Category: Software

Install Flatpaks In Lubuntu

This shouldn’t be a very long article and will apply to other distros, but this is how you install Flatpaks in Lubuntu. This seems like a good article to write as it’s something tucked into my notes and something I’ve not written about before.

This article applies to Lubuntu. It may apply to other distros, especially those in the Lubuntu family. In some cases, such as Linux Mint, recent versions come with Flatpak support. In those cases, you don’t need to do anything special, you can start using Flatpaks as soon as you’d like.

What Are Flatpaks:

Flatpak is a utility for software deployment. It was once known as xdg-app but has used the Flatpak name for going on a decade. This is not something new, even though it has recently grown in popularity. They’re pretty handy.

The thing that makes Flatpaks special is that they run in a sandbox. That means they don’t interact with other software on your system, they run in their own isolated memory space. This is good for security.

They’re also good for easy installation. Not only do they run in an isolated environment, they are self-contained. With Flatpak being what it is, you don’t have to worry about dependencies.

If a Flatpak does need to integrate with the system, this will be set by the developer. The advanced user can change those permissions, though that may cause breakage should you restrict the access levels.

There’s also a central repository that you can use. While you can get a Flatpak from anywhere, and you can add your own repositories, the most common use will be from a central repository which does things like providing updates to the packaged software. 

This is good for developers who want to distribute their software while not having to do so for the various package managers. Rather than a .deb or .rpm version, they can upload and update a Flatpak that’s stored in a centralized repository.

Pretty neat!

Install Flatpaks In Lubuntu:

For the sake of this article, Flatpak is the software type and the delivery mechanism, while Flatpaks are the applications installed via Flatpak. Make sense? I hope so because that’s what I’ve got.

I should probably have mentioned that earlier in the article…

Anyhow, to install Flatpak you’ll need an open terminal. As you’re using Lubuntu, you can open your default terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T on your keyboard.

With your terminal now open, let’s install Flatpak so that you can install all the Flatpaks your heart desires. To do that, run this command to install Flatpak:

That will install Flatpak, but you will then want to enable the Flatpak repository. That’s another easy command that you can cut and paste:

Next, you’ll need to reboot. Yes, this one should have a reboot to work properly. Run this command in the terminal:

That’s all you need to do.

Installing Flatpaks:

Now you have enabled Flatpak and you’ve added the default Flatpak repository. You can head to the centralized repository and start browsing for interesting software. You do that here:

Flathub, the Flatpak Repository

I’ll give you an example, to make it easier…

Let’s say you want to install ONLYOFFICE as a Flatpak.

Well, you browse/search for it and end up at the ONLYOFFICE repo page.

Once you’re there, you’ll see an “Install” option in the upper right section of the page. There’s a down-arrow next to it, which is the easiest method. Click that and run the command prompt in your terminal.

In this case, that command prompt would be:

You can then run the application with this command:

No, you shouldn’t need to run the program through the terminal. Because you rebooted, added Flatpaks should appear in your application menu in the appropriate category section. 

Also, it’s a bit more of an interactive process when you’re installing Flatpaks through the terminal. You’ll be given a few options along the way, though I just accept the defaults (by pressing the Y key) and call it good.

You’ll also notice that the applications are much larger. If you have slower internet, you’ll notice this. This is because the Flatpaks are isolated and come with the required dependencies. Because of this, the packages are quite a bit larger.

Once in a while, I’ve noticed that the application won’t appear until a reboot happens. If you run the terminal command once, that seems to help it, and then appears in the application menu. It’s not perfect, at least not here, but it’s definitely ‘good enough’ and it’s a great way to get sandboxed software that doesn’t require hunting around for dependencies.

Closure:

So, that’s how you install Flatpaks in Lubuntu. It’s also probably how you install Flatpaks in ElementaryOS, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc… However, if you’re installing Flatpaks in Ubuntu there’s an extra step you can take that lets you integrate Flatpaks better with the GNOME desktop environment.

If you’re using Ubuntu, you can add this command before the reboot step:

I believe that will add Flatpaks to your regular software store, that is the GUI one where you’d go to add software. I’m not sure because I don’t use Ubuntu, but that’s what the command looks like it will do. I’d normally not share any code I haven’t used myself, but I took the command from Flatpak’s site, which makes me think it’s correct.

