How to install Oracle Java 11 long-term support on Ubuntu

   Java 11 has arrived. The new release is the first planned appearance of Oracle's long-term support (LTS) releases, although Oracle has also grandfathered in Java 8 as an LTS release to help bridge the gap between the old release model and the new approach

Java 11 Changelog

• Standardize the incubated HTTP Client API introduced in JDK 9, via JEP 110, and updated in JDK 10
• New Collection.toArray(IntFunction) Default Method
• The locale data based on the Unicode Consortium's CLDR (Common Locale Data Registry) has been updated for JDK 11.
• Lazy Allocation of Compiler Threads
• ZGC (Experimental): a brand-new garbage collector designed for sub-10ms pause times (even on large heaps) with an aim of no more than a 15% performance penalty.
• Epsilon GC is the new experimental no-op garbage collector. Epsilon GC only handles memory allocation, and does not implement any memory reclamation mechanism. It is useful for performance testing, to contrast costs/benefits of other GCs.

How to Install GScan2PDF 2.2.0 release on Ubuntu 18.04

    gscan2pdf is a GUI to ease the process of producing PDFs or DjVus from scanned documents. You scan one or several pages in with File/Scan, and create a PDF of selected pages with File/Save PDF. At maturity, the GUI will have similar features to that of the Windows Imaging program, but with the express objective of writing a PDF, including metadata. Scanning is handled with SANE via scanimage. PDF conversion is done by libtiff. Perl is used for portability and ease of programming, with gtk2-perl for the GUI. This should therefore work more or less out of the box on any system with gtk2-perl, scanimage, and libtiff.

GScan2PDF 2.2.0 Changelog: 

• Check validity of device blacklist regex when applying preferences
• Modify preference “Force new scan job between pages” to only take effect when scanning from flatbed.
• Fixed crash switching frontend option in Edit/Preferences between libimage-sane-perl and scanimage.
• Fixed visibility of scan widgets when switching from libimage-sane-perl to scanimage.
• Collect all warning and error messages in one dialog.

Install HP Print Drivers HPLIP 3.18.12 on Ubuntu 18.04

    HPLIP is a free, open-source HP-developed solution for printing, scanning, and faxing with HP inkjet and laser based printers in Linux.

Drivers HPLIP 3.18.12 Changelog: 

Added Support for the Following New Printers:

• HP Tango
• HP Tango X

Added support for the following new ScanJet Device:

• HP Scanjet Pro 2000 S1

How to install Krita 4.1.1 released on Ubuntu 18.04

   Krita is a professional FREE and open source painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone.

•     concept art
•     texture and matte painters
•     illustrations and comics

    Krita 4.1 is the second feature release in the Krita 4 series and is released only three months after 4.0. But there is still a heap of interesting new things and improvements to check out!

Krita 4.1.1 Changelog:

• Added context menu (right click) options for transform tool. This makes it easier to change your transform type between perspective, free, warp, etc.
• Added context menu (right click) options for crop. This makes it easier to use without needing the tool options open.
• New Cursor option. Force brush outline to always be shown at 100%
• HEIF file format can now be opened and saved to. Thanks to a patch by Dirk Farin. Note that this is not enabled in the default builds because the libraries needed to build the import/export filter are very new.
• Ask the user what DPI they want their SVG images imported with
• Multibrush tool now accepts decimals for the angle
• Fixes to links for new documentation site

How to install Opera 56 Released on Ubuntu 18.04

Opera 56 elease there is mostly incremental changes, but we are looking forward to seeing what people can do with the new CSS conical gradient support. Below is a quick overview of changes. Follow the links for more details, specifications and examples.

Features in Opera 56:

• Add volume control for video pop out.
• Hover over the title of pop out video and click back to tab.
• Add new option in Settings > Advanced > Browser > User interface for the scroll to the top of the page feature
• Add a page zoom indicator in the address and search bar when the zoom level for a page changed.
• Easy bug reporting via O menu > Help > Report an issue.
• Redesigned about page, and tidied up the settings.
• For more, see the announcement.

How to install Virtualbox 5.2.18 Released on Ubuntu 18.04

  VirtualBox  is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

Virtualbox 5.2.18 Changelog:

• VMM: See user manual.
• VMM: fix loading with recent binutils and self-built versions of VirtualBox
• NAT: fix --nataliasmode sameports which is a valid setting
• VRDP: fixed VM process termination on RDP client disconnect if 3D is enabled for the virtual machine  

How to install Curlew 0.2.5 GTK3 Video Converter for Ubuntu 18.04

     Curlew is a free multimedia converter for Ubuntu Linux that features small package size, few library dependencies, 100+ output formats, easy to use UI, and more.

Curlew is a GTK3 software written in Python and uses ffmpeg/avconv for media encoding. The latest Curlew 0.2.5 features:

• Added an option to include all audio tracks of file.
• Added support for merging files.
• Added Fade In/Out filter feature.
• Added paste "from the Clipboard" feature.
• Use Home directory as default converting destination.
• Hide unused page/widget.
• Add xplayer to players list.
• Colored buttons (Convert/Close).
• Removed CSD option.
• Deleted stdeb config files and use native debian packaging system.
• Fix disabled convert button issue.

How To Install OpenShot Video Editor 2.4.3 released On Ubuntu 18.04

   OpenShot Video Editor is a free, open-source video editor for Linux. OpenShot can take your videos, photos, and music files and help you create the film you have always dreamed of. Easily add sub-titles, transitions, and effects, and then export your film to DVD, YouTube, Vimeo, Xbox 360, and many other common formats.

