ConnexionUbuntu 24.04 Fixes Bluetooth Audio Connection Issues
If you’re an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS user regularly experiencing issues with connecting to audio devices, there’s an important update to the Bluetooth stack rolling out this week. A slew of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS users complained that certain paired Bluetooth audio devices (mainly earbuds/phones) fail to reconnect after a system restart or suspend. Plus, for many noble users reporting bugs, even attempting to manually connect to a previously-paired device following a reboot or suspend fails to connect or stay connected thus requiring the need to remove and re-pair the device to work. —Until the next reboot/suspend. The cause? Based on an […]
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The KeepassXC snap package now “just works” with web browsers like Firefox, as the latest update gains support for native messaging through secure desktop portals. KeePassXC is a cross-platform, open-source password manager billed as a ‘community-driven port of the Windows application ‘Keepass Password Safe'”. It’s available on Linux (including CLI) and a snap package has been available since 2017. Yet, until now users who installed the KeePassXC snap app to make use of browser integration (e.g., auto-fill usernames and passwords on websites they visit, or saving credentials for new accounts they create back to KeePassXC) haven’t been able to easily. […]
A big update to the perennially popular GNOME Shell extension Dash to Panel is rolling out, including new settings to go from Dash to Panel to dock mode! Admittedly, that doesn’t sound like a new feature given that Dash to Panel is based on code from Dash to Dock. Yet, until now, those wanting the unified panel of Dash to Panel with the aesthetic of a dock… Had to make do with an inelegant fudge, or switch extension. No more; when whim and want demands a dynamic dock setup, Dash to Panel’s preferences area can help, making it easier to […]
Kagi, the company behind a paid, private search engine1 of the same name, has announced it’s bringing its Webkit-based Orion web browser to Linux. In a post on BlueSky, Kagi said: “We’re thrilled to announce that development of the Orion Browser for Linux has officially started!”. Orion is currently only available on macOS and iOS but was built to be better than Apple’s own Safari, and best Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and other browsers in many areas. Orion is a zero-telemetry browser; has built-in ad and tracking blocking; and reportedly offers lower memory usage, faster page speeds, and greater battery […]
An update to the Mutter display manager is primed to start rolling out to users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (and 24.10) with a couple of much-needed touchscreen fixes in tow. Now, I don’t know how many of you use Ubuntu desktop on a touch-enabled device—not many, I’d wager. I do; I have a touchscreen laptop that runs Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I often prod, poke, and push the screen a bit whilst using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to do simple things like select menu items, close windows, scroll, etc – nothing I can’t do using the touchpad, it’s just easier to lift […]
Desktop email client Thunderbird announced a move to monthly releases by default earlier this year, allowing new users to benefit from new features, sooner – as the new Thunderbird 136.0 release makes evident! Thunderbird 136.0 sees messages auto-adapt to dark mode (and adds a quick toggle to control this in the header) — no more searing-white e-mail shocks in dark rooms! Also added is a new Appearance setting to control message threading and sorting order globally. This is great if you always want, say, new messages at the bottom in all your configured folders. Some notable fixes include ensuring that addresses […]
Is Huawei planning to ship Linux on its upcoming MateBook laptops instead of HarmonyOS NEXT? A fresh leak out of China this week suggests so. Huawei is no stranger to selling laptops with Linux. Various models in its MateBook 13, 14, 15, and MateBook X Pro lines have been sold in both Windows and Linux configurations, with the latter typically exclusive to China and reloaded with Debian-based Deepin. The—somewhat contentious—company has previously said all PCs released in 2025 would run the newer home-grown, closed-source HarmonyOS NEXT (viewed as an effort to wean reliance off of western-led tech companies, solidify control, […]
Earlier this year Ubuntu announced plans to replace document viewer app Evince with Papers, a modern GTK4/libadwaita fork1 of the former, in Ubuntu 25.04—today, the swap was made official. Papers is a fork of Evince that is actively maintained and makes use of newer technologies (GTK4, THIS), that are already present in Ubuntu. Upstream, GNOME 48 (out in March) opts to keep Evince as a core app but GNOME 49 is expected to switch to Papers. Ubuntu feels no reason to wait. Dabbled with daily builds of the Plucky Puffin prior to now? You might have noticed Papers isn’t present […]
The new Mozilla Firefox 136 release delivers a number of notable new features—features Mozilla may be hoping help it re-earn some goodwill from users following last week’s privacy palaver. Last month’s Firefox 135 release rolled out a refreshed tab page to more users, added in-page translations from Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, enforced certificate transparency, and ditched the ‘Do Not Track’ setting. This month sees a long-anticipated features make their stable release debut: vertical tabs! Right-click an empty space in the tab bar, select Turn on Vertical Tabs from the context menu and—bam!—they appear instantly as a a vertical strip of icons on the left-hand […]
The Cinnamon desktop app menu is being redesigned with a cleaner layout, modern look , and usability improvements ahead of the next Linux Mint release.