Anyhow, Flatpaks are easy to install and run more securely. If your OS changes underneath, this won’t matter. The software comes with the appropriate dependencies. Once you’re more familiar with the software, you can change the permissions if you want. I’ve yet to find a single reason why I’d want to modify the permissions – but it’s possible.

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Short: Clear Linux Mint Notifications

This is another short article, as I continue exploring the format, and is simply about how to clear Linux Mint notifications. You can do so graphically, or you can do so with a keyboard.

I should be specific. This is for Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition.

When you get an email, when you have a notice from your email client, or have scheduled some system prompt, you might get a notification. These notifications show up in your system tray.

They look like this:

Notifications from Linux Mint.
See? I even drew an arrow for you! In this case, there are three!

These notifications show up with regularity if you have a lot of email accounts that get constant notifications. They may show up for other reasons.

If you want to use a GUI, just click the notification icon and clear it. That’d look like this image below, and it’s nice and simple:

you can use a GUI to clear notifications from Linux Mint.
This is probably how most of you will clear notifications from Linux Mint.

On the other hand, if you’re pretty sure there are no notifications worth reading, you can always just clear them out with the keyboard.

Clear Linux Mint Notifications With The Keyboard:

If you want to clear Linux Mint notifications with the keyboard, it’s remarkably simple. It isn’t made clear, thus you get this short-form article.

To clear those notifications you simply press the following:

SHIFT + SUPER + C

Now, if you’re unsure, the ‘Super’ key is often labeled to be the ‘Windows Key’. It may say ‘WIN’ on it or it may have the Windows logo emblazoned on it. With your ‘standard’ US keyboard layout, it’s the key on the left between the CTRL and ALT keys.

This could, on Apple keyboards, also be labeled as the CMD key.

But, the ‘super key’ came first. It was an MIT (GO BEAVERS!) thing. If you don’t have anything better to do, read about the Super Key on Wikipedia. The WinKey and CMD key came later in life.

Anyhow, now you can clear Linux Mint Notifications with your keyboard!

Closure:

I’m not sure if I like this short format. I normally have quite a bit to say, even if it’s mundane. There’s a lot to be said about the tools we use. At the same time, there are plenty of meaningful tips that just don’t warrant writing a full article.

So far, exactly one person has opined on the matter and they claimed to like the short articles. A few days later, they also offered the opinion that they liked the longer articles. Given their comments, I’m going to have to assume they also like the regular articles and just like my articles. I’m okay with that, but it’s not exactly information I can act on other than to just keep doing what I’ve been doing.

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Automate Updates In Linux Mint

Today’s article will be a fairly simple one and is limited to Linux Mint users as we learn how to automate updates in Linux Mint. That seems like a good idea to me. Ideally, this will continue working without any intervention, but we’ll see…

So, I’m not sure how long this has been an option. I only noticed it fairly recently. If you’re not already aware, you can automate updates in Linux Mint. It’s a pretty simple task and won’t require much more than a mouse – or maybe a terminal and then a mouse.

This can be a touchy subject. I’m firmly in the camp of immediately installing all updates. I want my system to be as secure as possible, which means applying the updates as soon as they are available. So far, this mostly appears to work.

Updates often come right before public disclosure and proof-of-concept samples. While it’s true that an update can bork your system, that’s easily fixed and such a rare thing that I don’t even consider it as a reasonable reason not to apply updates.

I also consider it my duty, my obligation, to keep my systems secure. An insecure system doesn’t just impact you. An unsecured computer can be used as a proxy, a command center, a spam relay, or a node in a DDoS attack, among other things. As a good netizen, I keep my systems updated.

So, why not automate that stuff when I can? 

Automate Updates In Linux Mint:

In your system tray, down on the right, look to see if you have an icon that looks like a shield. If you do not see the icon, press CTRL + ALT + T and type in mintupdate. Both of those things will open the Update Manager in Linux Mint.

At some point along this path, you’ll be asked to enter your password. Do so.

That will open this window:

to automate updates in Linux Mint, start with opening up the update manager
Your theme may mean this has different colors or whatnot, but it should look like this.

Next, you’ll click on ‘Edit’.

