Last week, the first point release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS arrived, and upgrades from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to the newest one officially enabled. However, those upgrades didn’t go smoothly for everyone who tried, be it on Ubuntu server or Ubuntu desktop. To prevent further headaches, Canonical has decided to pause upgrades to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS from … [Read more...]

The default wallpaper of Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’ (and the official release mascot artwork) has been unveiled. A visit to the local temple mystic wasn’t required to predict that an oriole would take centre-stage in the Ubuntu 24.10 wallpaper. Animal mascots are a recurring feature of Ubuntu’s default background since … [Read more...]

The Audacity 3.6 release in July brought some masterful new features with it, plus all-newCompressorandLimiterfilters. But not everyone was pleased to lose access to the older version of those, so Audacity’s devs have brought ’em back in a point release update to the currently Audacity 3.6 stable series. Those who prefer (or just more … [Read more...]

Ubuntu’s new desktop Security Center app is gearing up for its first stable release, along with a background tool called Prompting Client. I first reported on the creation of Security Center earlier this year and it hasn’t changed a great deal since then. Underlying code has been improved, and the Flutter UI made to look more like … [Read more...]

A new version of the Power Profiles Daemon is out, bringing a number of improvements to improve power efficiency on Linux desktops, particularly on AMD devices. For those unfamiliar with it, power-profiles-daemon is a low-level component to provide power handling over DBus. Ever used the Power Mode options in the Quick Settings menu in GNOME Shell? … [Read more...]

Mozilla Firefox 130 is out with a variety of changes that make this phenomenally popular open-source web browser a touch more productive. On Linux, Firefox 130 enables overscroll animations by default, having added them on other platforms a few years back. This is a familiar visual effect from mobile systems: when you try to scroll beyond the edge … [Read more...]

Tauon music player (once known as Tauon Music Box) now offers native PipeWire audio playback on Linux — albeit experimental for the moment. Fans of this streamlined music player have asked for native PipeWire support for a while, and the app developers have been working on it accordingly. Now, keen to get it out there, the latest Tauon 7.8.1 … [Read more...]

You know how on Windows you can collapse icons in the task tray to keep them out of sight? Or on macOS, third-party apps like Bartender let you hide menu bar icons until you need them? Well, Lilypad is a new GNOME Shell extension that does the same thing, just for GNOME Shell. It gives you greater control over what top bar items are visible or … [Read more...]

A new version of the Vivaldi web browser is out with an assortment of amiable improvements. Vivaldi 6.9 intros support for renaming tabs and tab stacks, supports drag-and-drop downloads, and offers an improved overview of tabs synced across devices. “This update is all about refining what makes Vivaldi special: giving you powerful tools to … [Read more...]

After a two-week delay, the first Ubuntu 24.04 LTS point release is now ready todownload. The first point release delivers an updated ISO, and sees direct upgrades from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS enabled Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS rolls together all of the bug fixes, security patches, kernel buffs, and software updates issued to users since the first release back in … [Read more...]

Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS is due for release today (August 29), but so was the fifth and final point release of the previous long-term support release, Ubuntu 22.04 — but it’s been delayed. A pair of Ubuntu point releases arriving simultaneously is a rare occurrence, and sure to stretch Ubuntu’s capable, albeit not expansive, QA teams and … [Read more...]

I haven’t booted into the Windows partition on my Chuwi laptop for a while, but hearing that a recent Windows update leaves dual boot users unable to boot Linux at all, I’m glad I haven’t! Microsoft’s mid-August drop of security updates to Windows 10 and Windows 11 includes a security patch to address an exploit targeting … [Read more...]

A couple of Qt-based apps popular with Linux users, not just those running KDE Plasma, recently received some notable updates. Rather than putting out a post for each, I figured I’d collate them in a single post to. Plus, they all kind of link (see the footnote). By the way: if you’re a fan (or a developer) of Qt or KDE software, do let … [Read more...]