Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf Beta 1 Flavors Released

The first beta for the Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf flavors (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu MATE, Lubuntu and Ubuntu Kylin) was released today. Let's take a quick look at what's new!

Play Subtitles On Top Of Any Video With Penguin Subtitle Player

Penguin Subtitle Player is a simple open source Qt5 subtitle player which can be used to display subtitles on top of online video streaming websites that don't support subtitles or don't allow using custom subtitles

You can also use Penguin Subtitle Player to display subtitles on custom positions (like on the black bottom/top bands), or to display multiple subtitles in the same time (since the app can be launched multiple times), for video players or video streaming websites that don't support this by default.

Penguin Subtitle Player

Live Cricket Scores Ubuntu Indicator

Cricket Score Indicator is an AppIndicator which displays live cricket scores from ESPNcricinfo on the panel.


The indicator displays both international and domestic live cricket scores in the AppIndicator menu and allows you to set any match as the label (so the live score shows up directly on the panel).

Ubuntu 15.10 To Ship With Gnome's Overlay Scrollbars By Default

Note: this change initially landed in Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf in July (when I was on holiday), with some theming tweaks following up until recently, and it seems nobody mentioned this, so I decided to write an article about it now.

With Ubuntu 15.10 (currently in development, to be released on October 22), Unity will stop using its original overlay scrollbars for GTK3 apps and switch to Gnome's scrollbars instead.

This change affects GTK3 applications only and currently, the original Unity overlay scrollbars are still used for GTK2 applications (there's no info if this will change until the final release).

Gnome overlay scrollbars Unity
Gnome overlay scrollbars under Unity (Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf)

Xubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf To Get A New Panel Layout Switcher

According to a Launchpad bug report, a new application, called Xfce Panel Switch, should be included by default with Xubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf. The package is currently in the Wily new queue.

Xfce Panel Switch is a layout manager for the Xfce panel which allows users to easily backup, restore, import and export the Xfce panel configuration:

Xfce Panel Switcher

Qt Music Player `Yarock` 1.1.3 Released, Available In PPA

Yarock 1.1.3 was released recently with a new radio service: Radionomy (which has replaced Shoutcast), support for importing APE files in the playqueue, MP4 audio tag reading and more.

Yarock

Hamachi Linux GUI `Haguichi` 1.3.0 Released With New UI

Haguichi, a Hamachi GUI for Linux, was updated to version 1.3.0 and with this release, the app has migrated from Mono and GTK2 to Vala and GTK 3 and uses a completely revamped user interface.


Haguichi
Haguichi

New Official Proprietary GPU Drivers Ubuntu PPA Released

nvidia

In an effort to make it easier to install the latest proprietary graphics drivers in Ubuntu, a new official PPA was released today.

Power Management Tool `TLP` 0.8 Released

Ubuntu Laptop

TLP 0.8 was released recently, bringing various ThinkPad improvements, systemd "predictable network interface names" support along with other changes and bug fixes.

For those not familiar with TLP, this is an advanced power management tool that applies various settings and tweaks to help your laptop save battery power. The app tries to do everything automatically, depending on your Linux distribution and hardware (it runs in the background and doesn't come with a GUI) however, you can manually change its settings by editing the TLP configuration file: /etc/default/tlp

How To Install Facebook (And Others) Emoticons In Pidgin [Quick Tip]

Quick tip: If you're using the new Facebook Chat plugin for Pidgin, you may want to add support for Facebook's official emoticons, so here's how to do it.


Download Torrents And YouTube Videos With FrostWire

FrostWire is a free, open source Java downloader, BitTorrent client and media player, which comes with a built-in multi-tracker search (like TPB, Yify, Mininova, etc.) as well as YouTube and SoundCloud search/download support. The application is available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Android.

FrostWire Ubuntu

The app is not new but I've never covered it on WebUpd8 and after receiving a review request and trying it recently, I decided it deserves an article here since it's a really good app, despite being a bit bloated.

Use Facebook Chat In Pidgin With Purple-Facebook

Facebook shut down their XMPP service earlier this year and because of this, Pidgin/libpurple no longer supports Facebook Chat. For those of you who want to use Facebook Chat in Pidgin, there's a new plugin which makes this possible, called purple-facebook.

Pidgin Facebook

Install LibreOffice 5.0 In Ubuntu Or Linux Mint Via PPA

LibreOffice 5.0 was released last week and it includes numerous changes, such as UI improvements, better HiDPI support, new icon theme by KDE called Breeze, much improved Spreadsheet, better filters for documents and more. For a complete list of changes, see THIS page.

LIbreOffice 5.0