Furthermore, without the FFmpeg plugin for GStreamer 0.10 package, KDE apps can't play H.264 videos in Kubuntu 14.04 if they use the GStreamer backend. Another issue with this is that Amarok can't play WMA files. There might also be other affected applications.

If you're using Fedora 20, there's a repository maintained by Richard Hughes (the GNOME Power manager and PackageKit maintainer, among others) you can use to install the latest GNOME 3.12.

MATE 1.8 was released about 3 weeks ago, bringing various refinements and new features such as support for Metacity as window manager, side-by-side window tiling and more, as well as many bug fixes - for more information, see THIS article.

In a comment posted recently, Clement Lefebvre, the Linux Mint Project Leader, points out that Linux Mint might use the same LTS base for Linux Mint 17 (to be released at the end of May 2014) as well as the next 3 releases.

Pinguy OS is an Ubuntu remaster that uses GNOME Shell by default, customized with extensions such as Gno-Menu, Media Player Indicator, Top Icons and more. It comes with many useful applications and tweaks by default, making Pinguy OS a great alternative for those who don't like to tweak or install applications but want everything to work out of the box. 

The Oracle JDK License has changed for releases starting April 16, 2019.

The new Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE is substantially different from prior Oracle JDK licenses. The new license permits certain uses, such as personal use and development use, at no cost -- but other uses authorized under prior Oracle JDK licenses may no longer be available. Please review the terms carefully before downloading and using this product. An FAQ is available here.

Oracle Java downloads now require logging in to an Oracle account to download Java updates, like the latest Oracle Java 8u211 / Java SE 8u212. Because of this I cannot update the PPA with the latest Java (and the old links were broken by Oracle).

For this reason, THIS PPA IS DISCONTINUED (unless I find some way around this limitation).

Oracle Java 8 was released yesterday and it can be installed in Debian by using the WebUpd8 Java PPA repository.

Usually, the packages available in Launchpad PPAs don't support Debian because they are built against specific Ubuntu libraries, but since the WebUpd8 Oracle Java PPA contains just an installer, it works on Debian too.

KKEdit is an interesting text editor inspired by BBEdit (a Mac-only text editor) and Gedit. The application features jump to function declaration, bookmarks support, search/replace with regex support, option to save/restore sessions and more.

The Intel Graphics Installer for Linux is a tool developed by Intel that allows users to easily upgrade to the latest graphics drivers for Intel hardware. The installer automatically adds a repository used for upgrading the packages provided by Intel - that means that besides the Intel Linux Graphics Installer, you can also use the Ubuntu Software Updater, apt-get, etc. to upgrade the packages.

Skype Call Recorder is a small Linux utility that lets you record your Skype calls easily. The application can record all Skype audio calls automatically or you can set it to ask before recording a call.

SyncWall doesn't support downloading wallpapers automatically, like Variety Wallpaper Changer for instance, but it has some interesting features that aren't available in other similar apps (that I know of anyway): for instance, SyncWall can span a single wallpaper over multiple monitors (you can do this with a single wallpaper from the Appearance settings, but that doesn't work when using a wallpaper changer).

Also, the application can synchronize your current wallpaper across your local network.

This occurs because Skype is a 32bit application and the GTK2 theme engine (Murrine or Pixmap in most cases) is not installed for 32bit.

BitTorrent Sync is a tool that can be used to automatically synchronize files between computers using the BitTorrent protocol, available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and NAS devices.

Yet another interesting Unity 7 change will make it into Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr: Unity will get its own lockscreen. 

Update: this feature landed in Ubuntu 14.04 last night.

Back in Ubuntu 11.04, the default Ubuntu themes (Ambiance and Radiance) had the window borders removed. That change was reverted because of some Unity 2D related issues but it looks like borderless Ambiance and Radiance will finally make it into Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

In a rather vague article posted yesterday, Michal Izydorczyk revealed a wallpaper that was later confirmed to be the default Ubuntu 14.04 LTS wallpaper.

I couldn’t post about it since I wasn't sure that's the new default wallpaper but a bug reported a few minutes ago on Launchpad makes it clear that this is indeed the new default Ubuntu 14.04 wallpaper:

Yesterday I wrote about installing Ubuntu Touch Emulator (ARM) in Ubuntu, but as you've probably noticed from the video or from your own experience if you've installed it, the ARM emulator is very slow.

A while back, Canonical released an experimental Ubuntu Touch emulator running Unity 8 and Mir. Back then, there were a few bugs, including a nasty one on 64bit that could break the system and since they were fixed, I though I'd write an article on how to properly install and use the Ubuntu Touch Emulator in Ubuntu 14.04, 13.10 and 12.04.

The native Spotify Linux client uses a tray icon / appindicator that can't be set by the icon theme so it doesn't integrate with the rest of the Ubuntu desktop. Furthermore, Spotify is integrated in the Ubuntu Sound Menu so the tray icon is not needed.

Below you'll find two ways of removing / hiding the Spotify tray icon.

mps-youtube, a command line tool to search, play and download YouTube videos with local playlists support, has received quite a few changes since our previous article about it. The most important new feature is YouTube playlist support: you can now search and play YouTube playlists.

XBMC Media Center 13.0 "Gotham" Beta 1 has been released, bringing improvements across all platforms, such as hardware decoding on Android, proper PulseAudio support for Linux, improved settings, support for some 3D movie formats and more.

Yesterday I encountered an issue in Ubuntu related to CA-certificates which resulted in errors when trying to add PPA repositories, cloning GIT repositories and more and I decided to make an article on how to fix these issues in Ubuntu, in case you run into the same issue.