Power Profiles Daemon 0.30 Preps Support for Linux 6.14
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) interact with when we switch power mode on the fly, be it using a GUI button, setting, or toggle, or the command line. The latest 0.30 release adds a couple of notable changes, though nothing as substantive (to end-users) as the various AMD-targeted tune-ups the previous release delivered. Still, improvements are improvements. Some 
#News #Battery&Power #PowerProfiles #Ubuntu25_04
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/power-profiles-daemon-0-30-preps-support-for-linux-6-14
Ubuntu LTS Users Could Get Intel GPU Updates More Frequently
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 works well with the latest hardware. But it could soon include a lot more. This week, Canonical engineer Shane McKee put forward a proposal to expand Ubuntu HWE updates so they loop in a broader range of graphics driver packages for Intel hardware. —the entire point of the HWE, after all. The
#News #GraphicsDrivers #Hwe #Intel
How to Disable (or Change) Login Sound in Ubuntu 24.10
When you log in to Ubuntu 24.10 an audio clip plays to greet you — a lengthy audio clip that slowly builds to a plinky-plonky crescendo that you—or those around you—may tire of having to sit through! But you can turn Ubuntu’s startup sound off, or swap it for an audio clip more to your tastes. Startup and login sounds were a staple part of Ubuntu during its formative years, but the distro decided to disable them in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS after getting feedback that, actually, they could be a bit annoying. Some 12 years Ubuntu 24.10 added a startup
#HowTo #Customization #Loginsounds #Ubuntu24_10
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/disable-or-change-ubuntu-login-sound
Tiling Shell Update Adds Window Suggestions for Screen Edge Snapping
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 triggered by dragging a window to the sides of the screen. Window Suggestions for Edge Tiling is not enabled by default, so be sure to head to the extension’s Preferences panel to toggle it on (where you can also enable it for the key-drag tiling system method as well, if you like). Elsewhere, the extension
#News #GnomeExtensions #TilingShell
Ubuntu’s Icon Theme Fixing Its Not-So-Obvious ‘Bug’
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 mimetype (file) icons, with a shape picked based on what works best for the design motif being used. Those shapes are: Of those, the most common icon shape used in Yaru is ‘square’ (with rounded corners, but don’t call it a squircle cos that’s so 2014, y’all). It’s
#News #Design #Icons #Ubuntu25_04 #Yaru
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/ubuntus-icon-theme-resized
‘Unfortunate Incident’ Means Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS Won’t Be Released This Week
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 new kernel version is a key part of new point release media, it needs to be there. Building a new Ubuntu installer image is only one part of the task given that, once built, each ISO also needs to undergo testing. There’s not enough time to do all of that and still meet the
#News #Canonical #PointReleases #Ubuntu24_04Lts
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/ubuntu-24-04-second-point-release-delay
GNOME’s Website Just Got a Major Redesign
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 for those looking to learn more about the desktop environment, the app ecosystem, developer documentation, or how to get involved and support the project. Arranging, presenting, and meeting all of those needs on a single landing page—and doing it in an engaging, encouraging way? Difficult to pull off—but GNOME has. The new design looks flashy and modern. It’s more spacious and vibrant,
#News #Design #Gnome
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/gnome-website-revamp-goes-live
Clapper Media Player Adds New Features, Official Windows Build
A new version of the slick Clapper media player is out with several neat improvements Not newly new, I should say. I hadn’t run a flatpak update in Ubuntu I an age so I only jus noticed an update pending for this nifty little media player. But I figured I’d write about it since it’s been around 10 months since its last major release (save a bug fix release last summer). So what’s new? Well, Clapper 0.8.0 intros a new libpeas-based plugin system in its underlying Clapper library (which other apps can make use of to playback media, as Mastodon client
#News #AppUpdates #Clapper #MediaPlayers
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/clapper-update-adds-official-windows-builds
KDE Plasma 6.3 Released, This is What’s New
A new version of KDE Plasma is out and, as you’d expect, the update is packed with new features, user experience enhancements, and performance tweaks. KDE Plasma 6.3 is the fourth big update in the KDE Plasma 6.x series and it marks the one-year anniversary of the KDE Plasma 6.0 debut, as KDE notes in its 6.3 announcement: One year on, with the teething problems a major new release inevitably brings firmly behind us, Plasma’s developers have worked on fine-tuning, squashing bugs and adding features to Plasma 6 — turning it into the best desktop environment for everyone!” KDE As
#News #DesktopEnvironments #Kde #KdePlasma6
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/kde-plasma-6-3-released-this-is-whats-new
ONLYOFFICE 8.3 Released with Support for Apple iWork Files
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, spreadsheet, presentation, form, and PDF editing apps. The ‘headline’ new feature is the ability to open Apple iWork (.pages, .numbers, .key) and Hancom Office files (.hwp, .hwpx) to convert them to OOXML for editing – you can’t export/save edits back to the original file format, though. iWork support is a fairly big feature addition, despite the fact that
#News #AppUpdates #Office&ProductivityApps #Onlyoffice
