My Basic Ubuntu Post-Install Tasks

A large part of the beauty of Linux is the freedom to customize the desktop to your liking.  While each distribution does its best to tweak the experience to suit its users, there are always (at least) a few things that I change on almost every installation.  This is a quick list of the common changes I perform to make myself at home.

Note: I use Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions most of the time, so for the most part the directions below will include software included in Ubuntu software repositories or directions for how to install/configure using Ubuntu commands and tools.  Also, these directions are for Gnome or Gnome-based desktop environments.  I'll add a KDE-based article (at some point...)

Daily Workflow

First, we'll install some basic tools I use every day:  aptitude (a command-line package manager alternative to apt-get,) vim (command-line text editor on steroids,) curl (a command-line downloading tool,) build-essential (a meta-package of many tools required to compile software from source,) and some of my favorite monitoring tools (htop/atop/iotop.)

sudo apt-get install aptitude vim curl build-essential htop atop iotop

Internet & Graphics

Next we'll add some internet, graphics, and audio/video tools: Chromium (an internet browser similar to Google Chrome,) megatools (command-line tools to interact with the Mega.nz file-hosting service,) VLC (a stellar cross-platform media player,) and some extra media plugins.

sudo aptitude install chromium-browser megatools vlc ffmpeg libav-tools rtmpdump

If you'd prefer the "real" Google Chrome instead of the open-source Chromium browser installed above, run these commands:

wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo gdebi google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

If you want to download videos from the world's most popular site, download Youtube-DL (official site) with curl and mark the script as executable.

sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

Tired of the built-in wallpapers included with your distribution?  Then Peter Levi's Variety Wallpaper Changer is a must-have.  It grabs high-quality wallpapers from a variety (see what I did there?) of online sources, supports adding your own sources including Flickr keywords, can display a customized embeded random quote and/or clock, and you can create a free account to sync your favorites between computers.  Simply add the PPA, then update your sources and install.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peterlevi/ppa -y
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install variety variety-slideshow

Faenza & Faience Icon Themes

One of the easiest ways to change the appearance of your Linux workstation is to change the icon themes.  My current favorite icon themes are Faenza & Faience.  Ubuntu includes Faenza in their default repositories, so installing is as simple as this:

sudo aptitude install faenza-icon-theme

However, Faience needs to be downloaded and installed separately.  I have created an archive of the theme at Mega.nz, so we'll use the megatools downloaded above to grab it, then unzip and install it using these commands:

megadl 'https://mega.co.nz/#!XJ5m0TgC!xYfhZZZdr1uEuzCQ-sBZTZE55Yeu1hN4_nr-3sXdWmE' --path=$HOME/Downloads
unzip ~/Downloads/faience-icon-theme_0.5.zip -d ~/Downloads/faience-icon-theme
sudo ~/Downloads/faience-icon-theme/INSTALL

Numix Themes

Another great visual update is the Numix Project, which includes not just an icon theme, but also a Gnome GTK theme and a series of wallpapers.  The project includes a PPA which makes installing and updating the various Numix software packages super easy.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:numix/ppa -y
sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install numix-?

After installing the themes, use your distribution's theme-picking tool to select your new favorite and enjoy!

Games

The Gnome project includes a variety of simple yet fun games that can be used to burn a few minutes of your free time.  Alas, few distributions include them by default.  Just install the "Gnome-Games" meta-package and then enjoy the nostalgia of 80s arcades and the best OS Redmond offered in 1995.

sudo aptitude install gnome-games