You need to click on the Edit button to move to the next step of automating updates in Linus Mint
This is a pretty easy step. Heck, they’re all easy steps! You’ve got this! I’m sure of it!

You next want to open Preferences and click on Automation.

You'll need to edit the preferences to automate Linux Mint Updates.
Just in case you’re confused, I added an arrow for you! (My CDN is going to hate me.)

When you’ve done all of this, you’ll face a new screen.

This new screen is where you edit your automation settings. This new screen is where you enable automatic updates in Linux Mint. It looks like this when I’ve configured it to my liking:

Enabling automatic updates in Linux Mint via the Update Manager preferences.
You can configure those however you like, but I enable all of them. You do you, I guess.

Make sure you have a viable backup process.

As you can see, I’ve chosen all the things. I’ve chosen to automate all the updating that I can do. If anything, I wish I could increase the frequency. I suppose I could set up a cron job for this, but a handy GUI is fine for this task. This way will also update Spices and Flatpaks. So, there’s that.

I’ve had this setting enabled for a little while now and I’ve verified that it has been working as expected. If you want to automate updates in Linux Mint, you can do that – and it’s not even difficult.

Update:

No, it doesn’t appear to update Flatpaks. I’ve given it a few tries and it does not.

flatpaks are not automatically updated
I’ve waited and waited a few times. You have to update Flatpaks manually. So, there’s that…

Closure:

I like automatic updates. I use that sort of feature online with my various websites. Scheduled updates performing themselves is a good thing to me. You may be more cautious, but I throw caution to the wind. I haven’t had an update nuke my system beyond a 2-minute repair job in forever. I haven’t even had a 2-minute repair job in years. That’s good enough for me. You can make your own choices. Regardless of your choices, be sure to backup your system regularly.

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The Differences Between APT and APT-GET.

Today will be a brief essay-type of article where we simply discuss the differences between APT and APT-GET. This article is really only useful to you if you use a distro that supports this. Those would be distros in the Debian family, so distros like Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

This will be a brief article and an article where I cheated. I let AI write most of this for me. It seemed like a good task for ChatGPT. So, it was largely written by an ML (Machine Learning) model.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, read on! Who knows, if it takes off I’ll do more of these types of articles. They don’t save much time because I still need to format the output and crafting the input can be a bit tricky.

Ah well… It’s still fun and informative!

The Differences Between APT and APT-GET:

Debian’s package management system has evolved over time, and two widely used tools for managing packages and software updates are apt-get and apt. Both tools serve similar purposes, but they differ in terms of user experience, functionality, and underlying technology.

apt-get was the traditional command-line tool used in Debian-based systems to handle package management tasks. It has been a reliable workhorse for system administrators and users alike. However, it had some limitations and lacked certain user-friendly features.

apt, on the other hand, stands for “Advanced Package Tool” and was introduced as a more user-friendly alternative to apt-get. It was designed to provide a more intuitive and streamlined user experience while retaining all the functionalities of apt-get.

One of the key differences between apt-get and apt is the command structure and user interface. apt-get commands are generally longer and less intuitive, while apt commands are more concise and easier to remember. For example, to install a package using apt-get, you might use:

Whereas with apt, the command becomes simpler:

Both commands perform the same function of installing the specified package, but apt provides a more user-friendly syntax.

More Differences:

Another notable difference is that apt has a more modern and user-friendly progress bar during package downloads and installations. It offers clearer and more informative output, making it easier for users to track the progress of their package operations.

Additionally, apt supports various new features and functionalities that were not present in apt-get. For instance, apt includes the apt autoremove command, which helps in removing unnecessary dependencies that were automatically installed but are no longer needed. This feature simplifies package management and helps keep the system clean by removing residual dependencies.

Furthermore, apt also integrates the functionality of other apt-get commands like apt-cache and apt-config, providing a more unified and cohesive package management experience. Users can perform tasks like searching for packages, checking their metadata, and managing configurations more efficiently within a single tool (apt).

Despite these differences, both apt-get and apt use the same underlying package management libraries and repositories. They share a common package database and can perform all the essential package management tasks such as installing, updating, upgrading, and removing packages.

