Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Nemo 3.4 Without Cinnamon Dependencies Available In PPA For Ubuntu 17.04 And 16.04

| Date: August 10, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: file manager, nemo, ubuntu, unity

Nemo 3.4 (3.4.7 at the time I'm writing this article) without Cinnamon dependencies and with Unity patches is now available in the WebUpd8 Nemo 3 PPA, for Ubuntu 17.04 and 16.04.

While it comes with some Unity patches, this Nemo version should work with other desktop environments as well, like GNOME (Shell), etc.

Nemo 3.4 file manager

Ambient Noise (ANoise) Player Fixed For Ubuntu 16.04 And Newer

| Date: June 14, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: anoise, cinnamon, gnome shell, media player, productivity, sound, unity

Ambient Noise, or ANoise is a simple, lightweight application for playing ambient noises, such as waves, rain, fire, and so on, useful to help you stay focused and boost productivity, or fall asleep.

The application didn't work in Ubuntu 16.04 and newer until recently, when it was updated to GStreamer 1.0 and Python 3, along with some bug fixes.

Ambient Noise Ubuntu

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS To Use GNOME By Default; Unity 8 And The Phone To Be Discontinued

| Date: April 06, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: linux, ubuntu, ubuntu phone, unity, unity 8

Ubuntu logo

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will go back to using GNOME as the default desktop environment, instead of Unity.

Fix VirtualBox 5.1.x Focus Issues On GNOME Desktops (Not Being Able To Move VM Windows In GNOME Shell, Clicking On Indicators In Unity)

| Date: March 09, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: fix, gnome shell, linux, tweaks, ubuntu, unity, virtualbox

If you use VirtualBox 5.1.x with a GNOME desktop (GNOME Shell, Unity and possibly other GTK-based desktops as well), you may have noticed that there are some focus-related issues:
  • in GNOME Shell (host), virtual machine windows can't be moved unless clicking on another window, then moving the virtual machine window;
  • in GNOME Shell (host), the Activities Overview can't be accessed if a virtual machine is focused;
  • in Unity (host), clicking on an indicator while a virtual machine is focused results in the indicator menus not being displayed.

Here's a screenshot showing what happens in Unity when indicators are clicked while a VirtualBox 5.1.x virtual machine is focused:

VirtualBox indicators focus bug Unity

Nemo 3.4 With Unity Patches And Without Cinnamon Dependencies Available In New PPA For Ubuntu

| Date: November 29, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: customization, file manager, linux, nemo, ubuntu, unity

Update: the article initially mentioned Nemo 3.2. The PPA now provides Nemo 3.4 for Ubuntu 17.04 and 16.04 (Ubuntu 16.10 is no longer supported by Canonical, so Launchpad doesn't allow uploading new packages for it).

To make it easy to go back to Nemo 2.8.0 for Ubuntu 16.04 users in case something doesn't work properly (because there were quite a few under the hood changes in Nemo), I decided to upload the latest Nemo 3.4 to a new PPA.

Nemo 3.2.0 Unity

Recent Notifications Indicator Lets You Access Missed Desktop Notifications

| Date: November 18, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, customization, featured, linux, notifications, recent notifications, ubuntu, ubuntu mate, unity, xubuntu

Recent Notifications is an Ubuntu Indicator that collects desktop notifications, displaying them in its menu. This is useful if you missed some important notification for various reasons, like being away from the computer, etc.

Ubuntu recent notifications

I've covered Recent Notifications before, however, the last article on WebUpd8 dates back to 2011, so I decided to post another article about it (and redirect the old ones to this one), especially since the indicator changed / improved since then.

Get A Live Preview Of A Window From Another Workspace With WindowSpy (Unity)

| Date: November 17, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, customization, ubuntu, unity, workspaces

WindowSpy is a new Unity AppIndicator that allows displaying a small live (well, almost) preview of a window on another workspace.


NoNotifications Indicator 0.9 Released With New Features

| Date: October 26, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, notifications, productivity, ubuntu, unity

NoNotifications is an Ubuntu indicator for temporarily suppressing NotifyOSD (which is used by Unity) notifications. This can be useful for presentations, when working, and so on, to prevent unwanted notifications.

NoNotifications Indicator

The indicator was completely rewritten recently, bringing some new features.

Desktop Gmail Client `WMail` 2.0.0 Stable Released

| Date: October 21, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: gmail, linux, ubuntu, unity, wmail

WMail is a free, open source desktop client for Gmail and Google Inbox, available for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

WMail Gmail desktop client

The application is a wrapper for Gmail / Google Inbox with unlimited account support, on top of which it adds features such as native desktop notifications (notification bubble and sound), unread email counter in the tray, and more.

SpaceView: Ubuntu File System Usage Indicator

| Date: October 19, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, ubuntu, unity

SpaceView is an Ubuntu indicator which displays the file system usage, created as a response to an AskUbuntu question.

Spaceview indicator

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