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Play Roblox on Linux without Wine, using Sober

Post published:2026-10-05

Roblox does not officially support Linux, but Linux users can run using Sober, an unofficial third-party ‘port’ that works without Wine (hence the name). I know; this isn’t a ‘game’ most of you are itching to play. Roblox users are mostly under 16, access it via mobiles and have an unhealthy interest in Robux, the in-game virtual currency. But you may – as I – have snotty relatives who demand to play it on your laptop because their tablet needs charging… Performance ‘the same or better’ than Windows Sober is a ‘specialised runtime just for Roblox’s code’ made by the Vinegar project, […]

You’re reading Play Roblox on Linux without Wine, using Sober, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Development has ended on Orion for Linux

Post published:2026-10-04

Kagi has announced it is ending development of its Orion web browser for Linux to focus on the macOS and iOS versions. A native GTK Linux port of Orion was announced in 2025 and a public beta launched earlier this year. The goal had been to offer feature parity with the macOS version. While recent updates have edged closer, it seems that’s where it’ll remain – for now. Kagi will make Orion for Linux – and the WIP Orion for Windows port – open-source so that the wider FOSS community to step up to “carry them forward”. “Orion is built […]

You’re reading Development has ended on Orion for Linux, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

A 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 now costs 50% more than it did at launch

Post published:2026-10-03

Raspberry Pi single board computer in front of a graph trending up and a hand holding cash. Raspberry Pi has announced further price increases for its single-board computers driven, of course, by the ongoing cost of memory components. The cost of a 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 or Raspberry Pi 5 jumps by $12.50 (£12) from 1 October, 2026: Model Launch price Old price New price Raspberry Pi 4 (2GB) $45 $55 $67.50 (£64.80) Raspberry Pi 5 (2GB) $50 $65 $77.50 (£74.40) For context, the Raspberry Pi 4 2GB model launched at $45 in 2019. It was later reduced to $35, before increasing back to $45 in 2021. It then rose by $10 in February to $55. At […]

You’re reading A 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 now costs 50% more than it did at launch, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Linux App Release Roundup (September 2026)

Post published:2026-10-02

Autumnal vibes may be blowing in (for the top-half of the globe, at least) but Linux app developers aren’t minded to hunker down. Aa varied set of Linux app updates were released in September 2026. Big releases to merit a full write up included the redesigned Audacity 4.0 and gThumb 4.0 releases (the former overdue, the latter looking like a new app entirely). I also covered Calibre’s wave of (peculiar) AI feature integrations, if reading books isn’t what you want to do. A pair of (count ’em) Firefox updates arrived, though it was the rollout of the Nova theme in […]

You’re reading Linux App Release Roundup (September 2026), a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.

Speech Synthesis on Linux: Adding a Voice to Scripts and Systems

Post published:2026-10-02

by George Whittaker

Linux users have long had a pragmatic relationship with text-to-speech. The classic open-source engines have been available for years, wired into accessibility tools and the occasional script, dependable but unmistakably robotic. They do the job where the job is simply to convert text to some kind of speech, but the mechanical output has kept them out of anything where the voice actually matters. The arrival of high-quality speech synthesis delivered over an API changes what is possible, letting Linux users add genuinely natural voices to scripts, services, and applications without hosting a heavyweight model themselves.

The Familiar Trade-Off

Anyone who has used the traditional Linux speech engines knows the trade-off. They are free, local, and scriptable, which fits the Linux ethos perfectly, but the voices are clearly synthetic. For accessibility and for utilitarian tasks where intelligibility is all that counts, that has been acceptable. For anything user-facing where the quality of the voice shapes the experience, it has not.

The alternative of running a modern, high-quality speech model locally is possible but comes with real costs: significant computational requirements, model management, and the ongoing maintenance of a demanding piece of infrastructure. For many use cases, particularly on servers, embedded systems, or ordinary workstations, that overhead is disproportionate to the need. This is the gap that an API-based approach fills, offering the quality of a large modern model without the burden of hosting one.

The API Approach on Linux

Delivering speech synthesis over an API fits naturally into how Linux users already build things. Rather than installing and maintaining a model, you make a request to a service and receive audio back, which you can then play, save, or pipe into whatever comes next. A text to speech api turns text into natural-sounding audio through a simple network call, which means a script or service can produce high-quality speech with nothing more than the ability to make an HTTP request and handle the response.

This composability is what makes it appealing in a Linux context. The request can come from a shell script, a systemd service, a cron job, a Python program, or any application that can talk to a network endpoint. The returned audio slots into the familiar toolchain of files, pipes, and media players. For users accustomed to assembling capabilities from small, cooperating parts, a speech API is just another well-behaved component that happens to produce audio, and it drops into existing workflows without disturbing them.

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Ubuntu 26.10 Beta released with Linux 7.3 & GNOME 51

Post published:2026-10-02

A laptop on a desk shows Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray desktop The beta release of Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stringray) is now available for download – a week later than planned. Ubuntu 26.10 Beta runs on the Linux 7.3 kernel (release candidate) and ships the GNOME 51 desktop. Lower-level changes include a complete set of Rust core utilities and better handling of low-memory situations. Beta builds are not final or stable, but generally more reliable than earlier snapshots. Users and developers alike can test the new release and report any bugs they find so any fixes can land in time for the final, stable release of Ubuntu 26.10, out on 15 October […]

You’re reading Ubuntu 26.10 Beta released with Linux 7.3 & GNOME 51, a blog post from OMG! Ubuntu. Do not reproduce elsewhere without permission.