In summary, apt is an evolution of apt-get, offering a more user-friendly interface, improved output readability, and additional functionalities while utilizing the same package management backend. Users transitioning from apt-get to apt will find the latter more intuitive and efficient, but both commands remain viable options for managing packages on Debian-based systems.

Closure:

Well, AI did a pretty good job of this. If you wanted to know the differences between apt and apt-get, now you do! You can decide for yourself which you prefer. As you’ve seen throughout these many articles, I default to apt. 

I also wrote this article with AI because I have a storm coming. I want to get this scheduled ahead of time. My brain only works for so long and I run out of ideas to write about. I flip through my notes and they look like articles I want to write, but I can’t figure out what to write about.

Basically, I only have so much creative energy and these articles consume that energy pretty quickly. Sometimes, I have spurts of creative energy and can write a few articles ahead, but that’s not something I can count on. Articles are generally written the night before they’re published. By then, I’ll have enough creative energy again.

I needed to do this the same day that I published an article because Mother Nature doesn’t care about my publication schedule. I’ve had a few years without major outages. It seems like that’s going to be different this year. I suppose I can be grateful for those times when I had no major outages. I’ll be warm, secure, and have electricity – I just may not have internet.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

When Did I Install Lubuntu

This won’t be a complicated article, nor will it be a very long article, as we answer the question of, “When did I install Lubuntu?” It’s a rather specific question and one you can answer with a couple of different commands. Fortunately, this is also going to apply to Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, and all the rest that are set up in this manner.

You may not recall the exact date and time when you installed Lubuntu. That’s okay, most of us don’t keep track of that information. At some point, you may want to know that information. It’s not a major data point, but knowing when you installed Lubuntu can be useful.

Yes, this article is about Lubuntu. It’s specific to Lubuntu because I use Lubuntu as I type this. There are other distros where this will work perfectly well. Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m not going to test a bunch of distros.

If you’re unfamiliar with Lubuntu, it’s a Linux distro that I’m a big fan of. It’s not the best Linux distro, it’s the best distro for me. I’ve written a whole lot of Lubuntu articles!

List Installed Software In Lubuntu
Benchmark Your GPU In Lubuntu
How To: Zip Files In Lubuntu
Let’s Mount An .iso In Lubuntu
Disable Window Grouping In Lubuntu
(And many more Lubuntu articles…)

Lubuntu is a great distro that has a familiar interface, great support, a wonderful community and is easy to adapt to. A Windows user can be up and running Lubuntu in an hour – if they take their time. As I say, “Things are where you’d logically expect them to be.

Anyhow, the question is when did you install Lubuntu…

When Did I Install Lubuntu:

This is going to require an open terminal. As we’re using Lubuntu, you can open your default terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T on your keyboard. The tools you need will be already installed.

Now, you can identify your storage drives with lsblk but we’ll use the following command, as it’s easier for this task.

From there, you want to find your / partition. For example, here’s my output:

In this case, the output is /dev/nvme0n1p1 and not any of the other choices.

If you were using something like Mint, the output might be similar to this:

In that case, the output is /dev/sda2 largely because I’m using UEFI on that system and the first partition is occupied with that data.

The syntax you’re looking for to find out when you installed Lubuntu is pretty simple. You have two choices that will work. They are as follows:

Or:

So, on my Lubuntu system, the command would look like:

While on Mint it would look like this:

Of course, you can switch it up with the dumpe2fs command, per the instructions.

NOTE: This works on ext* formatted partitions. If you did some sort of weird, non-default, installation, then it may not work for you. I can’t be 100% certain because I didn’t test this.

The tools we’ve used are tune2fs, which is already installed and is described as:

tune2fs – adjust tunable file system parameters on ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystems

And, we’ve used the dumpe2fs command which is already installed and described as:

dumpe2fs – dump ext2/ext3/ext4 file system information

So, I can only assume that other drive formats aren’t going to work and that information simply won’t be stored. They might work. I simply do not know and haven’t taken the time to look into it. That means this will work for the vast majority of users.

Closure:

If you have ever asked yourself, “When did I install Lubuntu?” This is the article for you. I admit, it’s rather specific, but it is what it is. If you want to try this with other systems, go ahead! It won’t break anything and it just might work. If you’ve partitioned your drives with a different formatting, it’s probably not going to work but trying these commands will not break anything.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

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