Ubuntu essentials
Ubuntu is great, but here are some essentials and tips to get started and fix some issues that I regularly encounter. This post is from Ubuntu < 17.04, when Ubuntu shipped with the Unity desktop. Since 17.10+, Ubuntu ships with Gnome desktop, so some of this post is not relevant or out-of-date–check my notes about Gnome on Ubuntu for tips.
Install essentials
The quick and easiest method to install packages is to use the command line, sudo apt install packagename
.
Otherwise, search the Software Center.
- Tweak Tool is handy to change the look & feel of the desktop, exposing many settings that are normally buried deep in config files. On Gnome (17.10+)
gnome-tweak-tool
or Unity (<17.04)unity-tweak-tool
. - Play MP3s: many common media codec are not free and open source, requiring complicated licensing. Thus Ubuntu does not ship with them. There is an option to add them during install, but I don’t since it complicates the process. Install manually using
ubuntu-restricted-extras
(note there is a different package name for each desktop and version, so confirm by searching on packages). - Play videos: VLC, get a better video player right away,
vlc
. - Play DVDs: DVDs can’t be played until you install some non-free stuff. The codecs are not ready to go in the main repositories, so the easiest way seems to be to build it yourself:
sudo apt install libdvd-pkg
thensudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg
. You may also need to add these packagessudo apt install libdvdnav4 libdvdread4
- Caffeine, turns off screen lock so that your screen doesn’t turn off while you are watching youtube! On Unity look for
caffeine-indicator
in the Software center. On Gnome, use the Caffeine extension. - Text editor: tweak the settings of Gedit, and add Visual Studio Code or Atom.
- Git:
sudo apt install git
do it! - Simple firewall:
gufw
. Check out some more extreme security suggestions. - Image editing: GIMP,
gimp
(the first time you open it, click “Windows” > “Single window mode” for a more usable experience). If you use raw images, check out Darktable. To play with HDR,luminance-hdr
. - Ebook manager: Calibre, if you have ebooks, this helps you manage them and connect with reading devices. It also has great built in editing and conversion tools.
- KeePass2 (
keepass2
) or KeePassX for passwords. build-essential
adds Make and compilers necessary for building a lot of software.curl
is often to grab web stuff on the command line.- A few extra fonts:
fonts-firacode
fonts-noto
- Firefox extensions: uBlock Origin, Facebook Container, Multi-account Containers, Side-view, Notes, OneTab
- Disk utilities: Etcher for burning USBs, and GParted for formatting.
Languages
- Python: Ubuntu comes with a system Python version installed. If you want to work with Python, its a good idea to install a more up-to-date version for your user account. I suggest Anaconda, a scientific Python distribution with comes packages with everything you need, including iPython and Jupyter Notebook. Then set up Jupyter with Py 2, 3, and R.
- Java:
default-jre
ordefault-jdk
(this tends to be up-to-date, some apps may require an old version, search packages for find them). - Ruby: probably best to use RVM (see note), although you can use the repository (
ruby-full
), but it is slightly out of date. - Processing3: download
- Arduino: download
- NodeJS: use nvm (this seems to be the best method; install nvm, then
nvm install --lts
), or official NodeSource ppa, or repository versionnodejs
(which maybe a bit behind)
Older suggestions for Ubuntu < 17.04 with Unity
Tweak settings
Open the Settings app:
- Appearance > Behavior > set options to Show the menus in the window’s title bar and Always displayed.
- Screen Display > set the Scale if everything looks tiny on your High DPI screen. Start with this setting before tweaking other scaling options.
- Use Unity Tweak to customize everything else…
If you like the night time color shift, check out Redshift.
Mouse doesn’t seem quite right
If its a logitech mouse, install solaar
with Unity/gnome extensions, sudo apt-get install solaar-gnome3
.
Then unplug the mouse and restart the system.
Or try lomoco
to manually configure.
gvfsd-smb-browse uses 100% of one CPU core
This is an odd bug that has effected people for a long time, but hasn’t been fixed, particularly on 16.04.
If you notice your machine heating up, check you system monitor and stop
gvsd-smb-browse process, don’t kill it.
There is 100 fixes available online, but all are sort of sketchy and odd.
The best option: install samaba, sudo apt-get install samba
.
It seems Ubuntu doesn’t have the full package, and once you install it, the bug seems to go away.