The upcoming macOS Big Sur has an uncanny resemblance to the upcoming Deepin Linux version 20.
I am not kidding. See it yourself. This is macOS Big Sur screenshot shared by Apple at WWDC recently:
And this is Deepin desktop version 20:
Both have same kind of application window styling with rounded corner. Emphasis on white background with blue accent. The dock/launcher at the bottom also look similar.
Apple’s macOS Big Sur has new visual approach. They have made the icons bigger. The icons also have plenty of space between them. This is probably their attempt to make macOS more touch friendly.
The new macOS icon also resemble iOS icons. This should give a uniform look to all the operating systems in the Apple ecosystem.
Moving on to Deepin Linux now. The upcoming Deepin version 20 is drop dead gorgeous. The developers have put a lot of focus on the design this time as well. I am not a UI designer so it is difficult for me to put it in correct technical terms. But the new design looks more clean and aesthetic.
Here are some more Deepin 20 pictures to gorge on:
So, does this mean Apple is preparing a lawsuit against Deepin for copying their design? Considering that Deepin is based in China, Apple won’t take such action against them. Jokes apart, if Deepin was US-based, it could have been a possibility.
It is difficult to say who is inspiring whom. Like Netflix’s Dark web series, things are going in circle here as well.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter if macOS look like Deepin or not. I thought maybe it would be fun little news for the readers to read and smile.
The launcher on the left side has become the identity of Ubuntu desktop. It was introduced with Unity desktop and even when Ubuntu switched to GNOME, it forked Dash to Panel to create a similar dock on GNOME as well.
Personally, I find it handy for quickly accessing the frequently used applications. But not everyone wants it to take some extra space on the screen.
Starting with Ubuntu 20.04, you can easily disable this dock. Let me show you how to do that graphically and via command line in this quick tutorial.
Disable Ubuntu dock with Extensions app
One of the main features of Ubuntu 20.04 was the introduction of Extensions to manage GNOME extensions on your system. Just look for it in the GNOME menu (press Windows key and start typing):
Look for Extensions app in the menu
Don’t have Extensions app?
If you don’t have it installed already, you should enable GNOME Shell Extensions. The Extensions GUI app is part of this package.
sudo apt install gnome-shell-extensions
This is only valid for GNOME 3.36 or higher version available in Ubuntu 20.04 and higher versions.
Start the extensions app and you should see Ubuntu Dock under the Built-in extensions section. You just have to toggle the button off to disable the dock.
Disable Ubuntu Dock
The change is immediate and you’ll see that dock disappears immediately.
You can bring it back the same way. Just toggle it on and it will appear immediately.
So easy to hide the dock in Ubuntu 20.04, isn’t it?
Alternative Method: Disable Ubuntu dock via command line
If you are a terminal enthusiast and prefer to do things in the terminal, I have good news for you. You can disable the Ubuntu dock from command line.
In the terminal, use the following command to list all the available GNOME extensions:
gnome-extensions list
This will show you an output similar to this:
List GNOME Extensions
The default Ubuntu dock extension is ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com. You can disable it using this command:
gnome-extensions disable ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com
There will be no output message displayed on the screen but you’ll notice that the launcher or dock disappears from the left side.
If you want, you can enable it again using the same command as above but with enable option this time:
gnome-extensions enable ubuntu-dock@ubuntu.com
Conclusion
There are ways to disable the dock in Ubuntu 18.04 as well. However, it may lead to unwarranted situations if you try to remove it in 18.04. Removing this package also removes the ubuntu-desktop package and you may end up with a system with broken functionalities like no application menu.
This is the reason why I won’t recommend removing it on Ubuntu 18.04.
Brief: Jitsi Meet is an open-source video conferencing service that you can use for free to organize online classes, conferences and meet ups. You can also host Jitsi on your own server.
The remote work trend grew significantly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. No matter whether you like it or not, video conferencing is proving to be a great solution for both individuals and businesses.
One of the video conferencing services that got insanely popular in last few months is Zoom. However, there are plenty of security and privacy concerns about Zoom video calls.
So, it’s important to choose a secure and easy-to-use video conferencing app that gets the work done. I’m sure there are numerous alternatives, but here — let’s take a look at an open-source option Jitsi Meet.
