Welcome to the first in a series of posts about awesome apps you can install on ubermix to make it your own!
If you are like me, you try to keep tabs on a number of news feeds from a variety of sources, using Feedly or some other RSS feed aggregator. And while Feedly's web reader is fine, it's far from spectacular, especially when used on a touchscreen device, like the excellent Acer Switch Alpha 12 or Spin 7 (both great choices for ubermix).
Enter FeedReader.
FeedReader is a standalone RSS reader app for Linux desktops that does a nice job of fetching and organizing feed content. It performs all of the functions you would expect, including marking items as read, starred, tagging, and the like, and will even share articles to your Instapaper or Pocket account. And best of all, it caches content, so you can read offline, should you find yourself without an internet connection.
To check it out, open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t is the fastest way to get to one) and copy and paste the following commands:
Enjoy!
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If you are like me, you try to keep tabs on a number of news feeds from a variety of sources, using Feedly or some other RSS feed aggregator. And while Feedly's web reader is fine, it's far from spectacular, especially when used on a touchscreen device, like the excellent Acer Switch Alpha 12 or Spin 7 (both great choices for ubermix).
Enter FeedReader.
FeedReader is a standalone RSS reader app for Linux desktops that does a nice job of fetching and organizing feed content. It performs all of the functions you would expect, including marking items as read, starred, tagging, and the like, and will even share articles to your Instapaper or Pocket account. And best of all, it caches content, so you can read offline, should you find yourself without an internet connection.
To check it out, open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t is the fastest way to get to one) and copy and paste the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:eviltwin1/feedreader-stable
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install feedreaderEnjoy!
After months of testing, ubermix 3, the latest and greatest version of the popular operating system, has been released into the wild! Based on Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus), ubermix 3 brings with it a wealth of improvements and interface refinements, based on feedback from thousands of students and educators from all over the world. User experience and flexibility have been a big focus for this release, as has been support for the latest hardware and a host of new, default applications.
At first glance, the thing that jumps out is the new dock along the bottom of the screen, which offers a familiar, icon-based experience that people have become accustomed to in the UIs of modern devices. The dock offers an immediate "something to do" and a familiar location to find and switch between running applications.
At the top right is a new Power & Settings menu, that offers quick, easier access to system settings and functions.
Other things experienced users will immediately notice are that the "Activities" menu has been changed to "Applications" (now that the actions that were there have been moved to the Power/Settings menu), an attractive dark theme throughout, and smoother, more fluid transitions when interacting with the interface.
The default application list has also been updated, with the latest and greatest versions of old favorites and many new ones. New additions include:
There are a number of changes under the hood as well. Now that storage is less of an issue and devices typically include at least 32Gb of space, the default size of the user changes space has been increased to 8Gb and automatic update prompts have been turned on. What this means, however, is that system updates will begin to take up the user space as they are applied. While the default settings will be fine for most users, advanced installers should consider this when selecting a size for the user changes partition while doing an advanced install.
This release will carry ubermixers well into the future, with updates through May 2019. To download, click Download and Install above.
Enjoy!
READ MORE
At first glance, the thing that jumps out is the new dock along the bottom of the screen, which offers a familiar, icon-based experience that people have become accustomed to in the UIs of modern devices. The dock offers an immediate "something to do" and a familiar location to find and switch between running applications.
At the top right is a new Power & Settings menu, that offers quick, easier access to system settings and functions.
Other things experienced users will immediately notice are that the "Activities" menu has been changed to "Applications" (now that the actions that were there have been moved to the Power/Settings menu), an attractive dark theme throughout, and smoother, more fluid transitions when interacting with the interface.
