The Unity desktop was quite a big step forward in usability and design back when it came out (at least in my opinion), but by the end of the decade, the reskinned Gnome 3 environment became quite dated compared to the competitors. There are things in both macOS (window decorations) and Windows 10 that I like way more, but I also want to keep Ubuntu for the speed and stability.
Using your Android phone as a webcam for Ubuntu 20.04 with DroidCam
During the current pandemic, the home office suddenly became the preferred mode of work. This, of course, caused a huge increase in webcam prices and shortages in supply. I ran into the same problem and my laptop camera was no viable alternative either with its subpar quality. Luckily, there is a way to use my better-than-average phone camera for conference calls with the desktop computer running Ubuntu.
Creating an installer for Windows from your JAR file to easily distribute your Java project
Your first Java project finally runs from the command line and you want to share it with your friends to show the spectacular progress you made. All you need to do is to create a compressed jar file and send it to them, right? Not quite as in case they have no Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed or have a different version from the one you used, all they will get is a criptic error message.
Setting up your AMD video card in Ubuntu 20.04
Ubuntu 20.04 just arrived with fractional scaling of the desktop available from the settings. Yes, you have to turn it on first to be able to choose fractional scaling of 125% or 150%, but finally you don't have to edit gnome settings to do this. Also, this time it might work as intended too...
Exporting to WebP image format from GIMP in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
WebP is an image format employing both lossy and lossless compression currently developed by Google. It is great if you want that slight advantage when you look at your SEO scores, but not so great (yet) for Facebook share images. The problem is, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS comes with GIMP 2.8 by default and this version cannot export to the WebP format.
Fix AMDGPU driver problems for your AMD video card in Ubuntu 18.04 after upgrading to a new kernel
Your AMD video card will probably work flawlessly out of the box without installing any additional drivers in Ubuntu. However if you are unlucky like me and experience random crashes, you might want to give the official drivers a try.
Force browsers to load the latest CSS and JS versions in WordPress
During the development of a website, the caching of .css and .js files can be a problem, especially when dealing with less tech-savvy clients who do not understand that the changes you made might not be visible to them due to their browser caching previously downloaded content.
Make Ubuntu beautiful!
As I've already complained before, I'm really tired of the default Ubuntu desktop. Yes, it is practical and easy to use, but it's basically unchanged ever since... forever. Maybe we can do something about it if we try hard enough.
Setting up Git for Ubuntu with autocompletion
If you ever used any Linux distribution, you are most likely familiar with the default Bash completion functionality. You start typing a command, hit Tab, and the command gets automatically completed. If there are multiple commands that match what you typed so far, you can hit Tab two times, and Bash displays a list of all possible completions. The same works for variables and filenames, but not for the many commands Git provides.
Customizing the Ubuntu 18.04 login/lock screen with LightDM
Ubuntu was once the pretty alternative to Windows with its clean aesthetics and (mostly) uniform user interface - at least for those who couln't afford to buy a Mac. Ever since Windows 10 was released, Ubuntu seemed to fall behind in looks. Basically almost nothing changed in the last 10 years even though Unity was replaced by Gnome 3 on the desktop.