Jitsi Meet: Free to Use, Open-Source Video Conferencing Service
Jitsi Meet is a part of Jitsi, which is a collection of open-source voice, video conferencing, and instant messaging services.
The Jitsi Meet allows you to host group video calls, i.e. video conferencing in seconds. You don’t even need an account with them.
For desktop, it is browser-based and does not offer a native desktop app. I think that’s not an issue because installing an app is probably an overhead for some.
And, for smartphones, it does offer both iOS and Android apps that you can install from the App Store and the Play Store respectively. In addition to these, you can also find it on the open source Android app store F-Droid.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can deploy Jitsi Meet on your server. This is ideal for businesses who don’t want to use a third-party server even if it is from the developers of the software.
Features of Jitsi Meet
Jitsi Meet is simple and yet feature-rich. Here’s the set of features that you’ll get:
Does not need user registration
Edit documents together using Etherpad
Gives you the ability to self-host
Supports Slack and Rocket.chat integration
Offers password protection if needed
End-to-End encryption (beta)
Background blur (beta)
Recording option
Live stream support
YouTube video sharing
View the network status of users
Google and Microsoft Calendar Integration
Chat feature
Screen sharing
Supports International dial-in connection to join
The session exists for you to continue the video call later without needing the meeting code.
Low-bandwidth mode option
For obvious reasons, you will find fewer options on the mobile app.
Do note that end-to-end encryption is still in beta. But, even without it, Jitsi Meet should be a privacy-friendly and secure video conferencing solution.
On mobile, I just wish if it had the screen sharing option — except that, everything else works just fine.
How To Use Jitsi Meet?
There’s nothing extra that you need to do in order to make it work on Linux. You just need to head over to their official Jitsi Meet instance and then type in the name of the meeting to create or join.
As you can see in the screenshot above, you can also find a list of your recent meeting rooms so that you don’t have to type or create the meeting room again.
If you’re creating it, it’s best to go with a unique name and also add a password protection to it if you do not need anyone else to join in accidentally.
If you’re joining someone else’s meeting, simply ask for the meeting name or the link of the meeting to be able to easily join using your desktop or smartphone.
It works the same way on desktop minus some options. I’ve been using it for a while and I’ve also encouraged and trained my dad’s employer (our neighborhood school) to use Jitsi Meet to host online classes.
Even though it has a limit of up to 75 participants, it holds up pretty well and works perfectly fine.
Jitsi Meet is an amazing open-source video conferencing application. It’s a privacy-friendly alternative to Zoom and other video calling services of that kind.
If you have used Photoshop for sometime, you’ll notice that the GIMP has different settings, different keyboard shortcuts and layout than Photoshop.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. After all, both are two different software, and they don’t have to look the same.
However, people who are used to Photoshop find it difficult to forget their hard learned muscle memory while switching to GIMP. This could frustrate some because using a new interface means learning numerous keyboard shortcuts and spending time on finding which tool is located where.
To help such Photoshop to GIMP switchers, Diolinux has introduced a tool that mimics Adobe Photoshop in GIMP.
PhotoGIMP: Give Adobe Photoshop like look and feel to GIMP in Linux
PhotoGIMP is not a standalone graphics software. It is a patch for GIMP 2.10. You need to have GIMP installed on your system to use PhotoGIMP.
When you apply the PhotoGIMP patch, it changes GIMP layout to mimic Adobe Photoshop.
Installs hundreds of new fonts by default
Installs new Python filters such as “heal selection”
Adds new splash screen
Adds new default settings to maximize space on the canvas
Adds keyboard shortcuts similar to Adobe Photoshop
PhotoGIMP also adds new icon and name from custom .desktop file. Let’s see how to use it.
Installing PhotoGIMP on Linux [for intermediate to expert users]
PhotoGIMP is essentially a patch. You download and extract the zip file in Linux. You’ll find the following hidden folders in the extracted folder:
icons: which have a new PhotoGIMP icon
.local: which contain the personalized .desktop file so that you see PhotoGIMP instead of GIMP in system menu
.var : the main folder containing the patch for GIMP
Warning: I suggest making backup of GIMP config files so that you can revert if you don’t like PhotoGIMP. Simply copy the content of GIMP config files into some other location.
