HandBrake 1.8 Released with GTK4 UI, FFV1 Encoder + More
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. Although it’s not using libadwaita (so don’t expect a hugely different look to before, or panic unduly if it’s not your vibe) the Handbrake GTK4 port delivers a number of frontend and backend benefits. For example, the audio and subtitle track list widgets are now interactive in the GTK 4 build, bringing them in-line 
#News #AppUpdates #Handbrake #MediaConverter #VideoToolbox
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/06/handbrake-completes-linux-gtk4-port
Turn Ubuntu into a Web Dev Paradise with a Single Command
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 something more in-tune with ones own needs is so popular. And the beauty of Linux in general is that we can do that. But sometimes that choice can be paralysing, the set-up hassle intimidating, and the time investment needed to download, learn, and fine-tune everything off-putting. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just run a single command and
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/06/omakub-transforms-ubuntu-web-dev-setup
VLC 3.0.21 Adds AMD VQ Enhancer Filter, Improves Opus Ambisonic + More
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.x series continues alongside efforts on the next major milestone, VLC 4.0. So what’s new? Well, according to the changelog there’s support for Super Resolution scaling on AMD GPUs. VLC already supports Intel’s version and added NVIDIA RTX super resolution support last year. Adding the AMD equivalent is welcome – though not a surprise: it
#News #Amd #AppUpdates #Vlc
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/06/vlc-adds-amd-vq-enhancer-filter
We’ve Updated Our Chrome Extension — The Same But Betterer!
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 ever written about our browser bolt-on since we launched it back in 2013 — not that it’s been forgotten; we’ve updated it regularly since then! Our extension makes it easy to stay on top of the latest posts. If’s perfect for those who don’t use RSS and only follow
#News #Chromeextensions #SiteStuff
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/06/omgubuntu-chrome-extension-update
Proton Pass for Linux Released (Encrypted Password Manager)
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 Linux version of Proton Pass is said to support all Debian and RedHat-based Linux distributions, including Ubuntu. The Proton Pass app (and browser extensions) are available to everyone but you’ll need a paid plan to use the app in offline mode. The addition of these platforms means the encrypted password manager app can now be used on all major desktop operating systems (it launched on Windows earlier this year) as well as Android and iOS.
#News
Raspberry Pi 5 Gets an Official $70 AI Add-On
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 AI module from Hailo, a company who specialise in producing energy-efficient AI chips for use in devices rather than data-centres. A lite version of the Hailo-8 chip, the Hailo-8L AI accelerator, is included in the kit. Raspberry Pi say this is capable of “13 tera-operations per second (TOPS)”. For reference, the NPUs Intel, Qualcomm,
#Hardware #News #Ai/Ml #RaspberryPi
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/06/raspberry-pi-ai-kit-announced
Linux Mint Will Hide Unverified Flatpaks in Software Manager
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) allows users to install DEB packages from the Ubuntu/Linux Mint repos as well as Flatpak apps on Flathub. But not all apps on Flathub are verified. So Software Manager will now only show verified Flatpaks. Unverified Flatpaks will not be returned for any search result. Now, a lack of verification isn’t a major red flag
#News #Flathub #Flatpak #LinuxMint #Security
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/06/linux-mint-will-hide-unverified-flatpaks
New App Makes Converting Text Documents on Ubuntu Easier
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. Pandoc is a powerful and efficient tool but not everyone is comfortable at the command line (and even those who aren’t sometimes don’t want to have to swot up on the various arguments and flags needed to convert). Enter Morphosis, which wraps the power of Pandoc in a super-simple GUI. Using the
#Apps #Morphosis #Office&ProductivityApps #Pandoc
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/06/convert-text-documents-easily-ubuntu
Microsoft Announce New WSL Features, Including GUI Settings App
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 developer platform Craig Loewen runs though what’s coming down the pipe for WSL users. Several experimental WSL features Microsoft announced last year have started to make their way to stable/default builds. Among them, automatically releasing stored memory in WSL back to Windows. Device with limited memory will benefit most from this, but so too
#News #Microsoft #Windows11 #Wsl
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/wsl-gui-settings-apps-coming-soon
IBM’s Iconic Model-M Keyboard Gets Modern Remake from 8BitDo
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 Commodore 64 homages, 8BitDo has unveiled it’s latest homage to computing yore, this time paying loving tribute to the IBM Model-M keyboard. Though I’ll pop the optimism now: it uses Kailh Box V2 white switches by default (swappable, of course) so you’ll need to supply your own buckling spring sound effect while typing! To crib a bit
#Hardware #News #8Bitdo #Ibm #Keyboards
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/8bitdo-keyboard-m-ibm-model-m-inspired
Mozilla Firefox 126.0.1 Fixes Drag and Drop Quirk on Linux
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 out but release (something I inadvertently do when browsing web pages quite often). Then, next time to you try to drag something out of a web page it no longer works. Restarting the browser (or perform a convoluted workaround involving external apps) would thaw the flaw, but
