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 sl ..read more

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 ..read more

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 Add Gemini AI t ..read more

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 program ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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. Successive updates in that series have fine-tuned, fixed-up, and finessed performance and stability, but not put any new features 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 across desktop […] You're ..read more

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. So to use it you will need to […] You're rea ..read more

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 ..read more

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 given that development on Neofetch had stalled a few years back, bug reports went unanswered, merge and pull requests ignored, and the last stable update issued back in 2020. I’ve been a long-time fan of Neofetch using it on all my installs since discovering it in 2015, showcasing it in scores […] You're reading NeoFetch Development ..read more