At present, PhotoGIMP is mainly compatible with GIMP installed via Flatpak. If you installed GIMP using Flatpak, you can simply copy-paste these hidden folders in your home directory and it will convert your GIMP into Adobe Photoshop like settings.
However, if you installed GIMP via apt or snap or your distribution’s package manager, you’ll have to find the GIMP config folder and paste the content of the .var directory of PhotoGIMP. When asked, opt for merge option and replace existing files of the same name.
I installed GIMP in Ubuntu 20.04 using apt. The location for GIMP config file for me was ~/.config/GIMP/2.10. I copied the content of the .var/app/org.gimp.GIMP/config/GIMP/2.10 directory here and started GIMP to see the PhotoGIMP splash.
Here’s the interface of GIMP after being patched by PhotoGIMP:
I tried a couple of Photoshop keyboard shortcuts to check the changes it made and it seemed to be working.
This is not the first project of this kind. Some years ago, we had a similar project called Gimpshop. The Gimpshop project hasn’t seen any development in past several years and it is safe to assume that the project is dead. There is a website in the name of Gimpshop but that’s from imposters trying to cash in on Gimpshop name.
I am not an Adobe Photoshop user. I am not even a GIMP expert this is why the GIMP tutorials on It’s FOSS are covered by Dimitrios.
For this reason, I cannot comment on how useful the PhotoGIMP project is. If you are familiar with both software, you should be able to judge it better than me.
If you try PhotoGIMP, do share your experience with it and let us know if it is worth the installation or not.
Customization is one of the main reasons why I use Linux. There is no end to the kind of customization you can do to your desktop Linux. You can change icons, themes, change fonts, change terminals, add screenlets, indicator applets, extensions and what not.
We have covered numerous desktop customization tips and tricks on It’s FOSS. In this one, I’ll show you how to make Ubuntu look like macOS.
Many people use macOS because of its simplistic and elegant look. You may disagree with it but it remains a popular opinion. Even there are Linux distributions that have macOS like look and feel.
One of the readers requested us to show how to make Ubuntu look like macOS and hence we’ve created this tutorial. In fact, this is a good example to show the customization capability of desktop Linux.
No, you don’t have to install a new distribution just for customizing the looks. You can do some tweaking on your own and give your system mac-like looks.
How to give your Ubuntu Linux a macOS makeover
Although this article suggests it’s for Ubuntu, you can follow it for other distributions with GNOME desktop with little or no changes. Please make sure to check your desktop environment.
To be honest, even if you are using some other desktop environment, you can still take some hints about what changes to do. But you have to make sure to follow the steps using your DE’s tools.
After you enable GNOME Extension, you need to install “user themes” extension from Gnome extensions or just go to this link and click on the switch to turn it on.
Since the focus is on making GNOME look like macOS, you should choose a macOS like theme. There are plenty of themes which are macOS like.
Download a theme of your choice
You can go to Gnome-look site, and look for themes for GTK3. Don’t worry if you see “Pling” written on the Gnome-look website, they both are from same providers.
You can choose any theme you want. Here are some macOS themes I think you should take a look at:
I shall be using “McMojave” in this article. You can choose any theme you want. You will find dropdown download button on the right side of website, click on it.
McMojave Dark Theme
Here you may find various “.tar.xz” files. These different files contain same theme with small differences. Like in “McMojave” we have variations like dark and light theme. You can try them all, or just pick anyone you like from the carousel given in middle.
Set downloaded theme
Extract the downloaded theme and copy this extracted theme folder to .local/share/themes folder.
Open GNOME Tweak tool and change the Application and Shell theme. As soon as you change the themes, you can see those three yellow, green and red buttons, and that Apple logo on upper left corner. You can also notice come changes on panel items.
McMojave GTK and Shell theme
Step 2: Install macOS like icons
The next step in this macOS makeover is to use macOS like icons.
Download icon set
Here are some icon sets I suggest that you can download from Gnome-look website:
I shall be using “McMojave-circle” in this article, feel free to use any icons you like.
Just like the theme, you can download it from “download” dropdown button from right side. Here you may also find various different versions of same icons.
