AHXproject

Chrome moves a step closer to an official Flatpak

If you've installed Chromium or Google Chrome as a Flatpak, you've installed an unofficial, community-maintained package done independently of the search giant – that could be about to change. Chromium's build system is now able to generate Flatpak packages of the browser itself, though its developers caution that the change does not mean official Flatpak support is coming. A commit made by Google's Tom Anderson this week adds the necessary packaging scripts and a build flag (enable_flatpak) to produce a .flatpak package rather than a .deb or .rpm, but that flag is off by default (for now). If enabled, Google's [...]

You're reading Chrome moves a step closer to an official Flatpak , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, chromium, flatpak, Google, Google Chrome
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/chromium-adds-flatpak-packaging-support Aug 28, 2026, 01:50 AM

Hands-on with Ubuntu's new AI voice typing feature

AI-powered voice typing is coming to Ubuntu in Myna, a speech-to-text feature that lets you talk into any valid text field. It's still a work in progress, but I grabbed an early build to see how it's shaping up. With Ubuntu 26.10 now entering its freeze, the user-facing pieces of myna are falling in to place. This week, a new GNOME Shell extension was added to default installs to provide an on-screen indicator when myna is listening and recording. To be clear: Myna is not a GNOME Shell extension. It's an orchestrator that manages loading an AI model, hot-key activation, [...]

You're reading Hands-on with Ubuntu's new AI voice typing feature , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, AI/ML, Myna, Ubuntu 26.10
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/testing-ubuntu-ai-voice-dictation Aug 27, 2026, 06:33 PM

LibreOffice 26.8 brings paragraph layout changes, draft view + more

The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 26.8, a major new version of the open-source office suite for Windows, macOS and Linux. Among the changes is a new Paragraph Composer. This improves the way Writer handles justified text. In many word processors, justified text is stretched to create straight edge on both sides of the page, but this can look uneven. Some lines packed tight, others gappy. But with LibreOffice 26.8's new Paragraph Composer, spacing gets balanced several lines at once, rather than one at a time, which can result in a better overall look: Other typography changes in LibreOffice 26.8 include native [...]

You're reading LibreOffice 26.8 brings paragraph layout changes, draft view + more , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, App Updates, LibreOffice
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/libreoffice-268-released Aug 26, 2026, 07:07 PM

The hidden Ubuntu feature that brings order to my desktop icons

Ubuntu's Desktop Icons NG (DING) extension has a little-known way to bring order to a chaotic desktop: stacks. Stacks groups multiple files of the same type in a collapsible icon, e.g. images in one stack, PDFs in another and so on. Folders don't get grouped, and if there is only one of a type of file on the desktop, it is not stacked. Expanding a stack by clicking on it reveals all files in the stack (other file icons bump out of the way). Multiple stacks can be expanded or collapsed at the same time, and stacks can be left [...]

You're reading The hidden Ubuntu feature that brings order to my desktop icons , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, ding
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-desktop-icons-stacks Aug 26, 2026, 05:02 PM

Ubuntu 26.10 'Stonking Stingray' hits feature freeze

Ubuntu 26.10, codenamed 'Stonking Stingray', entered feature freeze on 20 August – though the formal announcement arrive later than usual. From this point onwards, development focus shifts from landing major changes to improving them, along with the rest of the package set, ahead of the final, stable Ubuntu 26.10 release in October. "Ideally, you should all now be focusing on bug fixing rather than getting new features into the release", said Paride Legovini, engineer at Canonical, in a post on the Ubuntu developer mailing list on 24 August, 2026. However, the final makeup of Ubuntu 26.10 – set to offer [...]