Skype, one of the best-known video chat/calling apps, is shutting down forever on May 5, Microsoft has announced today. Nothing gold can stay, and neither can VoIP services shorn their cultural zeitgeist it seems. Replacing Skype will be a free version of Microsoft Teams. Active Skype users can log in to the Microsoft Teams app and instantly see their Skype message history, group chats, and contacts without needing to create a(nother) account. Teams will no support ‘telephony’, i.e., Skype’s one remaining USP, after the transition period, meaning you won’t be able to make domestic or international calls to real numbers […]
February proved a bumper month for Linux software updates, seeing big release of productivity suites LibreOffice and ONLYOFFICE and, plus a crop of smaller app updates which didn’t merit a full-length article on this blog. Rather than skip over those updates entirely, I thought I’d resurrect my Linux Release Roundup thread1 to curate a monthly (perhaps twice-monthly, if there’s a lot) run-through of smaller software updates I think would still be of most interest to regular readers. For those of us on fixed-release Linux distribution like Ubuntu, such updates may fix a finicky flaw, improve integration, or add a niche […]
Hot off the back of its recent leadership rejig, Mozilla has announced users of Firefox will soon be subject to a ‘Terms of Use’ policy — a first for the iconic open source web browser. “Although we’ve historically relied on our open source license for Firefox and public commitments to you, we are building in a much different technology landscape today. We want to make these commitments abundantly clear and accessible,” say Mozilla. This official Terms of Use will, Mozilla argues, offer users ‘more transparency’ over their ‘rights and permissions’ as they use Firefox to browse the information superhighway1 — […]
The application picker (aka app grid) in GNOME Shell is pretty perfect as it comes, showing launchers for installed apps plus the ability to rearrange them using drag and drop and create custom folders to group apps together. Some folks prefer a little more order. I’ve spotlighted a few Ubuntu app grid tweaks over the years, from one that puts app shortcuts in alphabetical order to ones which restores ‘missing’ shortcuts for apps pinned to the Ubuntu Dock. And now a new app grid helper has appeared – one sure to appeal to those with a preference for keeping things […]
At one time, Linux dock apps were a plentiful species, with innovative ‘panel painters’ like GNOME Do/Docky to unashamed bling-kings AWN, DockBarX and Cairo Dock. Yet it was the modest Plank which stayed the course and outlived them. Thing is, the Plank dock hasn’t seen any major development effort in years, and though it still works, there’s scope for some modern improvement, surely? One developer thinks so, and they’ve decided to do something about it. Enter, Plank Reloaded. Plank Reloaded: Plank Fork Plank Reloaded is a new fork of the original Plank Linux dock, albeit with a twist: it’s focused […]
A set of four cool new window opening and closing animations got added to gaudy GNOME Shell extension Burn My Windows this weekend. A veritable Linux eye-candy essential, Burn My Windows makes it easy to apply a variety of visual effects to Ubuntu when opening and/or closing app windows, dialogs, and modals. Its sole purpose is to make using Linux a bit more entertaining. Burn My Windows v45 is the latest update. It adds support for the upcoming GNOME 48 release (which will ship in Ubuntu 25.04 this April), fine-tunes effect filtering in Preferences, and improves its Incinerate effect with […]
A new alpha release of System76’s emergent Rust-based COSMIC Desktop environment is out with a clutch of important improvements, bug fixes, and new features in tow. Although COSMIC is very much a work-in-progress (i.e., unfinished, feature incomplete, and lacking polish) some intrepid folks already use it as their daily driver —though most folks eager to sample it will get a better impression from the upcoming COSMIC beta. Still, these monthly(ish) alpha milestones provide a an easy way to peer through the portal to see how the COSMIC desktop UI, UX, and burgeoning app ecosystem is shaping up. Below, I recap […]
The Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS release is now available to download, albeit one week later than initially planned. Serving as the second point release in the current Ubuntu 24.04 LTS series, Ubuntu 24.04.2 compacts the slew of security, bug, and software updates pushed out to the Noble Numbat since the last point release ISO was spun in August 2024. Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS also brings an updated hardware enablement stack (HWE). This is composed of a newer Linux kernel and updated graphics drivers—Linux 6.11 and Mesa 24.2.8 respectively—back-ported from Ubuntu 24.10. Why do point releases exist? Ubuntu LTS versions are supported for a […]
Mozilla Corporation’s president, Mark Surman, today announced plans to tackle what he says are ‘major headwinds’ facing the company’s ability to grow, make money, and remain relevant. “Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways,” says Surman. To do this, Mozilla plans—no groaning—to ‘diversify’ its efforts. How? It will continue to invest in privacy-respecting advertising; fund, develop and push open-source AI features1 in order to retain ‘product relevance’; and will go all-out on novel new fundraising initiatives to er, get us all to chip in […]
