Firefox Nightly Makes Picture-in-Picture Mode MUCH Easier to Use
The latest Firefox Nightly build provides a feature that dramatically improves how its picture-in-picture (PIP) feature works — and I’m totally digging it! In current stable versions of Firefox you pop-out video content from (supported) websites like YouTube and Amazon Prime manually, by clicking a button. Doing this enables you to continue watching content in a small, floating window while you switch tabs, minimise the browser, etc. Picture-in-picture mode also allows you to pause/resume playback, see a progress bar, mute audio, enter full-screen, and even view subtitles — some features are streaming site/service dependant. I find this feature super handy, 
#News #AppUpdates #Firefox
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/08/firefox-nightly-makes-picture-in-picture-mode-much-easier-to-use
3 New AI Features Rolling out to Chrome Users on Linux
Google has announced a clutch of new AI-powered features have begun rolling out to users of Chrome on Windows, macOS, and —for once!— Linux. Chrome Vice President Parisa Tabriz unveiled the trio of AI features, all powered by the latest Google Gemini models, on The Keyword blog today. “We’re making it even easier to search what you see with the power of Google Lens, compare products across multiple tabs and rediscover sites from your browser history, whether you’re at home or at work.” As of writing only one of these is present in the Google Chrome 127 release, while the others will
#News #Ai/Ml #Gemini #GoogleChrome
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/08/google-chrome-new-ai-features
JetBrains Wayland Preview Now Available for Testing
JetBrains users wondering when Wayland support might land should check out the latest ‘Early Access Program’ (EAP) builds released earlier this month – Wayland preview, ahoy! At present, all of IntelliJ-based IDEs on Linux run in a Wayland session use XWayland (the X server compatibility mode for software lacking native Wayland support). XWayland works well enough that most people can’t tell the difference. That’s great. Still, in not taking full advantage of the benefits Wayland offers, there’s potential untapped. Which is why the latest JetBrains 2024.2 EAP builds are an exciting update. They make it possible to use IntelliJ IDEA
#News #AppUpdates #DevTools #Jetbrains #Wayland
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/jetbrains-wayland-preview-build
AppImage Fan? Be Sure to Check Out ‘Gear Lever’
AppImages are great: a single runtime containing all of the required dependencies for the app to run, in a double-click binary you can run from anywhere on your system. And therein lies the rub. When I download an AppImage for software like Audacity, Kdenlive, etc., it’s to a folder or my desktop. To run it, I have navigate to the folder and double-click on the binary as unless I manually choose to create a .desktop launcher it won’t appear in any app launcher/menu. Solutions exist, of course. In 2022 I featured a terrific tool to integrate AppImages with Ubuntu easily.
#News #Appimages #AppsOnFlathub #GearLever #Libadwaita
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/gear-lever-appimage-app-for-gnome
How to Enable Hardware Acceleration in Chromium Snap
Last May, Canonical announced that a hardware-accelerated version of the Chromium snap was available for testing on Intel (7th-gen and later) hardware. Hardware acceleration on the modern web is a real boon. VP8, VP9, H.264, and AV1 codecs are in wide use, and modern GPUs (integrated and discrete) have dedicated decoders on them in order to deliver smooth video streaming (Netflix, YouTube, etc), video calls, and cloud gaming (Moonlight, Xbox Cloud Gaming, etc). Obviously, the less your CPU is tasked with, the better your system runs as the GPU stays cooler, you avoid thermal throttling, and battery life increases as
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/enable-hardware-acceleration-chromium-snap
VirtualBox 7.1 Beta: Streamlined UI, Wayland Clipboard Sharing, New Logo
If you plan on trying the new Linux Mint 22 release in a virtual machine, you could double the fun by taking it for a spin in the new VirtualBox 7.1 beta release. Don’t tune out—most VirtualBox updates tend to be fairly minor, but the upcoming release of VirtualBox 7.1 is looking like a major update (and about time, I say). VirtualBox 7.1 brings with it a “modernized look and feel”, giving users a choice of UI mode: Basic streamlines the interface, reducing the amount of options, settings, and details shown; Expert puts all of VirtualBox’s functionality on show, within
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/virtualbox-7-1-new-ui-wayland-clipboard-apple-silicon-support
Linux Mint 22 Released, This is What’s New
Linux Mint 22 ‘Wilma’ is officially released and available to download. This major update is the first version built on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. As such, Linux Mint 22 inherits a comprehensive set of updates to underlying package, library, tooling, and technology stacks. A new Linux kernel and updated graphics drivers also feature. Plus, Linux Mint 22 ships with a new version of the Cinnamon desktop (with new options), includes a suite of new and updated apps (along with a few downgrades and removals), and notable security changes (no more guest login on) – plus more. In this post, I give
