Dynamic Music Pill is a GNOME Shell extension that embeds a pill-shaped media controller into your desktop panel. It shows album art, artist name and track title alongside an animated waveform visualiser. Unashamedly blingy, but thereâs nothing wrong in that. The extension received an update today, which seem a good hook to actually take this off my âto write aboutâ list. V20 adds a compact mode to hide all text; player filtering to add/ignore specific apps; and the option to set fallback album art for players/streams that donât emit any. Dynamic Music Pill works with any MPRIS-compatible media player. That [âŠ]
The new Firefox 148 update begins rolling out today with a long-awaited âAI kill switchâ, letting you finally nix nags to try big-tech chatbots or generate error-prone link summaries. If you turn off AI features in Firefox using the new toggle, Mozilla says future updates wonât undo or second guess your decision as new AI features arrive are added to the browser. Given that Mozilla now measures success by how much revenue it makes from AI features in its products, Firefox included, that stance is a reassuring one. To disable AI features in Firefox go to Settings > AI Controls. [âŠ]
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS âResolute Raccoonâ will use OpenJDK 25 as its default Java version. An expected change as OpenJDK 25 is a long-term support release, as Ubuntu 26.04 is, the bump brings various feature and performance improvements to developers over OpenJDK 21, the default version used in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS through 25.10. On Ubuntu, Java isnât installed out of the box, but when you install default-jdk or default-jre (directly or indirectly as a dependency needed by other software) those meta-packages point to whichever OpenJDK version Canonical has blessed as current. In Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, that will be OpenJDK 25. Version 25 of OpenJDK, the [âŠ]
The world isnât short on keyboard-based Linux launchers. Albert, Ulauncher, rofi and GNOME Do (if youâre old enough to remember that one) are among those Iâve written about in the past. Rudra is a new spin on this old staple â albeit without the extensibility dedicated quick launchers provide. Whatâs different here is that itâs implemented as a GNOME Shell extension, not a standalone app. The developer of Rudra, Nark Agni, describes it as a âlightning-fast, keyboard-centric launcher [âŠ] designed for power usersâ. Though inspired by Mac apps like Alfred and Raycast, it is far less capable than those. To [âŠ]
KDE Plasma 6.6 is now available to download, adding text extraction to screenshots, per-app volume control in the taskbar and the ability to create your own themes. The update also introduces new components, including an on-screen keyboard, login manager and an OEM setup wizard. All are alternatives rather than replacements for existing software. The seventh major update to KDE Plasma 6 since Plasma 6.0 launched in February 2024, part of the popular desktop environmentâs Qt 6 rewrite. Users of Ubuntu-based KDE Neon as well as rolling-release distributions like Arch will be able to install KDE Plasma 6.6 from today. Users [âŠ]
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (Resolute Raccoon) is changing how hardware support updates are handled, splitting its single linux-firmware package into 17 vendor-specific sub-packages. The new approach aims to reduce the size of routine firmware updates for most users. Currently, firmware files are contained in a single package, which has grown to more than 500MB in download size in recent releases (and uses as much as 1GB disk space when installed). As such, if a security fix is applied to even specialised hardware like a 100KB update to Netronome or Mellanox network cards, mainly used in enterprise data centres, all Ubuntu users [âŠ]
Official mascot artwork for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS âResolute Raccoonâ has been revealed. As the upcoming release dubbed âResolute Racoonâ, the monochromatic mascot naturally features its namesakesâ characteristic masked face and tail, albeit rendered in Ubuntuâs trademark geometric style. The tail is incorporated into a spiralling sunburst. You can expect to see Ubuntuâs new mascot artwork on the new default wallpaper (due to be unveiled shortly), and glimpse it in the various promotional materials and social media posts Canonical and the wider Ubuntu project will put out as we approach April. As source code is made available, community creations can make [âŠ]
Download the official Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 'Resolute Raccoon' mascot as an SVG vector file to use in your custom wallpapers and personalised Ubuntu artwork.
Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS is now available to download. This is the fourth point release in the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS âNoble Numbatâ series since it launched in April 2024. The new installer image (ISO) contains all of the security, bug and software updates released since the Ubuntu 24.04.3 release last August. More notably, Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS ships an updated hardware enablement stack (HWE) with Linux kernel 6.17 and Mesa 25.2.8, both back-ported from Ubuntu 25.10 and available to install on existing Ubuntu 24.04 systems â no fresh install required. Updated Wayland Protocols are also included in the Ubuntu 24.04.4 HWE update. [âŠ]
Linux Mint is considering a change to its traditional six-month release schedule. Project leader Clement Lefebvre says moving to a longer development cycle would allow the team to spend more time developing features, rather than testing and releasing. Moving to a âwhen itâs readyâ model, likely ahead of the Linux Mint 23 release, would mean an end the Ubuntu-based distroâs traditional pattern of two new releases a year, plus LMDE. For fixed-release Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, a predictable release schedule helps focus engineering priorities and gives users a reliable cadence to track. Not all follow this. ElementaryOS is perhaps best [âŠ]
Codeweavers has announced the release of CrossOver 26, the latest version of their paid-for software that lets you run Windows games and apps on Linux and macOS. CrossOver 26 ships with Wine 11.0, which debuted last month with over 6,000 changes, fixes and major new features like NTSync support to provide faster performance. D3DMetal 3.0 (macOS), DXMT v0.72, Wine Mono 10.4.1 and vkd3d 1.18 also feature. This update to CrossOver is largely focused on macOS, shipping with compatibility for a slew of new games, including HELLDIVERS 2, God of War Ragnarök, Final Fantasy V1II Rebirth, CloverPit and Cronos: The New [âŠ]
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will drop the Software & Updates utility from default desktop installs, with developers saying many of its features are âdangerous or too complexâ for regular users. The concern centres on features like being able to disable access to the main Ubuntu repositories through the GUI, something that can leave users unable to install updates if toggled accidentally. Additionally, the upcoming version of the distro has moved Ubuntu Pro subscription options to the Snap-based Security Center app, according to Canonicalâs Jean-Baptiste Lallement says. The move relieves the distroâs engineers of maintaining the GTK3-based tool for the duration of [âŠ]
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