If you want to relax or need to concentrate on a task at your computer then listening to ambient sounds can often help — and the best Linux app for this task just got a big update!
Blanket is a free, open-source GTK4/libadwaita app that comes packaged with a variety of ambient looping sounds. These range from classic nature tracks (rain, wind, waves, birds, etc) through to environmental buzz (coffee shop, city, train, etc).
You can play just a single sound or layer several sounds simultaneously by adjusting the volume level for each preset individually so everything sits right aurally. The UI has a clean new look that enhances the user experience.
Blanket 0.7.0 – a clean new look
Once you craft the ideal soundscape, you’re able to store it as a user preset. This allows you to return to it at will for your immediate serenity needs.
Indeed, Blanket does provide basic pink noise and white noise as well — the ultimate benchmark in brainwave adjusting static. Additionally, the app also enables you to upload your own sound files.
Blanket version 0.7.0 was launched this past weekend. This version brings significant changes to the UI to provide a sleeker, more relaxed, and to-date user interface that fits perfectly with the existing trends.
Furthermore, the internal pink noise sample has been improved, and an additional sample for the Train preset is now included.
The update introduces some welcome features, like the ability to prevent your laptop from sleeping when playback is ongoing and, on the flip side, to automatically halt playback when your system switches to power saving mode.
In this release of Blanket, enhancements were made to its integration with MPRIS (for Ubuntu users, this is presented through the playback control applet in the message tray). The 0.7.0 version of Blanket brings support for play, pause and stop functions, and allows navigation through saved presets using next and previous controls.
This is a brief overview of this update.
Download the Blanket Noise/Sounds App
Does that sound agreeable?
You can download Blanket on Flathub. Please note, this variant of Blanket requires the GNOME 46 runtime to function. If you haven’t installed it yet, it will be required to download.
In case you’re an Ubuntu 24.04 user (too advanced, aren’t you?), there is an unofficial Blanket PPA provided by apandada1 that affords ready-to-install versions of the latest release, and presumably future updates.
However, due to certain dependancies, the most recent release isn’t compatible with older versions of Ubuntu from this PPA. But they do provide older builds. If you wish to use the most recent version (as showcased in this article), consider using the official Flathub build instead.