#News #Cinnamon #LinuxMint
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/linux-mint-22-released-based-on-ubuntu-24-04
Radxa X4 is a $60 Intel-Based Raspberry Pi Alternative
Love the idea of tinkering around with a small, single-board computer (SBC) but need something more powerful than most ARM-based offerings provide? If so, the Radxa X4 may be of interest. Powered by a quad-core Intel N100 processor with Intel UHD graphics, the Radxa X4 costs the same as a top-end Raspberry Pi 5 but delivers better overall performance in CPU and GPU tasks — albeit not in power consumption, and it runs hotter under normal load than a Pi. The Intel N100 has 4 cores and 4 threads, a max turbo frequency of 3.40 GHz, 6 MB Intel Smart
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/radxa-x4-cheap-intel-n100-raspberry-pi-alternative
Pop!_OS 24.04 Alpha (with COSMIC) Drops on August 8
Course set: the first alpha of Pop_OS 24.04 is scheduled for release on August 8th. So if you’ve been counting the days until you can try the new COSMIC desktop environment first hand… Well, keep counting until then! 😅 Pop!_OS 24.04 will based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and inherit much of the foundational improvements Canonical’s engineers and Ubuntu developers have plumped in. On top of that will sit the new COSMIC desktop environment, its new homegrown apps (file manager, terminal, software hub, etc), and all of System76’s other embellishments n’ enablements (including first-tier support for their own laptops and desktops,
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/pop_os-24-04-alpha-with-cosmic-drops-on-august-8
Ebook App FBReader Adds Support for DRM Ebooks
FBReader 2.1 has been released for Windows, macOS, and Linux, with the team behind the eBook reading app calling it “a major update for desktop platforms”. If you’re not familiar with FBReader (the name stands for ‘Favourite Book Reader’) it’s a Qt-based ebook reader with customisation options, an ebook library, and integration with online sources to download ebooks. FBReader was open-source software until 2015, after which it transition to freeware for Windows, macOS, and Linux (closed source, but free), and freemium for Android and iOS (free version limited, paid version available). While older, open-source versions of FBReader are still around,
#News #AppUpdates #Ebooks #Fbreader
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/fbreader-2-1-released-readium-lcp-drm
Tiling Shell Adds Another Way to Tile Windows Quickly
If you’ve tried the Tiling Shell GNOME extension you’ll know how easy it makes it to tile application windows in GNOME Shell, from simple to more complex. The latest update, which began rolling out through the GNOME Extensions website this weekend, adds yet another intuitive way to tile windows as you work. First it provided a slide-in Windows 11-style Snap Assistant on to which you drop windows to tile them accordingly. Next, it added keyboard shortcuts to support tiling windows without using a mouse. Then, more recently, edge-tiling introduced. But Tiling Shell v12 adds another way to tile – one
#News #AppUpdates #GnomeExtensions #TilingShell
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/tiling-shell-adds-another-way-to-tile-windows-quickly
How to Display eBook Thumbnails in Nautilus (Quick Tip)
I recently rediscovered my Amazon Kindle (a geriatric model from 2012, nothing fancy) and figured, as it still works, I’ll use it, and set about downloading a freely available EPUBs of classic (and not-so-classic – I’m a pulpy-kinda guy) literature. They say never judge a book by its cover – but it is useful to be able to distinguish a book by its cover! Thing is: my old Amazon Kindle can’t open EPUB files1, so I have to use the open-source eBook tool Calibre to convert them into either the AZW3 format my antiquated Kindle requires, or the more versatile
#HowTo #Calibre #Ebook #Ebooks #Epub #Kindle
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/how-to-display-ebook-thumbnails-in-nautilus
Showtime: GNOME’s New Video Player is Now on Flathub
Were you excited by news GNOME plans to replace the Totem media player in its core software set with a new, modern, and actively maintained alternative called Showtime? If so, you’ll be pleased to hear that this promising replacement is now available on Flathub. This means you don’t need to set-up the GNOME Nightly repo and. then tussle with endless updates to the app and the underlying runtimes that it relies on. The initial release of Showtime on Flathub is built against the GNOME 46 runtime If you’ve installed any other GTK apps recently you likely already have that installed,
#News #AppsOnFlathub #Gnome #Showtime #Totem
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/showtime-gnome-video-player-flathub
OBS Studio 30.2 Adds NVENC Encoding to Linux, Hybrid MP4 + More
OBS Studio, the open-source leader in cross-platform screen-casting and streaming software, put out a new release this week. OBS Studio 30.2 adds Linux support to the native NVENC encoder, plus Linux shared texture support to the NVENC, QuickSync, and VA-API encoders. And as of this update, PipeWire window/display capture is combined into a single, unified “Screen Capture” source, renamed as “Display Capture (XSHM)” to match other capture sources. OBS Studio 30.2 defaults to using the Hybrid MP4 output format on Windows and Linux. Hybrid MP4 pairs the benefits of fault-tolerant fragmented MP4 with the fast read-access of regular MP4, remaining recoverable
