivaldi. This isn’t news, of course. Mozilla laid out the major new features it was bringing to users earlier this year. Other long-requested features including a native profile management system, vertical tabs option, and a revamped URL bar thing. Firefox tab groups isn’t yet ready for prime time, but if you’re using the latest stable version (Firefox 133 at the time I write this) you can manually activate tab groups to try
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/how-to-enable-firefox-tab-groups
Flexbar Brings Apple’s Touch Bar Back from the Dead
A new crowdfunding project aims to revive the (oft-derided) MacBook Pro Touch Bar, this time as a standalone device that work with Windows, macOS and, potentially, Linux too. It’s called Flexbar, and it’s currently asking for cash on Kickstarter. Now, I don’t like writing about crowdfunding projects generally. If I do, they need to offer something novel, or have a track record. Flexbar is novel, but the campaign has a few red flags that make me suspicious it will ever exist – more on that in a mo’. If you’re don’t know your Apple from your Orange Pis, the Touch
#Hardware #News #Crowdfunding #Kickstarter #Touchscreen
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/flexbar-macbook-pro-touch-bar-standalone
Cinnamon Desktop 6.4 Released with New Look, Native Night Light
A new version of the Cinnamon desktop environment has been tagged for release – a sure-fire sign that the Linux Mint 22.1 beta is on the way! As the flagship desktop of Linux Mint, Cinnamon 6.4 will come preinstalled in Linux Mint 22.1 when it’s released at the end of December (though should beta testing reveal issues the date could slip into early 2025). But this post isn’t about Linux Mint 22.1, it’s about Cinnamon. Linux Mint develops and maintains Cinnamon but the desktop can be installed on just about every Linux distribution out there, including Ubuntu (which also has
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/12/cinnamon-6-4-desktop-new-features-theme
Discord Screen Share Sound Finally Works on Linux
If you’re an avid user of the Discord Linux app and been annoyed that screen share audio doesn’t work, there’s good news: it now does! The latest version of Discord for Linux at long last includes the option to ‘share system audio’ when setting up a screen share to stream in chats or channels. Though it works on Windows and macOS, Discord has been silent on when it plans to support screen audio sharing on Linux – so much so it’s been the top feature request on the Discord feedback tracker for years. But this week Linux user Aden Y
#News #AppUpdates #BugFixes #Discord
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/discord-screen-share-audio-support-for-linux
Calibre 7.22: Better eReader Support, New Restart Option
Calibre 7.22 is out — and yes, I’m making extra special effort to not mangle the version number this release as I always seem to insert an extra period in the string whenever I cover the the app! Unwieldy looking though it can seem, the open-source Calibre ebook manager remains unsurpassed in terms of features, tools, and capabilities. Add in the fact it’s cross-platform too, and it’s easy to see why it remains a go-to for avid e-bookworms. Calibre 7.22 builds on recent feature additions, adding a new option to set the position of the control bar when using ‘Read
#News #AppUpdates #Calibre
Mozilla Announce Smaller, Faster Browser Downloads For Linux
Firefox fans on Linux will enjoy smaller download sizes and faster decompressing when using the official binary builds from the Mozilla website. The browser maker today announced its switching to the tar.xz format to distribute its Linux builds, which uses the more efficient LZMA compression algorithm to deliver smaller downloads and faster extraction times. Most Linux users get Firefox updates as a regular software update from a distro-maintained repo, e.g., a Firefox Snap on Ubuntu, a Firefox DEB on Linux Mint and Pop!_OS, etc. But Mozilla say by switching from tar,bz2 to tar.xz Linux users will enjoy both faster downloads
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/firefox-linux-tar-xz-switch
elementary OS 8 Released, This is What’s New
Big day for fans of indie distros as elementary OS 8.0 is now available to download. A major update, elementary OS 8 rides atop the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base, is powered by the Linux 6.8 kernel (with access to newer kernels via Ubuntu’s HWE), and sees a swathe of improvement made to both the Pantheon desktop environment and core apps. Of the release, elementary says it’s focused on several key areas, including the creation of a new secure session (which is not default), improving multitasking with a new dock, and “empowering our diverse community through inclusive design”. I run through a
#News #Distros #Elementary
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/elementary-os-8-released-this-is-whats-new
Firefox 133 Released with Faster Access to Tabs on Other Devices
Mozilla Firefox 133 was released today, furnished with some new features and UI refinements long-time users are sure to appreciate. In the 4 weeks since Firefox 132 brought us certificate compression, tweaked the way the ‘copy link without site tracking’ surfaces, and flicked the switch on hardware acceleration of SVG primitives in WebRender, Mozilla’s developers have added the following: Of these, the tab overview menu option is the one most easily spotted (assuming you’re signed into your Mozilla account and you use the browser on other devices). Elsewhere, Firefox 133 adds Bounce Tracking Protection to the ‘strict’ mode in Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP).
