Ubuntu 23.04 Makes ‘Telegram Desktop’ a Snap, May Backport Change to LTS
If you run sudo apt instal telegram-desktop in Ubuntu 23.04 it now installs a Telegram Snap instead of the Debian package you may be expecting. Ubuntu developers are currently debating whether to back-port the transitional package to earlier, stable versions of Ubuntu, such as the latest long-term support release. But why are they doing this? Well, the existing telegram-desktop package in the Ubuntu repo is inherited from Debian. That build, while functional, is charitably described as being “outdated and buggy” by one developer. It’s also not maintained by Telegram themselves. So, being frustrated with bug reports and support requests for 
#News #LunarLobster #Snaps #Telegram #Ubuntu23_04
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/ubuntu-telegram-desktop-now-a-snap
Wine 8.0 Released, This is What’s New (Spoiler: A Lot)
Developers uncorked a brand new release of Wine, the open source compatibility layer that enables Windows apps to run on Linux. A substantial update, Wine 8.0 is distilled from a year’s worth of active development. A wealth of improvements are provided across nearly every part, from the performance to UI. If you sample the fortnightly dev releases of Wine you will be familiar with, and already benefitting from the bulk of “what’s new”. Notable highlights in Wine 8.0 include the completion of PE conversion, meaning all modules can be built in PE format. Wine devs say this work is an
#News #AppUpdates #Wine
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/wine-8-0-released-whats-new
‘Damask’ is a New Wallpaper App for Linux Desktops
Scores of wallpaper downloader apps exist for Linux, with most able to fetch high-quality backgrounds from a myriad of online sources and set them as your desktop wallpaper. Damask is another such app making its debut on Flathub this weekend. Built using GTK4 and following the GNOME HIG, Damask fits in perfectly on the modern Ubuntu desktop. It is able to source backgrounds from a range of popular sites, including: The rub is that can only have one of these sources enabled at any one time (i.e. so you can’t have Bing and NASA enabled, and refresh images between them).
#Apps #News #GtkApps #Wallpapers
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/damask-gtk-wallpaper-app-for-linux
How to Test Ubuntu Budgie’s Improved Window Snapping Feature
An improved window tiling experience is being primed for inclusion in the the next stable release of Ubuntu Budgie, which is due out in April. Developers of this Ubuntu flavour have shared word on work they’re doing to bring the edge tiling experience — or window snapping, if you prefer — up to par with that offered by the distro’s existing keyboard-driven Window Shuffler too. The proposed approach, which is being made available for testing on earlier versions of the distro, will be familiar to anyone who’s used a recent version of Windows. You drag a window to the upper
#News #Budgie #Ppas #UbuntuBudgie #WindowSnapping
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/test-ubuntu-budgie-window-snapping
Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS Will Arrive 2 Weeks Later Than Planned
The next point release in the Ubuntu 22.04 series will be released later than initially intended. Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS had been due for release on Thursday, February 9. However, the release has had to be delayed by two weeks, and will now arrive on Thursday, February 23. Why the delay? Nothing major, as Canonical’s Lukasz Zemczak explains in an e-mail to the Ubuntu developer mailing list, writing: “As there were some unexpected complications during the preparation of our HWE 5.19 kernels for jammy, and with shim 15.7 making its way to the archive, we decided that more time is necessary
#News #Hwe #PointRelease #Ubuntu22_04Lts
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/ubuntu-22-04-2-point-release-delay
Ubuntu 23.04’s New Installer is Shaping Up Nicely
Ubuntu’s been working on its new OS installer for a couple years, now it looks like the upcoming Ubuntu 23.04 ‘Lunar Lobster’ release will finally ship it by default. The latest pending Ubuntu 23.04 daily builds uses the new installer by default. Despite the fact the installer is built using an entirely different toolkit, namely Flutter, and now leverages the distro’s server-based Subiquity and Curtin efforts, it doesn’t look that different from existing (soon to be old) one. In fact, if no-one told you the installer had been rebuilt from the ground up, you probably wouldn’t notice. Now, the new
#News #Flutter #Installer #Ubuntu23_04
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/ubuntu-new-flutter-installer-first-look
Firefox 109 Downloads Go Live with Unified Extensions Button, Manifest V3 Support
A new stable release of Mozilla Firefox is available to download. Firefox 109 is the first release of the browser this year but, as we’ve come to expect, the changes offered up are relatively minor. The biggest new feature is the introduction of a new Unified Extensions button in the toolbar. This help streamline the toolbar area when multiple extensions are installed, plus surface extensions that “run in the background” (which you may forget you have installed) so you can manage them, pin them, report, or remove them. Additionally, Firefox 109 fully supports web extensions using Manifest Version 3 (though,
#News
‘Burn My Windows’ & ‘Desktop Clock’ GNOME Extensions Updated
A look at the latest updates to Burn My Windows and Desktop Clock GNOME extensions, with more personalisation options offers by these blingy bolt-ons.