#News #AppUpdates #ObsStudio #Twitch
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/obs-studio-30-2-released
Audacity 3.6 Add Master Effects, New Compressor & Limiter + More
A new version of the open-source, cross-platform audio editor Audacity is available to download, kitted out with some major new features. Audacity 3.6 introduces support for master effects. These adjust the sound of project as a whole (the ‘master mix’ composed of all individual tracks and any realtime effects applied to them) and, usually, done as the final stage of editing prior to export. Brand new Compressor and Limiter effects are included in this update to Audacity, along with a set of handy presets the developers say are applicable to a wide range of use cases. Gain reduction history is
#News #AppUpdates #Audacity #AudioApps
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/audacity-3-6-released-with-master-effects
Blender 4.2 LTS Brings New Render Engine, GPU Compositor + More
Feeling creative? If you are, be sure to check out the new Blender 4.2 LTS release. Blender 4.2 LTS ships with a slew of new features, performance improvements, and general fixes and tune-ups. It’s also backed by two years of ongoing support, allowing users to adopt this series and only receive bug fixes, not ‘breaking changes’. An overhauled EEVEE render engine ships in Blender 4.2 LTS. Rewritten from scratch to improve the performance, stability, and visual quality of viewport rendering, and provide new shadow and global illumination systems, better motion blur and DoF, etc. And a GPU-accelerated compositor is included
#News #AppUpdates #Blender
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/blender-4-2-release-new-features
Ubuntu Fast-Tracks AppArmor Fix for Flatpak Apps Failing to Start in Ubuntu
The recent update to AppArmor to fix issues with 3rd-party apps unable to run on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS due to its security hardening inadvertently prevents a fleet of popular Flatpak apps from running. The Telegram Desktop, KeePassXC, and Steam clients are among Flatpak apps affected, some throwing an apparmor="DENIED" error apparently due to the AppArmor profile for the Bubblewrap sandboxing tool (used by many Linux apps) in the prior update. To be clear: snap, DEB, and binary versions of the software above aren’t affected, only Flatpaks. But good news: Ubuntu’s developers got to work to identify the cause, aided by
#News #Apparmor #Bugs #FlatpakApps #Ubuntu24_04Lts
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/ubuntu-apparmor-fix-for-telegram-flatpak
DevToys, a Swiss-Army Knife of Developer Tools, Now Available on Linux
When Scott suggested I cover a new open-source app for Linux on the basis it’s “like Microsoft PowerToys for developers”, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d be writing about — when it comes to Windows I’m more familiar with pinball that PowerToys. But after reading the website for DevToys, which describes the tool as a “Swiss Army knife for developers”, things made a lot more sense — it’s basically a grab-bag of handy helpers, an all-in-one, offline-friendly utility. Indeed, DevToys includes some 30 tools in total, each there to “help with daily development tasks”, saving developers time, effort, and the frustration
#News
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/devtoys-developer-tool-now-available-on-linux
Linux Kernel 6.10 Released, This is What’s New
Linux kernel 6.10 has been officially released. The latest version of the Linux kernel adds an array of improvements, including a new memory sealing system call, a speed boost for AES-XTS encryption on Intel and AMD CPUs, and expanding Rust language support within the kernel to RISC-V. Plus, like in all kernel releases, there’s a glut of groundwork to offer “initial support” for upcoming CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, Wi-Fi, and other hardware (that most of us don’t use yet, but require Linux support to be in place for when devices that use them filter out). Announcing the Linux 6.10 release in
#News #Gaming #LinuxKernel #Risc-V
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/linux-kernel-6-10-new-features
Apple Approves First PC Emulator on the App Store
This weekend Apple officially approved the first PC emulator on the App Store, an open-source app called UTM SE, based on QEMU, and entirely free (entirely; no icky IAPs) to download. UTM SE is able to emulate a variety of desktop operating systems and system architectures, including MS-DOS, Windows XP, and (of course) many Linux distributions – all without workarounds, jailbreaks, or side-loading .ipa files through Xcode. Although I should set expectations: don’t expect exceptional performance, even on the latest M4 iPad Pro — I’ll come to why in a bit. As you may have heard, Apple relaxed its restrictions
#News #Apple #Ios #Qemu #UtmSe
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/07/utm-se-qemu-pc-emulator-apple-app-store
