Category: Linux Mint

The easy way to send a notification email when apt updates are available on a Debian or Ubuntu based system, if you don’t have an email server installed

This method is intended primarily for home users who want to be notified via email when apt updates are available to be installed, but who don’t want to have to deal with setting up a full-fledged mail server ….. Maybe you have a server or two, or a few, on your home network that run Debian or Ubuntu or one of their derivatives, that use the apt package manager to do package updates. And maybe you’d like to get an email when new apt updates are available to be installed. Well, here is a relatively easy way to do it.

Source: The easy way to send a notification email when apt updates are available on a Debian or Ubuntu based system, if you don’t have an email server installed – Two “Sort Of” Tech Guys

Do you experience unexplained crashes or freeze-ups on your Ubuntu (or other) Linux based home theater PC or gaming system? Here is a possible fix!

After installing Ubuntu 22.04, Kodi on a home theater PC would frequently freeze. This issue, applicable to various Linux distros, can be resolved…

Source: Do you experience unexplained crashes or freeze-ups on your Ubuntu (or other) Linux based home theater PC or gaming system? Here is a possible fix! – Two “Sort Of” Tech Guys

Access GNOME’s Top Bar when Viewing Fullscreen Content

Those of you who regularly use fullscreen mode for apps and media content in GNOME Shell are gonna dig the following new GNOME extension. It’s called “Peek Top Bar on Fullscreen” because —shock!— that’s exactly what it does: it lets you mouse up to the top of your display when viewing fullscreen content to show the top bar —crucially— without needing to exit fullscreen mode.

Source: Access GNOME’s Top Bar when Viewing Fullscreen Content – OMG! Linux

Make the Sound Good when using PulseAudio in Linux

Linux uses PulseAudio, which has a poor default configuration, resulting in bad sound.

With some tinkering with the PulseAudio file, reading a lot of websites about the settings, I was able to get PulseAudio to have sound that’s subjectively as good as BSD, Mac, etc. By default, PulseAudio uses a resampler called “speex-float-1” which is horrendous. The reason this is chosen is to maintain compatibility on very small and bad sound cards. This shall be reconfigured to either “speex-float-10” or “soxr-vhq” for best quality. Some other changes also improve the sound.

Make the Sound Good (Reddit | r/linuxmint)
Also see: PulseAudio (Linux Reviews)

Linux users: How to Run Netflix in Kodi (original title: How to Run Netflix on the Raspberry Pi)

This is a case where a blog post is kind of mis-titled, and suggests that the article has more narrow application than it really does. The original title suggests it only applies to Raspberry Pi users, but if you actually read the article you find that the method shown should be equally applicable to any Linux-based distribution running Kodi, or at least to those Linux distros that are based on Debian (Debian, Raspbian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Zorin OS, and many more). The same method would probably work on non-Debian-based distros as well, if you can get the required dependencies using their package managers, and if Kodi will run on them. I understand that it was published in a blog intended for Raspberry Pi users, so that’s probably why they tried to make it seem only relevant to the Raspberry Pi, but if you are running Kodi on some other Linux distro and want to view your Netflix content, you might try giving the method shown in this article a try:

How to Run Netflix on the Raspberry Pi – Pi My Life Up