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/onlyoffice-8-3-released-new-features
How to Disable ‘App is Ready’ Notifications in Ubuntu
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 something requires our immediate attention or actioning. But “app is ready” notifications? I don’t find them anything other than obvious. I’m not amnesic; I know the app is ready – I just opened it! They aren’t predictable either. Some apps show them, others don’t. It depends on the app’s metadata, how fast app initialisation is (you’ll see them more
#HowTo #GnomeExtensions #GnomeShell
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/disable-window-is-ready-notifications-gnome-shell
Ghostty Update Adds Server-Side Decoration Support on Linux
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, or go deeper than other native terminals, just offer a competitive combo of the three. Given it does pretty much everything other terminal emulators do, fans faithful to more established terminal emulators won’t find Ghostty‘s presence spooks ’em into switching. It’s a passion project there to be used (or not) depending on need, taste,
#News #AppUpdates #Ghostty #TerminalApps
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/ghostty-update-adds-server-side-decoration-support-on-linux
LibreOffice 25.2 Released, This is What’s New
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, accessibility improvements, and more important interoperability buffs to support cross-suite workflows. It’s always important to remember that software like LibreOffice doesn’t appear out of thing air; it’s made by humans, many unpaid, others working on specific things. LibreOffice 25.2 features 6 months worth of development in total with 47 percent of code commits coming from devs employed by ‘ecosystem
#News #AppUpdates #Libreoffice
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/libreoffice-25-2-released-this-is-whats-new
Installing Ubuntu on WSL Just Got Much Easier
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 allows developers and system administrators to distribute, install, and manage Ubuntu WSL instances from tar files without relying on the Microsoft Store.” In not relying on the Microsoft Store for distribution, it’s less hassle for enterprises to roll out (and customise) Ubuntu on WSL at scale as images packaged in using the new
#News #Microsoft #Wsl
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/ubuntu-tar-based-wsl-install
Firefox 135 Brings New Tab Page Tweaks, AI Chatbot Access + More
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 fine-tuned the performance of the built-in pop-up blocker. Firefox 135, as is probably intuit, brings an equally sizeable set of changes to the fore including a wider rollout of its new New Tab page layout to all locales where Stories are available: It’s not a massive makeover, granted. But the new layout adjusts the
#News #AppUpdates #Firefox
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/mozilla-firefox-135-released
How to Fix Spotify ‘No PubKey’ Error on Ubuntu
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 you haven’t checked for updates from the command line recently you might not be aware the that security key used to ‘sign’ packages from the Spotify APT repo stopped working at the end of last year. Annoying, but not catastrophic as it—thankfully—doesn’t stop the Spotify Linux app from working just pollutes terminal output
#HowTo #Spotify
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/fix-spotify-gpg-error-not-signed-ubuntu-linux-mint
Papirus Icon Theme Updated
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 menu’ analogues, as well as an assortment of symbolic icons. Retro gaming fans will appreciate an expansion in mime type support in this update. Papirus now includes file icons for ROMs used for emulating ZX Spectrum, SEGA Dreamcast, SEGA Saturn, MSX, and Neo Geo Pocket consoles; and Papirus now uses different
#News #EyeCandy #Papirus
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/papirus-icon-theme-update-feb-2025
GNOME Introduces New UI & Monospace Adwaita Fonts
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 development of GNOME 47. Back then, it replaced its home-grown Cantarell font with the popular open-source sans Inter font (trivia: used by Zorin OS). The change was reverted prior to the GNOME 47 due to various UI quirks, coverage issues, and compatibility (thus underlying the importance of testing things out prior
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/gnome-introduces-new-ui-monospace-adwaita-fonts
Mozilla’s Nifty AI Detector Add-On For Firefox
Want to know if something you’re reading online was written by a real human or spat out by a large language model (LLM) pretending to be one? Though not foolproof, Mozilla’s Fakespot Deepfake Detector Firefox add-on may can give you an indication. Like other online AI detector tools, this add-on will analyse highlighted text (of 30 words or more) for patterns, traits, and tells common in AI generated text. To do this is uses Mozilla’s proprietary ApolloDFT engine and a clutch of open-source detection models. But unlike many online AI detection tools, Mozilla’s Fakespot Deepfake Detector browser extension is entirely
#News #Ai/Ml #Firefox #Mozilla
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/02/deepfake-is-an-ai-detector-firefox-addon
High Tide is a Promising New TIDAL Client for Linux
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 UI, and leverages official TIDAL APIs for playback. TIDAL, often positioned as the ‘pro-artist music streaming platform’, isn’t as popular as industry titan Spotify (likely because it doesn’t offer a ‘free’ ad-supported tier) but is nonetheless a solid rival to it in terms of features and catalogue breadth. Windows, macOS, Android and
#News #Libadwaita #MusicPlayers #Tidal
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/01/high-tide-native-tidal-client-linux
