All articles by Joey Sneddon

Joey Sneddon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of OMG! Ubuntu. Since 2009, he has reported on Ubuntu and the wider open-source and Linux ecosystem, covering every major Ubuntu release since 9.04 to the present. With 16 years of hands-on experience reporting on Ubuntu and Linux, his coverage has been cited by leading technology news sites including Ars Technica, Engadget and Forbes.

Ubuntu logo, heart logo, and the Matrix chat platform logo

Confirmed: Ubuntu Dev Discussions Moving to Matrix

Ubuntu’s key developers have agreed to switch to Matrix as the primary platform for real-time development communications involving the distro. From March, Matrix will replace IRC as the place where critical Ubuntu development conversations, requests, […]

29 January 2025

Pinta 3.0 Beta Released with New GTK4/Libadwaita UI

A new beta release of open source graphics editing app Pinta is available for testing. Pinta 3.0 (beta) gives fans of this cross-platform raster image editor, which is directly inspired by the iconic Paint.NET Windows […]

28 January 2025

New Pebble Smartwatch Planned After Google Open Sources the OS

Did you ever own (or covet) one of those e-ink Pebble smartwatches of yore? Well, good news if you did: Google today open-sourced the PebbleOS operating system it used (minus proprietary bits) having acquired Pebble’s […]

27 January 2025

Varia Download Manager Adds yt-dlp Support

A new version of the Varia download manager was released at the weekend – an update described by its developers as probably the “biggest since the first release”. I’ve written about Varia before and, as […]

26 January 2025
Laptop on a desk with Ubuntu 24.04 running on it

Ubuntu 24.04.2 Arrives Feb 13 with Linux Kernel 6.11

Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS is scheduled for release on February 13th – in time for Valentines Day, aww. Canonical’s Florent Jacquet shares the date on the Ubuntu Developer mailing list today along with a note to […]

24 January 2025
Vivaldi web browser logo

Vivaldi 7.1 Delivers Speed Dial Buffs, New Search Engine

Vivaldi web browser has just released its first major update of the year – a corker it is, too! Fans of the Chromium-based browser—though Vivaldi Technologies doesn’t appear to be part of the new Linux […]

23 January 2025

Ignition is a Modern Startup Applications Utility for Linux

I won’t lie: it’s easy to add or remove startup apps, commands, and scripts in Ubuntu. Just open the Startup Applications tool, click ‘Add’, and away you go. But while Ubuntu’s utility is adequate, it’s […]

22 January 2025
New VirtualBox Logo

VirtualBox Update Adds Support for Linux Kernel 6.13

VirtualBox 7.1.6 is out, the third maintenance release to the VirtualBox 7.1 stable series first released in September of last year. Headline offering in this update is initial support for the recently released Linux kernel […]

22 January 2025
Wine project logo in an orange picture frame on a yellow background.

Wine 10.0 Release Brings New Drivers, Features & Changes

A fresh stable release of Wine — the open-source compatibility layer that makes it possible to run Windows apps and games on Linux and macOS — has been uncorked. More than 6,000 thousand changes were distilled […]

21 January 2025

Ubuntu Devs Debate Moving from IRC to Matrix

Ubuntu is mulling a switch to Matrix from IRC to handle real-time discussions from its key development teams. Canonical’s Robie Basak has begun a discussion on the Ubuntu Developer Mailing list regarding a potential switch, […]

21 January 2025

Refine (Advanced GNOME Settings Apps) Adds More Options

A clutch of new customisation and configuration options were added to Refine, a GTK4/libadwaita app in the vein of GNOME Tweaks (but better), over the weekend. Refine is compelling due to its goal of offering […]

20 January 2025

Linux Kernel 6.13 Released with Big Changes

The first new kernel release of the year has arrived — yes, Linux 6.13 has gone stable. Linux kernel 6.13 adds, as ever, a vast array of improvements, from an updated Raspberry Pi graphics driver […]

20 January 2025

Linux Mint 22.1 Released, This is What’s New

A major new release of Linux Mint is now available to download. Linux Mint 22.1 is the first update in the Linux Mint 22.x series and, like that version, is built on top of Ubuntu […]

16 January 2025
Padlock on computer keys.

Ubuntu Patches Major Security Vulnerabilities in Rsync

Doing anything right now? Oh, you’re reading this – appreciated – but once you’re done go and install the pending update to Rsync, pushed out to all supported versions of Ubuntu desktop and server this […]

15 January 2025

GNOME 48 Expands Core Apps With New Audio Player

When GNOME 48 is released in March it will debut with a brand-new audio player. Per a recent merge request, Decibels graduates from GNOME Incubator to GNOME Core Apps as part of GNOME 48, making […]

14 January 2025

Flatpak 1.16 Improves USB Access, Wayland Integration & Accessibility

A new stable release of Flatpak is out with a wealth of improvements in tow. Flatpak 1.16.0 is the first stable release in the new 1.16.x series, coming more than two years after the Flatpak […]

14 January 2025

Enlightenment 0.27 Released with Bug Fixes, New Modules

Enlightenment 0.27, released this week, brings a wealth of incremental improvements to users of this unique desktop environment. Though not as well known or widely used as GNOME, Xfce, KDE Plasma, et al, Enlightenment (often […]

14 January 2025

Tiling Shell’s Newest Feature Speeds Up Window Snapping

Window snapping GNOME extension Tiling Shell —not that you need an introduction to it by now— adds a nifty new feature in its latest update. Tiling Shell v16 introduces Windows Suggestions, a feature the add-on’s […]

13 January 2025