#News #BurnMyWindows #EyeCandy #GnomeExtensions
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/updated-burn-my-windows-desktop-clock-gnome-extension-updates
Black Box (the ‘Beautiful Terminal App’) Adds Transparency, Sixel Support
A new version of Black Box, a flashy-looking terminal emulator for Linux desktops, popped out this weekend. A few long-standing requests are fulfilled by the new release, including support for customisable keyboard shortcuts. Users can edit almost all of the built-in keyboard shortcuts within the app, including common actions like copy and paste, through to… Background transparency debuts in this release, with background opacity able to be reduced to 0%. A transparent terminal is something a lot of people like, and it is a feature common to most terminal apps available on Linux. Whether useful or not, it’s nice to
#News #AppUpdates #Blackbox #Libadwaita #TerminalApps
A Recent Pop!_OS Update May Make Your System Faster
A small update rolling out to the Ubuntu-based Pop!_OS distro could make a big impact on system performance. Pop!_OS now enables zram support by default — and to quote Sytem76 themselves the feature “actively compresses memory in the background, increasing the amount of free memory your system has available. This results in increased FPS in games, or faster simulations and compiler runs.” Pretty nice, eh? Instead of moving infrequently used data to a separate swap partition on disk (which is slow), zram compresses data, and keeps it in RAM (which is faster). On systems with lower amounts of RAM available
#News #PopOs #System76 #Zram
Xubuntu 23.04 Will Come in a CD-ROM Size ‘Minimal’ Image
As the Ubuntu 23.04 development cycle gets underway we’re learning more about what’s in store for Ubuntu and its growing family of flavours. Xubuntu, one of the more minimally-minded spins, has revealed its planning to release a new ‘Xubuntu Minimal’ image starting with Ubuntu 23.04. It’s an expansion of the Xubuntu Core effort started back in 2015 but with a big ol’ rubber-stamp of officialdom on it. In a post to the Ubuntu developer mailing list, Steve Langasek says Xubuntu Minimal “…parallels existing minimal install targets from the Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server images to provide a smaller install footprint
#Dev #News #LunarLobster #Minimal #Ubuntu23_04 #Xubuntu
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/xubuntu-23-04-will-come-in-a-cd-rom-size-minimal-image
How to Add Markdown Preview to Gedit Text Editor
Want to add Markdown preview to the Gedit text editor? With the Gedit Markdown Preview extension (catchy name, eh?) you can do so quickly. See how!