#News #AppUpdates #Firefox
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/firefox-126-bug-fix-drag-and-drop-linux
Ubuntu 24.04 Arrives on Mars – the Milk-V Mars (RISC-V Computer)
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 able to collaborate, contribute, and build on RISC-V in effort to improve it. And while ARM (which I’m sure you’ve heard of) and RISC-V fall under the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) umbrella, RISC-V touts a unique, modular architecture. Its base instruction set can be extended, tailored, or moulded to suit specific needs. Given the
#Hardware #News #Risc-V #Ubuntu24_04
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/ubuntu-24-04-risc-v-computer-milkv
Day Progress GNOME Shell Extension
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 time I waste browsing for ‘schweet gharms’ (as the yoof say) on Vinted— and a way to gain a more abstract perspective on time tracking than that offered by a traditional clock. This extension is directly inspired by a macOS app of the same name created by
#News #GnomeExtensions
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/day-progress-time-tracking-gnome-extension
Microsoft Gives Its Open-Source Developer Font Major Update
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 font tailored for terminal and code editing and offering a wide range of programming ligatures. Earlier this mont the font received its first update in nearly 3 years and, as per release announcement, it’s a huge one. If you’re a fan of this font and have an older version installed, or you’re just a creative into
#News #Fonts #Microsoft
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/cascadia-code-font-update-large-type-pieces
Rufus Update Can Create Persistent Ubuntu 24.04 USBs
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 Linux installers and, more pertinent to this news, persistent Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Debian USB installers. Rufus 4.5, released this week, includes a fix to support persistence in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Support for persistent USBs of Ubuntu isn’t new (debuted in 2019) but Rufus devs often have to play catch when distros
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/rufus-usb-ubuntu-24-04-persistence
Snap Store Website Has Been Redesigned
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 “Search thousands of snaps used by millions of people across 41 Linux distributions” strap line its shown since 2019). The “Featured snaps” section remains at the top of the content area but is no longer topped by a featured banner graphic. Icon, title, uploader, and description for each of featured snap
#News #Canonical #SnapStore
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/snap-store-website-new-look
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Upgrades Officially Open
It’s now possible to upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS from earlier versions officially, using the standard GUI mechanisms — no command-line flags required. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS was released on April 25 but the ability to upgrade to it delayed while bugs, one quite serious, were tackles. Though the effects of those issues weren’t universal (lots of folks upgraded manually via the command-line without issue) the risk was there. But with the necessary bugs squashed the upgrade channel has opened. Canonical has now added Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to the meta-releases file which older versions of the distro probe to see if
#News #Ubuntu24_04Lts
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/ubuntu-24-04-upgrades-officially-open
Mozilla Shares Updated Roadmap for Firefox – Vertical Tabs, AI + More
Wondering what sort of features Mozilla is prioritising for inclusion in future versions of the Firefox web browser? You needn’t wonder too hard as Mozilla has shared a short-term roadmap on its ideas platform outlining a number of things its engineers are already or will soon begin working on over the coming months. And be excited, be-be excited as a few tentpole new features are mentioned, including vertical tabs, container options in the tab bar, greater personalisation options, and forewarning on a glut of impending AI features — “yay”. What’s neat is that the roadmap mentions how we can test
#News #Ai/Ml #Firefox #Mozilla
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/mozilla-shares-firefox-roadmap
Slack Linux App Fixes Screen Sharing Under Wayland
If you use Slack on Ubuntu but are frustrated that screen sharing under Wayland (the default session for most) only show a black screen or causes the entire app to crash you may be interested to know it’s fixed. I’m not a Slack user —who’d I talk to, myself?! ahem— and while I hear this popular chat platform works best in a Chromium-based web browser (some features aren’t supported in Mozilla Firefox) the native desktop Linux app has its conveniences. In the past 12 months or so I’ve seen a fair few folks who rely on Slack (for it is
#News #Slack #Wayland
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/slack-linux-app-fixes-screen-sharing-under-wayland
Keep Losing OneDrive File Access in Ubuntu 24.04? Here’s a Fix
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 Accounts (GOA), and Microsoft giving GNOME the relevant permission and approvals. And while the file-access feature isn’t obvious to set up, it’s easy once you know how. It works with both regular Microsoft OneDrive accounts and OneDrive accounts provided for and/or managed by an organisation such as your work. As a ‘turn key’
#HowTo #News #Gnome46 #Onedrive #Ubuntu24_04Lts
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/05/fix-ubuntu-onedrive-account-error
