There are plenty of fun things you can do on a Nintendo Switch: you can throw your hat at sentient creatures in Super Mario Odyssey; plaster people in colourful ink in Splatoon 2; and lose all grip on reality thanks to an ill-timed blue shell in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Oh, and you can also run Ubuntu. Switchroot is an open-source project that allows Android and Linux-based distros like Ubuntu to run on the Nintendo Switch —absolutely not something Nintendo approves of let alone supports, endorses, or encourages. I covered the loophole that permitted this back in 2018. Back then […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 Now Runs on the Nintendo Switch (Unofficially), a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Ubuntu first switched to using Wayland as its default display server in 2017 before reverting the following year. It tried again in 2021 and has stuck with it since. But while Wayland is what most of is now login to after installing Ubuntu, anyone doing so on a PC or laptop with an NVIDIA graphics card present instead log in to an Xorg/X11 session. This is because NVIDIA’s proprietary graphics drivers (which many, especially gamers, opt for to get the best performance, access to full hardware capabilities, etc) have not supported Wayland as well as as they could’ve. Past tense […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for NVIDIA Users, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

VMware has made its pro virtual machine software free to use on Windows, macOS, and Linux — only for personal use though. This changes means you can download VMware Workstation Pro 17 and use without a license key or ongoing subscription cost for Windows and Linux, while those on macOS can download, install, and use VMware Fusion Pro 13 for free instead. Virtualisation software like VMware lets you run “guest” operating systems on a “host” operating system, often with seamless system integration like shared clipboard contents, drag and drop files, etc., and hardware support, like GPU acceleration. Such apps make it […]

You're reading VMware Workstation Pro Now Free to Use on Linux & Windows, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla Firefox 126 is now available download, and in-app updates beginning to roll out to existing users on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. As Firefox updates go the 126 release is rather light on user-facing goodies, especially versus last month’s release which intro’d clipboard paste suggestions in the address bar, colourful highlighting tools to the PDF editor, and activity indicators in Firefox View. The only real user-facing change in Firefox 126 is a toggle to turn-off the vertical split pane feature in the the web inspector. While a tap of the esc key can show/hide split-pane at will some folks […]

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Linux kernel 6.9 has been released after several months of attentive development. Linux founder Linus Torvalds announced the final release on the Linux Kernel Mailing List in his usual relaxed, laissez faire style. He notes that while kernel contributors have reported “a few regression fixes that haven’t made it to me yet […] none of them look big or worrisome enough to delay the release for another week. We’ll have to backport them when they get resolved and hit upstream.” “So 6.9 is now out.” Nice — if you get it, you get it — but what’s new? Overview of […]

You're reading Linux Kernel 6.9 Released — And It’s Packed with Improvements, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

The recent Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release has garnered plenty of praise for its great performance on Intel/AMD hardware, both does the latest version runs as well on the ARM-based Raspberry Pi? I’m pleased to say it does. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for Raspberry Pi is available in both server and desktop builds. Both offer the majority of what’s found in the equivalent 64-bit Intel/AMD version. For desktop users that means GNOME 46, the latest Linux kernel 6.8, and Mesa 24.0.5 graphics. But because Ubuntu’s Raspberry Pi builds are ‘preinstalled images’ they don’t include the Flutter-based installer. Instead, user account set-up and configuration […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Runs Brilliantly on the Raspberry Pi 5, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Let’s go, folks — Ubuntu 24.10 daily builds are available for download. Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’ officially opened for development earlier this week following the reveal of the official codename (more than window dressing the codename is a critical part of infrastructure setup) and a draft Ubuntu 24.10 release schedule. As development has only just started there’s no compelling need to download an Ubuntu 24.10 daily build right now. The beginning of each Ubuntu development cycle is primarily made up of package churn with little “new” to enthuse over. Of course, there’s certain to be a slow of new features […]

You're reading First Ubuntu 24.10 Daily Build Downloads Now Live, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

I regularly receive messages from readers who tell me that the Disqus comments section is no longer loading in Firefox, or ask why I keep turning the comments section on and off every few months. This shouldn’t the case; comments are auto-enabled for all articles published on this blog. If comments are manually disabled on an article (which happens, albeit rarely) you can tell: a comment count will not show in the ‘meta’ area beneath the headline on the article page (as the comment count is an anchor link to the comments section). So what is causing Disqus comments to […]

You're reading Disqus Comments Not Loading? It’s Not Me Bro, It’s Firefox, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

If you use Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or later and want to access the Google Gemini AI chatbot straight from your desktop outside of a web browser, you’re in luck! The Gemini AI ChatBot GNOME Shell extension (unaffiliated with Google; it’s not an official thing) gives you quick, on-demand access to Google Gemini at any time, direct from the applet it adds to the top panel — no need to open a web browser or launch a standalone app. Gemini (previously known as Bard) is a generative AI developed by Google to rival ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot and large language models. Like […]

You're reading Use Google Gemini AI on Ubuntu with this GNOME Extension, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Google’s recent ‘structural simplification’ led to 200 people across many of its core development teams, including Python, Dart, and Flutter, losing their roles. With Canonical committed to using Flutter for its own desktop apps the news of layoffs in the team responsible for building the framework has left some in the wider Ubuntu community worried about its future viability. The new Ubuntu Installer, Firmware Updater, App Center, and the (currently MIA) Desktop Security Center are all built using Flutter, which is Google’s cross-platform Web-based UI framework underpinned by the Dart programming language. And within the Ubuntu Flutter community a number […]