#News #AppUpdates #Firefox
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/firefox-133-whats-changed
Warp, the AI-Powered Terminal App, Relaxes Its Login Requirement
If you were put off trying the Warp terminal app on Ubuntu (or another Linux distro) due to the account and login requirement, there’s good news. The team behind the Rust-based, AI-infused terminal tool has relented on the requirement that users sign-up for and log in with a Warp account before they can run a command. As of this week, anyone can download Warp for for macOS or Linux (it’s coming to Windows soon) and access “all of the core features with a preview of more advanced features” without an account, and without logging in. “We still think the
#News #Ai/Ml #Rust #TerminalApps #Warp
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/warp-ai-terminal-login-change
Want to Install Snap Apps in Linux Mint? Here’s How
Snap is Canonical’s universal package format for Linux. It lets developers build their software once for users across multiple Linux distributions to use. At least, that’s the theory. In reality, few Linux distributions outside of the Ubuntu ecosphere support Snaps out of the box. Most do carry the underlying Snap daemon package (snapd) in their repositories, making it possible for users who want to use snaps, to do so. Linux Mint takes a different approach, however. Ubuntu-based it may be, inheriting the Ubuntu repos and benefitting from ongoing bug, security, and other patches from Canonical’s engineers, but Mint has a
#HowTo #LinuxMint #Snaps
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/how-to-install-snaps-in-linux-mint
FreeCAD 1.0 Released After 22 Years in Development
Good things come to those who wait, and for 3D modelling professionals with a preference for open-source software, the wait for the FreeCAD 1.0 release has been a long one – over 22 years! At long last, this free, open-source alternative to expensive engineering software like Autodesk Fusion360 has emerged from development to issue its first, formal stable release. A major milestone, all told. Not that the lack of a 1.0 release had put people off using it. FreeCAD is in wide use by professionals, students, and creative 3D printers, across Linux and beyond. I even recall mentioning it a
#News #AppUpdates #Cad #Freecad
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/freecad-1-0-released-open-source-cad-software
Ubuntu? That’s a Bullfinch, Not an Oriole
Something a little lighthearted (unless you’re pedantic about ornithology, in which case don’t be so chirpy) it seems a Bullfinch found its way into Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’. Perhaps someone left a window open. If you’ve upgraded to Ubuntu 24.10 you may have noticed that a large number of the supplementary (i.e., non-default) backgrounds feature orioles. Or, as it turns out, what the creator thinks is an oriole. According to a bug recently filed on Launchpad, home of Ubuntu development, one of the wallpapers shipping in Oracular Oriole that is named as being of an oriole, isn’t: When I choose
#News #Random #Ubuntu24_10 #Wallpapers
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/ubuntu-bullfinch-oriole-wallpaper-bug
Blender 4.3 Brings Hardware Accelerated Ray-Tracing to Linux
Feeling creative? After you’ve scanned out slew of changes shipping in the new Blender 4.3 release, you’ll find it hard not to! Blender 4.3 is the latest stable release of the phenomenally powerful open-source 3D modelling software. Its creators say the update builds on the Blender 4.2 LTS release earlier this year with “improvements to existing tools, performance enhancements, and the foundations that will shape the years to come.” I’ll recap the key changes in a second, but first I want to highlight a couple of big things that Linux users will be interested to know… Blender 4.3: Big Linux
#News #AppUpdates #Blender #Vulkan