#HowTo #Gedit #Markdown #Texteditor
Help Test GNOME’s New ‘Window Focus’ Behaviour
A new ‘window focus’ animation for GNOME Shell is available to test. GNOME designers are currently exploring a different way to indicate ‘focus’ in GNOME Shell. One idea is to remove the app icon, name, and menu that appears in the Top Bar (next to Activities button – this was retained to indicate the app in focus) and replace it with a window animation As is, user testing shows the (what’s left of the) app menu confuses users. “They think that it’s a task switcher, a shortcut to a specific app, or don’t understand what it is at all. It
#Dev #News #Gnome44 #GnomeExtensions #GnomeShell
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/try-gnome-44-focus-indicator-animation
TimeSwitch Lets Uno Schedule Restart, Shutdowns, or Commands
Want to schedule a system restart on Ubuntu? There are plenty of ways to do it, with cron probably the most well-known method. But for a more intuitive way to schedule restarts on Ubuntu check out TimeSwitch. TimeSwitch is nimble desktop app built using Python and GTK4/libadwaita. It enables you to reboot, shutdown, or suspend Ubuntu at a set date/time of your choosing. You can also use TimeSwitch to run a command(s) to schedule, or display a desktop notification. Whether you need to reboot your computer for updates or make sure it shuts down after a task has run, this
#Apps #GtkApps
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/schedule-restart-shutdown-ubuntu-timeswitch-app
The Future of ZFS on Ubuntu Desktop is Not Looking Good
Is Ubuntu on ZFS a dead effort? In 2019 Canonical seemed pretty upbeat about the contentious file system, hyping the release of Ubuntu 19.10 and its (experimental) option to install Ubuntu (kernel, system files, and user data) on a ZFS volume. It was a surprising move making Ubuntu the first major Linux distro to embrace ZFS in-spite of the issues surrounding its licensing. However, since then things have gone backwards. Last year Ubuntu developers pushed to remove Zsys, an integral tool they created to make it easier to manage and maintain ZFS-based installations, from Ubuntu’s Ubiquity installer. In the corresponding
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/ubuntu-zfs-support-status
Nala is a Neat Alternative to Apt on Ubuntu
If there’s one command-line tool I know most of you use it’s apt, or the Advanced Package Tool. Every Debian-based Linux distro (Ubuntu included) uses apt because, well, it’s good at what it does. To quote Wikipedia, apt takes the hassle out of managing software on Linux by “automating the retrieval, configuration and installation of software packages, either from precompiled files or by compiling source code.” Whether you want to check for updates, upgrade your system, or install software from your distro’s repo, apt lets you do it quickly, do it easily, and do it relatively safely. But I’m not here to talk
#HowTo #Apt #Nala #PackageManagers #TerminalApps
How to Highlight the Mouse Cursor in Ubuntu
If you record screencasts, make online tutorials, or stream your Ubuntu desktop when gaming you may find it useful to highlight your mouse cursor. When screen recording it can be helpful to make the mouse cursor stand out on screen using a highlight effect. Users of macOS and Windows can access a wide range of apps and add-ons that offer all sorts of fancy mouse cursor effects, including screen recording software with flashy mouse effects built-in. On Ubuntu there’s no need. A mouse highlight effect is built-in to the GNOME desktop environment as part of its accessibility settings. Thought not
#HowTo #Cursor #Gnome #Mouse #Screencasting
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/highlight-mouse-cursor-ubuntu
Monitorets is a Cute System Monitor Widget for Linux
Sometimes things are just cute, y’know? Like, not everything made for Linux needs to plug an existential hole, break down boundaries, revolutionise computing as we know it™, etc. It’s fine for things to exist just because they’re nice to look at — and hey: if my site’s been a champion of anything these past 13 years, it’s of borderline useless tat to litter our desktops with). I’m saying all of this upfront — hi, btw 👋 — because I know that the thing I’m spotlighting below is going to leave a few of you reading this scratching your chins in
#Apps #GtkApps #Monitorets #Systemapps
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/monitorets-system-monitor-app-linux-desktop
Pinta 2.1 Released with WebP Support, Wayland Improvements + More
An updated version of open source graphics app Pinta is available to download.. Pinta 2.1 arrives roughly a year after the debut of the Pinta 2.0 series and sees the app upgraded to leverage .NET 7. Building against .NET 6 (LTS) is still supported, the devs say. Talking of .Net (meek link) the design and feature set of Pinta was inspired by the Windows programme Paint.NET. So what’s new in Pinta 2.1? A few things jump out. The big one? WebP support. This efficient image format is finally gaining a lot of traction (quite deservedly) and with Ubuntu recently adding
#News #AppUpdates #ImageEditors #Pinta
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/open-source-graphics-app-pinta-adds-webp-support-in-new-release
One Thing – Put a Single Task/Goal in the GNOME Panel
Keep that vital reminder, task, or goal in mind with this simple GNOME extension. It lets you enter text (including emoji) and see it on the GNOME panel.
#HowTo #GnomeExtensions #OneThing
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/01/one-thing-gnome-extension