You're reading Ubuntu 26.10 'Stonking Stingray' hits feature freeze , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, Ubuntu 26.10
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-2610-hits-feature-freeze Aug 25, 2026, 04:07 AM

Ubuntu 24.04 gets a big open-vm-tools update

A major update to open-vm-tools, a package that integrates Linux virtual machines with VMware hypervisors, is rolling out to users of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. "Without SRUing the newer version users get issues running on more recent hypervisors", Canonical's Lena Voytek explained in a backport request. It's a full backport from Ubuntu 26.04 LTS to support platform enablement to benefit those running 24.04 LTS. The open-vm-tool package goes from v12.3.5 to v13.0.10 (the same version in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS). VMware's open-vm-tools package enables clock sync with the hypervisor host, 'graceful' power management for clean shutdowns, vSphere API, shared folder support, relays [...]

You're reading Ubuntu 24.04 gets a big open-vm-tools update , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, backports, HWE, open-vm-tools, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, VMware
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-2404-open-vm-tools-update Aug 24, 2026, 06:39 PM

10-year-old bug action triggered an Ubuntu Phone dev reunion

A decades-old bug on Ubuntu's Launchpad marked as invalid at the weekend led to an impromptu reunion for many of Canonical's former engineers. Bug #1589796 was filed in 2016 by a user who'd spent £700 on Ubuntu phone and tablet hardware but, on visiting the official website, found no documentation to tell him how to use them. Canonical axed the Ubuntu Phone project in 2017, leaving this bug unresolved. Until now. Adolfo Jayme Barrientos, on the Ubuntu bug triage team, marked the bug invalid this weekend, closing it with a comment to explain (nearly a decade late) that phone "efforts [...]

You're reading 10-year-old bug action triggered an Ubuntu Phone dev reunion , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, Canonical, nostalgia, ubuntu phone
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/ubuntu-phone-bug-reunion Aug 24, 2026, 12:27 AM

Postcard is a new email client for GNOME, built with AI

Postcard is a new email client for GNOME sporting a modern design reminiscent of Geary. The app is the work of a solo developer, gxanshu on GitHub, who is upfront about using AI coding tools to bring this "modern mail client" to life. Postcard is written in Python with GTK4/libadwaita. It uses imaplib and smtplib for networking, a local SQLite index for searching, WebKitGTK for rendering HTML and libsecret for keeping passwords safe. It's also open source, so the code is inspectable. Visually, Postcard should look familiar to fans of the Geary email client, as it uses a similar multi-column design: folders [...]

You're reading Postcard is a new email client for GNOME, built with AI , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, AI/ML, Email Clients, geary, Postcard, Vibe Coded
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/postcard-gnome-email-client Aug 22, 2026, 05:05 AM

GIMP is (finally) working on a new project file format

A new project file format is in the works for GIMP, as the existing one can't handle larger, complex projects. Since 1997, the famed FOSS image editor has used the binary .xcf format to save projects so layers, effects and anything else can be edited and adjusted again – which doesn't happen in a flat file export to JPEG or PNG. But, writing in a recent development update, the team has said it's finding "more and more limitations" in the current format. And with major new features, like animation and multi-page documents, on GIMP's near-term roadmap, it's begun working on a [...]

You're reading GIMP is (finally) working on a new project file format , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, GIMP, Image Editors
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/gimp-new-project-file-format Aug 21, 2026, 12:05 AM

Dynamic icons GNOME extension adds 2 new styles, Yaru fixes

You can bring Ubuntu's clock, calendar and weather app icons to life with the Dynamic Calendar, Clocks and Weather Icons [Reborn] GNOME Shell extension – which has been updated with new icon styles. The extension already has Yaru, Adwaita, Paprius, Big Sur and other icon styles built-in (the dynamic versions don't depend on the icon sets themselves), so you see real-time clock, date and weather info on icons that look like their static equivalents. Two new icon choices land in latest update, v9, released this week (17 August 2026), Stylish and Pure: In the screenshot above, you can see how [...]

You're reading Dynamic icons GNOME extension adds 2 new styles, Yaru fixes , a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu . Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.


Categories: News, dynamic icons, GNOME Extensions
Source: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/08/dynamic-icons-gnome-extension-updated Aug 20, 2026, 05:46 PM