It’s been another busy week in the world of Linux, but we’re here to bring you up to speed with a round-up of the most notable new releases.
The past 7 days have given us a new version of free software’s most popular photo management app, a new release of a leading Linux distribution, and updated one of my favourite app finds of the year.
As before, do keep us in the loop about any app, game or desktop or distro releases you spot. As hard I might try I don’t (yet) have eyes and ears everywhere!
Fedora 27
A new stable release of the Fedora Linux distribution is available.
Fedora 27 ships with a pure GNOME 3.26 desktop experience, includes a new image writing app, runs on the Linux kernel 4.13, and adds 32 bit UEFI support for 64-bit CPUs.
You can head over to Fedora wiki for a more comprehensive set of release notes.
Or, if you’re interested to taste a different Linux flavour right now, you can go ahead and download the latest release from the Fedora website. The distro is (apparently) supported for 13 months – that’s double the support period of the latest Ubuntu 17.10 release.
Shotwell 0.26.4
A new bug fix release of (what is probably) the Linux desktop’s most popular photo manager app is out.
Among a slew of bug fixes are band aids for:
- Fix import progress bar when importing RAW files
- Fix removing the RAW file when deleting photos
- Fix duplicate detection for Canon imports
- Fix importing MP4 videos from certain Android devices
- Fix missing event pictures when moving library
- Fix useless sub-menu for saved searches
- Fix scrolling and zooming by mouse wheel on Wayland
You can upgrade to the latest stable release of Shotwell on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and above by adding the official Shotwell PPA to your software sources, running an update, and then installing the pending upgrade.
Corebird 1.7.3
Another update to Corebird, the Twitter app for Linux desktops, is available.
Corebird 1.7.3 makes two major changes to keep pace with the regular Twitter service:
- Tweet length increased to 280 characters
- Profile name length increased to 50 characters
Various parts of the interface have been tweaked to cope with these changes.
Finally, if you run the latest release on the newly released Fedora 27 you will now see a button in the compose window that lets you open an emoji picker.
You can install Corebird as a Flatpak app via Flathub. PandaJim maintains a Corebird PPA for easy upgrade on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or later.
Parlatype 1.5.4
Parlatype is one of my favourite app finds of this year. It’s a desktop audio player with features designed for transcribing interviews and spoken word.
The latest release is a minor one that buffs the existing feature set:
- Media keys now work
- Waveform display has been rewritten
- Show/hide ruler with animation
- Misc bug fixes.
Parlatype is available to install as a Flatpak app via Flathub. If you’re on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or later you can add the official Parlatype PPA to install the latest stable release.
Other Releases
Some links to other Linux releases we covered in a touch more detail:
- OpenShot 2.4.1 – new release of the popular video editor
- Firefox 57 “Quantum” — minor update to a little-known web browser
- Cozy 0.4.0 – desktop audiobook app scores some improvements
- Linux 4.14 – behold the latest kernel release