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/blender-4-3-brings-hardware-accelerated-ray-tracing-to-linux
Ubuntu 25.04 Daily Builds Now Available to Download
A sure-fire way to indicate that development is kicking in to gear, Ubuntu 25.04 daily builds are now available to download. Development formally began on Ubuntu 25.04 ‘Plucky Puffin’ last month, but Ubuntu 25.04 is due for release on April 17, 2025. If you’re wondering what sort of new features Ubuntu 25.04 may offer, these daily builds give everyone ample chance to find out, first-hand. Not that, right now, there’s anything new to see. There’s plans for a new document viewer app in Ubuntu 25.04, but it’s not yet included; Linux 6.14 kernel – yes, 6.14 – is earmarked for
#News #Ubuntu25_04
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/download-ubuntu-25-04-daily-build-iso
Linux Kernel 6.12 Has Landed – And It’s a Big One
Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux kernel 6.12, and an eclectic assortment of changes contained within make it one of the most biggest kernel releases for a while. In terms of features, I mean. I didn’t sit bean-counting the code byte-by-byte! In his message to the Linux Kernel Mailing List to announce the release Linus Torvalds notes that the final week of testing threw up some “last-minute reverts, and some random fairly small fixes fairly spread out in the tree.” But the rest of the release? Let’s take a look… Linux 6.12: Key Features Really real-time kernel The headline feature in
#News #LinuxKernel
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/linux-kernel-6-12-has-landed-and-its-a-big-one
Automatic Tiling Added to ‘Tiling Shell’ GNOME Extension
I’d promise to shut up about the Tiling Shell GNOME Shell extension but I can’t because new features are coming thick and fast — the latest: support for automatic tiling. Yes, this nifty workflow wonder is finally able to automatically tile newly opened windows based on the currently active tiling layout (and as you may sick of me re-emphasising: you can switch between different layouts ad-hoc, and create and save your own). Windows auto-tile to the best vacant slot in the layout. But what’s ‘best’? Tiling Shell developer Domenico Ferraro says this will be the ‘vacant tile nearest to the
#News #GnomeExtensions #TilingShell
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/automatic-tiling-added-to-tiling-shell-gnome-extension
Rhythmbox’s New Release Fixes Its Broken DAAP Server + More
A new version of the GTK-based music player Rhythmbox has been released, the first major update in over a year. Rhythmbox 3.4.8 is billed as a ‘minor improvement release’ so there are no shiny new features or (some would say overdue) UI changes to speak of. But there are plenty of bug fixes and smaller quality enhancements worth knowing about. Although primarily used to listen and manage local music files, Rhythmbox supports network shares, podcasts, radio streaming, and integration with online services like Magnatune and Last.FM. In this release the app picks up a number of podcast improvements, including better
#News #AppUpdates #MusicPlayers #Rhythmbox
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/rhythmbox-daap-server-fixed-new-update
Ubuntu 25.04 Plans to Preinstall a New PDF Viewer
Ubuntu 25.04 plans to include a new default PDF viewer app. Evince (aka Document Viewer) is the PDF app that comes preinstalled in Ubuntu at present. But next April’s release of Ubuntu 25.04 ‘Plucky Puffin’ could ship with a new app called Papers. Heard of Papers? It’s a modern GTK/libadwaita app to ‘view, search and annotate documents’ saved in a variety of different formats (not only PDF, but PDF is the certainly most ubiquitous in every-day needs). But what’s wrong with Evince? Why is a new app needed to do something similar to the existing one? And why aren’t developers
#News #Evince #Papers #Pdf #Ubuntu25_04
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/ubuntu-25-04-papers-evince-swap