You're reading Google’s Flutter Team Layoffs Leave Ubuntu Devs in a Flap, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Canonical has published a draft release schedule for Ubuntu 24.10 ‘Oracular Oriole’. According to the timetable we should expect the final stable release of Ubuntu 24.10 to arrive on Thursday October 10, 2024. Six months of development lay ahead, with a beta release of the ‘Oracular Oriole’ set to take flight on September 19, followed by a release candidate build on October 3 to help identify extant issues. As a short-term or ‘interim’ release Ubuntu 24.10 will only get 9 months on support from its release. Short but sweet and it dovetails into the Ubuntu 25.04 release due in April […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.10 Release Date Set for October 10, 2024, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Canonical kernel engineer Juerg Haefliger has shared an update on Ubuntu support for the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s (Gen 1) laptop. The 13-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X13s is an ARM laptop powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx (gen3) processor with Adreno 690 GPU, 16 GB RAM, a 256 GB SSD, and claimed ~28 battery life. It comes preloaded with Windows 11 Pro for ARM by default. Last year a quasi-official (albeit experimental) Ubuntu 23.10 install image was released for this device, spearheaded by Juerg and the engineering effort he’d made to support it. The ISO was made available to download from the […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 Support WIP for Lenovo ThinkPad X13s Laptop, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Fans of open-source racing game SuperTuxKart will be stoked to hear devs are busy in the pit lanes pepping the next major update — and it’ll launch this summer. SuperTuxKart 1.4 was released back in 2022 with a ton of improvements that fine-tune, fix-up, and finesse performance, gameplay, and stability. But it’s been a while since any major new features were put in the tank (so to speak). But things shift up a gear in SuperTuxKart 1.5. This summer, SuperTuxKart 1.5 gets off the starting line with a welcome clutch —no, I’m sorry about these puns— of improvements and buffs […]

You're reading SuperTuxKart 1.5 Gears Up For Release, v2.0 in the Works, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Media Progress is a new GNOME Shell extension that adds a real-time progress bar to the MPRIS notification/sound control doohickey that shows in the notification area. This extension doesn’t do else bar (heh) that, but as simple enhancements go it’s a nifty one. More than a mere indicator, the progress bar the extension adds is interactive and seekable. Click anywhere in the progress bar to jump to that position (which is handy if listening to something long, like a podcast or audiobook). As of writing the Media Progress extension supports GNOME 46. To use it you will need to be […]

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Linux Mint 22 will include a Matrix web client preinstalled when released later this year. The IRC-based desktop chat app Linux Mint has been building, Jargonaut, to replace Hexchat and provide real-time communication for its users, will no longer be included (the status of any future development uncertain). Why the change? “Jargonaut […] works well and does exactly what we want. Its implementation was relatively easy and I’d say it’s now 75% complete,” Linux Mint lead Clément Lefèbvre says. But he adds that “feedback about Matrix” led to the team testing it, liking it, and deciding to switch. As such, […]

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It seems that the popular command-line system info tool Neofetch is dead, Jim. The Github repo for the project was archived by its main developer last week and is now read-only, a sure sign that development has well and truly ceased to be. Not that this is a shock. Development on Neofetch seemed to stall a few years back as bug reports piled up, pull requests were ignored, and the developer stop replying. The last update to Neofetch was made in 2020. I’m a big fan of Neofetch and have used it on all my installs since discovering it in […]

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A new version of the open-source music player Amarok has been released, the first major update to the Qt-based media app since 2018. Amarok 3.0 is the first stable release to use Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5, and work to port the music player to the the newest Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks 6 is, its devs say, soon to get underway. “Common usecases should work quite well, and in addition to fixing KF5 port related regressions reported in pre-releases, 3.0 features many bugfixes and implemented features for longstanding issues, the oldest such documented being from 2009,” devs say. […]

You're reading Amarok 3.0 Released, Ported to Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Mozilla devs are bringing more customisation options to the new tab page in Firefox. A number of modern web browsers, including Google Chrome, allow users to set a custom image as the backdrop for the new tab page: As the new tab page is (by default) set to show when a browser is launched and every time a new tab is opened it’s a highly visible (if often fleeting) part of users’ browser experience, making customisation a popular request. But while Mozilla Firefox offers an array of advanced features and settings that put it on a par with rival browsers […]

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Want to know the official codename of Ubuntu 24.10? Although Ubuntu 24.04 LTS has only just been released the pace of development marches ever on. Ubuntu developers are already beginning to bootstrap the base on which the next short-term release of the popular Linux distribution will be built. Ubuntu 24.10 will be released in October, 2024 and, upon release, receive 9 months of updates. Of course, as we all know: every new Ubuntu release gets its own alliterative codename made up of an adjective and an animal (real or mythological). For Ubuntu 24.10 they’ve settled on “Oracular Oriole”. Cute, but […]

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With Ubuntu 24.04 LTS released and a long weekend upon us you might be planning to upgrade an existing Ubuntu install to the latest version. But don’t. For one, “officially” you can’t since Ubuntu 24.04 LTS upgrades are not yet enabled, neither from Ubuntu 23.10 nor 22.04 LTS. But that doesn’t stop us folks from upgrading manually. They hear that a new version of Ubuntu is out and stable, they don’t fancy the faff of a fresh install, and they don’t want to wait for the “new version available” upgrade prompt to appear on their desktop. So they go to […]

You're reading Why You Shouldn’t Upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Yet, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Arriving alongside the main Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release are new versions of the official Ubuntu flavours, including Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Cinnamon. What follows is a concise, top-level overview of the key new features and changes in some of the most popular Ubuntu flavours, plus the relevant downloads links to snag an ISO need should be tempted into trying a few flavors first-hand. Unless otherwise noted, all flavours share the same foundational footprint as the main release, e.g., Linux kernel, graphics drivers, tooling, etc. But some fears, like the Flutter-based OS installer and the snap-centric App Center aren’t used in […]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 Official Flavours Available to Download, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.