The default application list has also been updated, with the latest and greatest versions of old favorites and many new ones. New additions include:
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Clementine - A new music player with support for listening to internet radio from Spotify, Jamendo, Last.fm, Magnatune, SKY.fm, SomaFM, Icecast, Digitally Imported, Soundcloud and Google Drive and possibly Google Music in the future. |
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Gazebo - A well-designed robot simulator makes it possible to rapidly test algorithms, design robots, and perform regression testing using realistic scenarios. |
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Nitroshare - A cross-platform, peer-to-peer application designed to make transferring files from one device to another extremely simple. |
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TypeCatcher - Google Fonts provides web developers and designers with hundreds of open-source web fonts that can be used for free. This app makes it easy to download and install them. |
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Shotcut - A free, open source, cross-platform video editor. Super fast, with a sleek, intuitive design. Supports HD, wide-formats, and a variety of device and transport options. |
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ArduinoIDE - The Arduino Integrated Development Environment connects to popular, inexpensive Arduino and Genuino open-source hardware to upload programs and communicate with them. Includes Hummingbird robotics support and Ardublock for younger students. |
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Atom - Atom is a text editor that's modern, approachable, yet hackable to the core. It's extremely flexible and customizable, with a built in package manager, smart autocompletion, and multi-pane views. Ideal for scripts and code. |
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Darktable - Open source photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual light table and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable light table and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them. |
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LibreCAD - A fully comprehensive 2D CAD application. LibreCAD can read DXF and DWG files (and others). It writes DXF files, but can also export SVG, JPG, PNG, PDF and other files. It has layers, blocks, splines, polylines, ellipse tools, advanced tangent line & circle tools, transformation tools, an advanced snapping system and more. |
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Synfig Studio - 2D animation software, designed as powerful industrial-strength solution for creating film-quality animation using a vector and bitmap artwork. It eliminates the need to create animation frame-by frame, allowing you to produce 2D animation of a higher quality with fewer people and resources. |
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QT QR Code Generator - Software that let's you generate QR codes easily, scan an image file for QR codes and decode them or use your webcam to scan a printed one. |
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Geary - An email application that allows you to read and send email with a simple, modern interface. Supports Gmail (including labels and archive), Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com, and popular IMAP servers (Dovecot, Cyrus, Zimbra, etc.) |
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Getting Things Gnome - Getting Things GNOME! (GTG) is a personal tasks and TODO-list items organizer, inspired by the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. |
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KeepNote - With KeepNote, you can store class notes, TODO lists, research notes, journal entries, paper outlines, etc in a simple notebook hierarchy with rich-text formatting, images, and more. Using full-text search, you can retrieve any note for later reference. |
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Planner - An planning application with the goal to be an easy-to-use no-nonsense cross-platform project management solution. Features Definition of tasks and subtasks, resources and resource groups, dependencies between tasks, display of the critical path, calendars with working/non-working time, gantt chart and resource usage overview, HTML export of project plans, translated to over 50 languages. |
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BlueJ - An integrated, interactive Java development environment, featuring class structure diagrams, interactive invocation and an easy-to-use interface. |
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Python IDLE -IDLE (Integrated DeveLopment Environment or Integrated Development and Learning Environment) is an integrated development environment for Python, which has been bundled with the default implementation of the language. |
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PiTiVi - An intuitive and flexible video editor that integrates well with ubermix and can appeal to newbies and professionals alike. Pitivi has a beautiful and intuitive user interface, a clean codebase and a fantastic community. |
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Backups (Deja-dup) - A simple backup tool. Features support for local, remote, or cloud backup locations, such as Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloud Files, securely encrypts and compresses your data, incrementally backs up, letting you restore from any particular backup, schedules regular backups. |
There are a number of changes under the hood as well. Now that storage is less of an issue and devices typically include at least 32Gb of space, the default size of the user changes space has been increased to 8Gb and automatic update prompts have been turned on. What this means, however, is that system updates will begin to take up the user space as they are applied. While the default settings will be fine for most users, advanced installers should consider this when selecting a size for the user changes partition while doing an advanced install.
This release will carry ubermixers well into the future, with updates through May 2019. To download, click Download and Install above.