Mcmojave Circle
Set icon
Now set the downloaded icon. For that extarct the download folder and copy it to .icons folder in your home directory. See this article on installing iconthemes in Ubuntu.
This is what this icon looks like:
McMojave Circle Icons Look
Step 3: Add macOS like dock
Without macOS like dock, your Ubuntu will not look like macOS. There are various docks available for Linux. I like Dash to Dock and I am going to use it here.
Dash to Dock is a GNOME extension. By now you are familar with GNOME Extensions. Just go to this link and click on toggle button to install it. Your native dock will be automatically replaced with dash-to-dock.
You can change settings by right clicking on “show applications” button (rightmost menu button), and selecting “Dash to dock settings”.
Dash To Dock
Step 4: Use macOS wallpaper
Most of the complicated stuff are done. Now it’s time to set macOS wallpaper. You can download macOS default wallpapers from the link below:
I shall be using “Mojave Day” wallpaper. Right click on the downloaded image and select ‘Set As Wallpaper’ option to change the wallpaper.
After setting this wallpaper, this is how my system looks like:
Change the lock screen Wallpaper
The lock screen background option is removed from the settings of Ubuntu 20.04. Now it uses blurred desktop wallpaper as the background of lock screen.
For several years, the primary system font in macOS is ‘San Francisco’. But this San Francisco font is not public domain but proprietary like so many other things in the Apple ecosystem. For this reason, you cannot use this font.
What you can do is to use an open source font that looks similar to the San Francisco fonts. I recommend using Roboto font by Google or Source Sans Pro by Adobe.
Installing fonts is straightforward in Ubuntu. Download the zip files of the fonts and just double-click on the ttf files in the extracted folder. It will give you the option to install the fonts one by one.
If you want to save time and install all the fonts at once, extract all fonts in it to the “.fonts” directory in your home folder (~/.fonts).
Installing fonts
Once you have installed the fonts, you can change the system wide font using GNOME Tweaks tool.
Set Fonts
Bonus Tip: Spotlight like app launcher (if you want to go the extra mile)
If you are a fan of macOS Spotlight launcher, you may have something similar on Linux also. My favorite package for getting this kind of launcher is “Albert“.
After installing; open “Albert” and set hotkey (key combination you want for opening launcher) and you are good to go. I think in macOS, the Command+Space is to launch Spotlight. You may set Super+Space keyboard shortcut in Ubuntu.
You will get many themes in built, in picture below I’ve used “Spotlight dark”.
Albert won’t be able to launch apps directly, you have to give it permissions for where it can look for search results.
Albert Settings
After setting up, this is how it looks:
Albert dark theme
This is how my Ubuntu 20.04 looks like after making all the customizations. Does it look like macOS? You be the judge.
macOS Theme
Ubuntu with macOS makeover
So, this is how you can make your GNOME desktop look like macOS. As I said in the beginning, this is a good example of Linux desktop’s customization capability.
If you have any new ideas or have any queries; the comment section is all yours.
Written by Sumeet with additional inputs from Abhishek Prakash.
The other day I was updating my Ubuntu system. I prefer the command line way of updating the system by using the combination of apt update and apt upgrade.
I encountered a strange update error in Ubuntu this time. It showed me that there are packages that can be upgraded but it could not upgrade those packages because of an error that read:
Let me show you how to handle this error in Ubuntu and other Linux distributions like Linux Mint, Debian, Kali Linux etc.
Fixing “The following packages have been kept back” Error
The fix for this error is really simple. All you have to do is to use the apt install command with package or packages in the question:
sudo apt install package_name
If you use apt install on an already installed package, it gets updated. In my case, fwupd package was kept back. So, here’s what I tried:
sudo apt install fwupd
As you can see in the below screenshot, it suggests two packages that will be installed and then those packages are installed as well.
Explained: Reason for the “The following packages have been kept back” error and how it was fixed
The above suggested fix should solve the problem for you. But are you curious what caused the error and how was it fixed? Let me explain that to you.
Normally, when you run the sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade commands, it updates all the installed packages to their available newer versions.
However, if the dependencies of an installed package have been changed such that it requires installation of new packages, the installed package won’t be upgraded with the system update and you’ll see package kept back error.
