macOS 15.2 is rolling out today (December 11), and my tech feeds are hyped with its highlights. Among the (non-AI) changes I spotted: the option to display weather info in the menu bar – native, built-in, ready to go. Seeing a “news peg” (as they’re called), I figured I’d use that as motivation to get around to writing about Advanced Weather Companion. It’s yet-another GNOME Shell weather extension to display temperature and current conditions in the top bar. Advanced Weather Companion doesn’t technically do anything existing weather add-ons don’t, it just surfaces information in a slightly different way. If you […]
Fresh off of adding support for automatic window snapping, the developers behind GNOME Shell’s most configurable and feature-packed window tiling extension are back with another update. Tiling Shell v15.1 introduces support for smart border radius. This is one a small sounding feature but it has a big impact on the way borders (which are an optional feature) are drawn around focused application windows, either in tiled mode or when free-floating on he desktop: Domenico Ferraro, the chief developer of the extension, explains the impetus in tackling this: “In GNOME, different windows may have different border radius. Drawing a border around […]
RPCS3 is an open-source emulator (and debugger) for the Sony PlayStation 3, making it possible for users to play and debug PlayStation 3 games on non-PS3 hardware, like Intel/AMD desktop PCs and laptops running Windows, macOS, or Linux. Now, RPCS3 is available for the Raspberry Pi 5 too. A major new version of of RPCS3 was released this week adding native ARM64 support for Linux, macOS (Apple Silicon) (although not ready yet) Windows too. As no architecture ‘translation’ tools are involved, gaming performance is better. “How far can we challenge the limits of emulating the console known for being the […]
Raspberry Pi today announced the Raspberry Pi 500, an updated version of its keyboard PC, this one powered by the guts of the Raspberry Pi 5. And it’s also announced a device many won’t have expected: an official monitor! Throughout 2024, Raspberry Pi has announced 20+ new and updated products, ranging from hardware add-ons like a AI accelerator and USB hub, to official branded SD cards and SSDs, to updated devices like the new Compute Module 5 and Pico 2 – plus more! It’s crazy to think there anything left for them to announce. Yet rumour has it the company […]
For high-quality screen recording and streaming from the desktop nothing comes close to matching the power and versatility of cross-platform and open-source OBS Studio – this weekend a new version went live. What’s new in OBS Studio 31.0? A slate of new features and capabilities, plus a bunch of bug fixes, performance tune-ups. Among them, the long-required addition of preview scrollbars. These make it easier to move items around the preview needing to hold the space bar and click, while new preview zoom/scale info lets users see if/when the viewpoint is zoomed in. Elsewhere, OBS Studio 31.0 adds a new […]
Last month’s Linux 6.12 kernel was a big update filled with new features, hardware support, and performance tune-ups. Now, it’s just gotten even sweeter: it’s an LTS! Those au fait with kernel development won’t be surprised by this news since, typically, the final stable Linux kernel release of the year becomes an LTS. But nothing is ever official until it’s official — and now it’s official! Kernel dev Greg Kroah-Hartman confirmed Linux 6.12’s LTS status in a message on the Linux Kernel mailing list (LKML) about an older kernel version, stating his sufficiently succinct style: Anyway, please move off to […]
Development on COSMIC, a new open-source desktop environment created by developers a Linux-based hardware company System76, continues at pace, with a 4th alpha now available. System76 said new alpha releases of the COSMIC DE would roughly appear once a month (give or take), a cadence that enables them flesh out the features planned for its first stable release and get feedback from users, developers, and distribution packagers. Alongside the new alpha is a freshly-spun ISO of Pop!_OS 24.04 (Alpha), making it easy to check out the changes for yourself on a spare partition, USB drive, or virtual machine. But the […]
Mozilla has finally unwrapped its new branding, describing the first refresh to its logo in over a decade as not merely ‘a facelift’ but an effort to lay foundations for the company’s next 25 years. If you read this blog regularly — thank you! — you know what the Mozilla’s new branding looks like because I first reported on it back in August. And then again in October when a reader tipped me to the design agency Mozilla had contracted to undertake the work and I shared some of the cool animated mascot art created for it. Personally, I love […]
Tab groups are a nifty productivity feature already available in web browsers like Google Chrome and Vivaldi — now they’re coming to Mozilla Firefox. Except, that isn’t news, is it? Mozilla announced a series of major new features coming to Firefox in the next 12 months, including long-requested features such as native profile management, an option for vertical tabs, and a more intuitive URL bar search experience, and tab grouping. However, Firefox’s new tab groups feature is not yet enabled out-of-the-box in the latest stable builds of the browser, nor is it offered easily activated through Firefox Labs (as other […]
A new crowdfunding project aims to revive the (oft-derided) MacBook Pro Touch Bar, this time as a standalone device that work with Windows, macOS and, potentially, Linux too. It’s called Flexbar, and it’s currently seeking cash through Kickstarter. Now, I don’t like writing about crowdfunding projects generally. If I do, they need to offer something novel, or have a track record of delivering. Flexbar is novel, but the campaign has red flags that make me doubtful it will ever exist – more on that in a mo. If you don’t know your Apple from your Orange Pis, the Touch Bar was […]