A new version of the Mesa graphics library has been released. Mesa 25.0 features Vulkan 1.4 support, which the team bill as the ‘flashiest addition’ in this new development release as it spans Anv (Intel), Asahi (Apple), Lavapipe (software), NVK (NVIDIA), PanVK (Mali), RADV (AMD), and Turnip (Qualcomm). The OpenGL 4.6 API also sees implementation in Mesa 25.0 though the version reported will depend on the hardware driver in use since not all drivers support all features OpenGL 4.6 requires. AMD RDNA4 graphics sees initial support in the RadeonSI Gallium3D (OpenGL) and RADV (Vulkan) drivers is present, the former worked […]
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 […]
This week sees the (belated) release of Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS, the first point release update in the noble series to bring an updated hardware enablement (HWE) stack with it. Ubuntu’s HWE backports newer1 Linux kernel and Mesa GPU drivers to LTS users to ensure the latest LTS release works with the latest hardware. Soon, HWE updates may bundle a wider range of Intel graphics driver updates. Canonical engineer Shane McKee this week put forward a proposal to expand Ubuntu HWE updates to loop in a broader set of graphics driver packages specifically supporting Intel hardware in LTS releases2. The move […]
When you log in to the Ubuntu 24.10 desktop an audio clip greets you —a lengthy audio clip slowly building to a plinky-plonky crescendo that you (and those around you) might tire of having to listen to! You can turn the Ubuntu startup sound off, or swap it for an audio clip more to your taste/amusement. For a sizeable part of Ubuntu’s early years musical startup and login sounds were a staple feature. The distro decided to disable them in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS following feedback that, actually, they can be rather annoying or even embarrassing at times! 12 years later, […]
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. Ubuntu’s “Enhanced Tiling” feature shows a Tiling Popup when window snapping to make it faster to tile other open apps to the remaining tile spaces without needing to manually drag them to screen edges. Window Suggestions is the same idea, but arguably more useful: […]
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 Yaru’s icons are marginally oversized. Yaru uses 4 different shapes across its app, folder and mimetype (file) icons, with the shape used based on what works best for whatever ‘design motif’ fits. (e.g., a vertical rectangle is used for document file icons as it is more analogous to a sheet of paper). The shapes are: Of the 4 shapes the most common in Yaru is the ‘square’ (with […]
If you were expecting Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS to drop February 13, I come bearing some a punch of awk news: the release has been delayed. Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta reports that an ‘unfortunate incident’ resulting in some of the newly spun Ubuntu 24.04.2 images (for flavours) being built without the new HWE kernel on board (which is Linux 6.11, for those unaware). Now, including a new kernel version on the ISO is kind of the whole point of the second Ubuntu point release. It has to be there so that the latest long-term support release can boot on and support the […]
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, […]
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 […]
A new version of the KDE Plasma desktop environment is out and, as you’d expect, the update is packed with new features, UI tweaks, and performance boosts. KDE Plasma 6.3 is the fourth major update in the KDE Plasma 6.x series and it also marks the one-year anniversary of the KDE Plasma 6.0 debut – something KDE notes in its 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 […]
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. Such as? Well, the headline feature is the ability to open and work with Apple iWork documents (.pages, .numbers, .key) and Hancom Office files (.hwp, .hwpx) . Opening these documents will convert them to OOXML to support editing. It’s not possible to edit the native files themselves, nor export/save edits back […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 important to remember that open-source software like LibreOffice doesn’t appear out of thin air; it’s made by humans, many unpaid, others paid to work on specific parts only. We all have personal wish-lists of features and changes we want our favourite open-source apps to add, but we […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Want to find out if the text you’re reading online was written by an real human or spat out by a large language model (LLM) trying to sound like one? Mozilla’s Fakespot Deepfake Detector Firefox add-on may can help give you an indication. Similar to online AI detector tools, the add-on can analyse text (of 32 words or more) to identify patterns, traits, and tells common in AI generated or manipulated text. It uses Mozilla’s proprietary ApolloDFT engine and a set of open-source detection models. But unlike some tools, Mozilla’s Fakespot Deepfake Detector browser extension is free to use, does […]
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 […]