In the example here, when fwupd was originally installed, tpm2-tools and tpm2-abrmd were not installed and fwupd did not depend on it. Later, a newer version of fwupd required the installation of these new packages.
This is a mechanism in Debian’s APT package manager that informs you that an already installed package now needs to install more new package as dependency. When you manually and individually update these packages, you see what new packages are going to be installed and the error is not shown anymore.
You may also use apt full-upgrade/apt-get dist-upgrade instead of apt install package_name in this case but I would not recommend that. The apt full-upgrade may automatically remove packages that it deems unnecessary while handling dependencies. This may lead to unwanted situations.
Did you fix this error?
Did this solution help you in getting rid of the “packages have been kept back” error? If yes, I welcome your quick ‘thank you’ message in the comment section. If not, let me know and I’ll try to help you out further.
Getting work done is super important. If you have a planned list of things to do, it makes your work easier. So, it’s no surprise why we’re talking about to-do list apps on Linux here.
Sure, you can easily utilize some of the best note taking apps on Linux for this purpose but using a dedicated to-do app helps you stay focused on work.
You might be aware of some online services for that— but how about some cool Linux apps that you can use to create a to-do list? In this article, I’m going to highlight the best to-do list apps available for Linux.
Best To-Do List Applications For Desktop Linux Users
I have tested these apps on Pop!_OS. I have also tried to mention the installation steps for the mentioned apps but you should check your distribution’s package manager for details.
Note: The list is in no particular order of ranking
1. Planner
Planner is probably the best to-do list app I’ve across for Linux distributions.
The best thing is — it is a free and open-source project. It provides a beautiful user interface that aims to give you a meaningful user experience. In other words, it’s simple and yet attractive.
Not to forget, you get a gorgeous dark mode. As you can see in the screenshot above, you can also choose to add emojis to add some fun to your serious work tasks.
Overall, it looks clean while offering features like the ability to add repeating tasks, creating separate folder/projects, sync with todoist etc.
Yet another impressive open-source to-do app for Linux which is based on todotxt. Even though it isn’t available for Ubuntu 20.04 (or later) at the time of writing this, you can still use it on machines with Ubuntu 19.10 or older.
In addition to the ability to adding tasks, you can also specify the duration/interval of your break. So, with this to-do app, you will not just end up completing the tasks but also being productive without stressing out.
The user interface is plain and simple with no fancy features. We also have a separate article on GoFor It — if you’d like to know more about it.
If you’re using Ubuntu or other Linux distribution with GNOME desktop envioenment, you should already have it installed. Just search for “To Do” and you should find it.
It’s a simple to-do app which presents the list in the form of cards and you can have separate set of tasks every card. You can add a schedule to the tasks as well. It supports extensions with which you can enable the support for todo.txt files and also integration with todoist.
A command-line based open-source to-do list program “Taskwarrior” is an impressive tool if you don’t need a Graphical User Interface (GUI). It also provides cross-platform support (Windows and macOS).
It’s quite easy to add and list tasks along with a due date as shown in the screenshot above.
To make the most out of it, I would suggest you to follow the official documentation to know how to use it and the options/features that it offers.
How to install it?
You can find it in your respective package managers on any Linux distribution. To get it intalled in Ubuntu, you will have to type the following in the terminal:
Task Coach is yet another open-source to-do list app that offers quite a lot of essential features. You can add sub-tasks, description to your task, add dates, notes, and a lot more things. It also supports tree view for the task lists you add and manage.
It’s a good thing to see that it offers cross-platform support (Windows, macOS, and Android).
Overall, it’s easy to use with tons of options and works well.
How to install it?
It offers both .deb and .rpm packages for Ubuntu and Fedora. In addition to that, you can also install it using PPA.
A very simple open-source to-do list app that lets you utilize todo.txt file as well. You may not get a lot of options to choose from — but you get a couple of useful settings to tweak.
It may not be the most actively developed to-do list app — but it does the work expected.
How to install Todour?
If you’re using Manjaro Linux, you can utilize pamac to install Todour from AUR.
Unfortunately, it does not provide any .deb or .rpm package for Ubuntu/Fedora. So, you’ll have to build it from source or just explore more about it on its GitHub page.