A new version of the Cinnamon desktop environment has been tagged for release – a sure-fire sign that the Linux Mint 22.1 beta is on the way! As the flagship desktop of Linux Mint, Cinnamon 6.4 will come preinstalled in Linux Mint 22.1 when it’s released at the end of December (though should beta testing reveal issues the date could slip into early 2025). But this post isn’t about Linux Mint 22.1, but Cinnamon. Linux Mint may develop, maintain, and cheerlead the desktop but it can installed on nearly every Linux distribution out there, including Ubuntu (which also has an […]
A major new update to the powerful open source video converter HandBrake is available. In the 6 months (give or take) since the HandBrake 1.8 release arrived with its GTK4 (but not libadwaita) GUI in tow, the team has furnished this free media conversation software for Windows, macOS, and Linux with a fresh batch of features. HandBrake 1.9 adds support for lossless VP9 encoding. Now, the app already supports converting to VP9, but lossless support means it can convert videos while retaining 100% of the original input quality. The downside to lossless video formats in general is huge file sizes […]
If you’re an avid user of the Discord Linux app and been annoyed that screen share audio doesn’t work, there’s good news: it now does! The latest version of Discord for Linux at long last includes the option to ‘share system audio’ when setting up a screen share to stream in chats or server channels. Though it works on Windows and macOS, Discord has been silent on when it plans to support screen audio sharing on Linux – so much so it’s been the top feature request on the Discord feedback tracker for years. But this week Linux user Aden […]
Calibre 7.22 is out — and yes, I’m making extra special effort to not mangle the version number this release as I always seem to insert an extra period in the string whenever I cover the the app! Unwieldy looking though it can seem, the open-source Calibre ebook manager remains unsurpassed in terms of features, tools, and capabilities. Add in the fact it’s cross-platform too, and it’s easy to see why it remains a go-to for avid e-bookworms. Calibre 7.22 builds on recent feature additions, adding a new option to set the position of the control bar when using ‘Read […]
Firefox fans on Linux will enjoy smaller download sizes and faster decompressing when using the official binary builds from the Mozilla website. The browser maker today announced its switching to the tar.xz format — yes, that xz —to distribute its Linux builds, which uses the more efficient LZMA compression algorithm to deliver smaller downloads and faster extraction times. Most Linux users get Firefox updates as a regular software update from a distro-maintained repo, e.g., a Firefox Snap on Ubuntu, a Firefox DEB on Linux Mint and Pop!_OS, etc. But Mozilla say by switching from BZIP2 (tar,bz2) to XZ (tar.xz) Linux […]
Indie distro fans rejoice: elementary OS 8.0 is now available to download. Built on the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base and powered by the Linux 6.8 kernel, elementary OS 8 brings a swathe of improvement to both the Pantheon desktop environment, its core apps, and the overall user experience. The elementary team says it focused on several areas for this release, including the creation of a new secure session (using Wayland, but not currently default), improved multitasking with a new dock, and “empowering our diverse community through inclusive design”. Below, I highlight elementary OS 8’s most notable user-facing changes and provide a […]
Mozilla Firefox 133 was released today, furnished with some new features and UI refinements long-time users are sure to appreciate. In the 4 weeks since Firefox 132 brought us certificate compression, tweaked the way the ‘copy link without site tracking’ surfaces, and flicked the switch on hardware acceleration of SVG primitives in WebRender, Mozilla’s developers added the following: Of these, the tab overview menu option is the one most easily spotted (assuming you’re signed into your Mozilla account and you use the browser on other devices). Elsewhere, Firefox 133.0 also introduces Bounce Tracking Protection to the ‘strict’ mode in Enhanced Tracking Protection […]
If you were put off trying the Warp terminal app on Ubuntu (or another Linux distro) due to the account and login requirement, there’s good news. The team behind the Rust-based, AI-infused terminal tool has relented on the requirement that users sign-up for and log in with a Warp account before they can run a command. As of this week, anyone can download Warp for for macOS or Linux (it’s coming to Windows soon) and access “all of the core features […] with a preview of more advanced features” without an account, and without logging in. Although, having tried the […]
Snap is Canonical’s universal package format for Linux. It lets developers build their software once for users on multiple Linux distributions to use. At least, that’s the theory. In reality, few Linux distributions outside of the Ubuntu ecosphere support Snap out of the box. Most carry the underlying Snap daemon package (snapd) in the repositories, so it’s possible for users who want to use snaps, to do so. Linux Mint takes a different approach to that, however. Ubuntu-based it may be, riding the Ubuntu repos and benefitting from the ongoing bug, security, and other patches Canonical’s engineers push out, but […]
Good things come to those who wait. And for 3D modelling professionals using open-source software, the wait for FreeCAD 1.0 has been a long one – over 22 years in the making! At long last, this free, open-source alternative to expensive engineering software like Autodesk Fusion 360, AutoCAD, SOLIDWORKS etc., finally issued its first, formal stable release. A major milestone all told. Not that a lack of 1.0 release had put people off using it prior to now, of course. FreeCAD in already widely used – from professionals and engineering students to 3D printing enthusiasts, both on Linux and other […]