Enjoy!
ubermix 2.4 is the latest release, bringing ubermix in sync with upstream Ubuntu 14.04.4 (Trusty Tahr) and adding a number of improvements, including:
Changes you'll notice right away include:
Improved Applets
For example, the Sound applet will now overlay track and media controls over cover art when playing music, and offers more detail for input and output options.
An improved power applet that shows battery state for all devices (like wireless mice, etc.) and offers brightness controls for screens and keyboards.
Also, the window list now shows previews of windows when you point to a window button
Improved Settings
There have been many changes to settings panels including an updated Displays panel that shows not just the device it is connected to but also the port, many new Window options for behavior and alt-tab appearance, and much, much more.
Openshot 2.0
A completely rewritten Openshot with an updated UI and better performance. More about Openshot's recent changes can be found on the Openshot blog.
Easier for Customizers
A new partition layout on the installer key makes it far easier to extend the size of the key to accommodate larger images. For further details, see the Customization page.
All of these additions make ubermix 2.4 the best ubermix yet. Click Download and Install above to get it right away, and Enjoy!
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- Updated installer key to newer kernel for better hardware support. The latest key should work with most current and near future devices, including Acer's new Travelmate B117 (tested and confirmed).
- Better EMMC storage handling on Cloudbook-style devices.
- Improved support of USB3 install keys - prevents overwrite when no other disks are found.
- Major Linux kernel update to version 4.2.
- Major xorg server update to Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) equivalent.
- Updates to the EFI installer for UEFI devices.
- Updated Openshot to version 2.0.
- Added browser-check to default image, which notifies of web browser updates.
- Cinnamon UI updated to 2.8 stable.
- Changed the partition layout on the installer key to make it easier to increase the key size for those creating custom images.
Changes you'll notice right away include:
Improved Applets
For example, the Sound applet will now overlay track and media controls over cover art when playing music, and offers more detail for input and output options.
An improved power applet that shows battery state for all devices (like wireless mice, etc.) and offers brightness controls for screens and keyboards.
Also, the window list now shows previews of windows when you point to a window button
Improved Settings
There have been many changes to settings panels including an updated Displays panel that shows not just the device it is connected to but also the port, many new Window options for behavior and alt-tab appearance, and much, much more.
Openshot 2.0
A completely rewritten Openshot with an updated UI and better performance. More about Openshot's recent changes can be found on the Openshot blog.
Easier for Customizers
A new partition layout on the installer key makes it far easier to extend the size of the key to accommodate larger images. For further details, see the Customization page.
All of these additions make ubermix 2.4 the best ubermix yet. Click Download and Install above to get it right away, and Enjoy!
The secure browser is used to administer the Smarter Balanced formative and summative assessments to all students in grades 3-8 and 11 throughout the State of California, and is quite a pain to install according to the "official" instructions, so having it as part of the ubermix ecosystem makes it significantly easier for schools and districts in CA to deploy.
Installation Instructions
The CAASPP Secure Browser and its dependencies are well over 50 megabytes, so if your school is starved for bandwidth, you may want to plan accordingly.
GUI Method:
- Click on Activities, then select Synaptic Package Manager under Administration.
- When the Synaptic Package Manager window appears, click on the Reload button to update the package list for all of the online software repositories.
- Once the reload is complete, use the Quick filter box to search for "secure-browser-ca" for standard ubermix 2.x or "secure-browser-ca-32" for 2.xL(ite) and 1.x. Once it appears on the list, click on the checkbox next to it and choose Mark for Installation.
- Click on the Apply button, and Synaptic will download and install everything you need.
- The CASecureBrowser icon should appear under Internet in the Activities menu. If it doesn't appear immediately, don't panic - it will after a restart.
- Press ctrl-alt-t to open a terminal
- Type sudo apt-get update to update the package list for all of the online software repositories.
- Type sudo apt-get install secure-browser-ca on standard ubermix 2.x or sudo apt-get install secure-browser-ca-32 on ubermix 2.xL(ite) or 1.x to install the browser.
- The CASecureBrowser icon should appear under Internet in the Activities menu. If it doesn't appear immediately, don't panic - it will after a restart.