 

OpenShot 2.4.3 release highlights:

• Masks and transitions can now be modified at any time, and can now use an image or video! This utilizes the grayscale of each frame and converts it into a mask, and can be used to create some really amazing effects.
• Threading improvements help prevent crashing around effects (including masks and transitions), and improve performance on many systems.
• Save frame button for quickly saving the current preview frame
• Huge improvement to language translations

How to install Gnome MPV (MPV Frontend) 0.15 Released on Ubuntu 18.04

     GNOME MPV is a simple GTK+ frontend for mpv. GNOME MPV interacts with mpv via the client API exported by libmpv, allowing access to mpv's powerful playback capabilities.
     GNOME MPV is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Gnome MPV (MPV Frontend) 0.15  Changelog:

• Set default screenshot directory to XDG_PICTURES_DIR
• Improve handling of --window-scale, --autofit, --autofit-larger, and --autofit-smaller
• Add command line option for setting WM_ROLE
• Add context menu item for removing playlist items
• Add context menu item for copying location of playlist items

How to install SMPlayer 18.9 Released on Ubuntu 18.04

  SMPlayer is a free media player for Windows and Linux with built-in codecs that can play virtually all video and audio formats. It doesn't need any external codecs. Just install SMPlayer and you'll be able to play all formats without the hassle to find and install codec packs.

SMPlayer is a graphical user interface (GUI) for the award-winning MPlayer, which is capable of playing almost all known video and audio formats. But apart from providing access for the most common and useful options of MPlayer, SMPlayer adds other interesting features like the possibility to play Youtube videos or download subtitles.

SMPlayer 18.9 Changelog:

• Fix for YouTube.
• (Experimental) New option in the Play menu: Cast to -> Smartphone/tablet. It displays a QR code that you can scan to play the video on your device. 

Qmmp Music Player 1.2.4 'Winamp Like' on Ubuntu 18.04

   qmmp is a free and open-source audio player written in C++ with the help of the Qt library. It officially supports the operating systems Linux, FreeBSD and Microsoft Windows. It is the only audio player not featuring a database that uses the Qt library. The default user interface of qmmp is inspired by Winamp

Qmmp 1.2.4 changelog:

• added equalizer optimization
• updated translation list
• improved PCM WAVE support
• fixed segmentation fault
• fixed tag reading in the archive plugin

How to Install HandBrake 1.1.2 on Ubuntu 18.04

     HandBrake is a free and open-source video transcoder, originally developed in 2003 by Eric Petit (aka "titer" from his SVN repository username) to make ripping a film from a DVD to a data storage device easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions.
     HandBrake is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. It uses third-party libraries such as Libav, libvpx, and x265.

HandBrake 1.1.2 Changelog:
 
General

• Fixed Blu-ray title name where reading from raw device
• Improved handling of broken units in Blu-ray source (skip and continue reading)

Video

• Fixed rare crash related to preview images, anamorphic, and default preset values
• Fixed jitter produced by 59.94 fps to 29.97 fps frame rate conversion

Audio

• Fixed duration of silence buffers (may improve audio/video sync for some sources)

How to Install Shutter 0.94.2 Released with Some Bug Fixes on Ubuntu 18.04

   Shutter is a feature-rich screenshot program for Linux based operating systems such as Ubuntu. You can take a screenshot of a specific area, window, your whole screen, or even of a website – apply different effects to it, draw on it to highlight points, and then upload to an image hosting site, all within one window. Shutter is free, open-source, and licensed under GPL v3.

Shutter 0.94.2 changelog : 

• Remove ITmages, Minus, TwitPic upload plugins since the services down.
• Fix error in vygme plugin
• Add support for Gyazo uploads
• Fix insecure perl system calls
• Use reverse-DNS style AppStream ID

How to Install qBittorrent 4.1.3 on Ubuntu 18.04

     qBittorrent is a free, open-source and reliable P2P BitTorrent client, available for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Windows. It aims to provide a free software alternative to uTorrent.

qBittorrent 4.1.3 changelog : 

• FEATURE: Preselect name without extension when renaming files.
• FEATURE: Allow setting seq & first/last from context menu without metadata.
• BUGFIX: Show "N/A" if there is no scrape.
• BUGFIX: Save option about tracker favicons under correct key.
• BUGFIX: When file data are unreachable pause torrent and show "Missing Files" status (temporary fix).
• BUGFIX: Don't disable DHT when using force proxy.

How to Install GScan2PDF 2.1.6 release on Ubuntu 18.04

     gscan2pdf is a GUI to ease the process of producing PDFs or DjVus from scanned documents. You scan one or several pages in with File/Scan, and create a PDF of selected pages with File/Save PDF. At maturity, the GUI will have similar features to that of the Windows Imaging program, but with the express objective of writing a PDF, including metadata. Scanning is handled with SANE via scanimage. PDF conversion is done by libtiff. Perl is used for portability and ease of programming, with gtk2-perl for the GUI. This should therefore work more or less out of the box on any system with gtk2-perl, scanimage, and libtiff.

GScan2PDF 1.8.7 Changelog: 

• Fixed starting processes from tools menu.
• Fixed opening UDT and unpaper dialog windows. 

How to Install LibreOffice 6.1.1.2 on Ubuntu 18.04

   LibreOffice is a powerful office suite – its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice includes several applications that make it the most powerful Free and Open Source office suite on the market: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).

 
LibreOffice 6.1.1.2 Changelog:

• inline spellchecking waits for typing pauses before redlining errors
• No Longer Honoring Umask
• Printing doesn't start in particular documents until you show first pages
• HOUR, MINUTE and SECOND function return value that is 1 too high, when seconds value of time >= 59.5 (HOUR, MINUTE) or >= xx.5 (SECOND)
• Second Export To PDF Does Not Honor Umask
• 6.1 overwrites Symbolic Links with files
• text gets garbled printing with postscript