Setting up Ubuntu Desktop

Post-installation

Eventually make things faster (sudo without password) on a desktop env as long as you are the sysadmin of the box,

admin=...

grep wheel /etc/group
groupadd -g 11 wheel
usermod -a -G wheel root
usermod -a -G wheel $admin

cat >> /etc/sudoers <<-EOF
%wheel  ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
EOF
#cat > /etc/sudoers.d/$admin <<-EOF
#$admin  ALL = NOPASSWD: ALL
#EOF

Enable ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X like in the old days,

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

Setup your SSH client.

Choose your Desktop Env:

Install a few packages from the post-installation guide. You may then add those ones for workstation usage,

    sudo apt install \
    vlc \
    mpv \
    chromium-browser \
    deluge deluged \
    filezilla \
    firefox \
    irssi \
    nautilus-share \
    rxvt \
    terminator \
    thunderbird \
    xterm

    sudo update-alternatives --config x-terminal-emulator

Chromium w/o keyring,

--password-store=basic %U

Run (and enable?) indexing,

updatedb

GRUB

Reduce the boot-loader timeout,

cp -pi /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.dist
vi /etc/default/grub

GRUB_TIMEOUT=3

You can ask GRUB2 to boot the same OS that was booted last time by default,

GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true

Terminator

do you need Putty-like happy copy/pasting?

cp -pi /usr/share/terminator/terminatorlib/terminal.py /usr/share/terminator/terminatorlib/terminal.py.dist
vi /usr/share/terminator/terminatorlib/terminal.py
/def on_buttonpress
(change 3 to 2 and 2 to 3)

A terminal which provides select-to-copy and right-click-to-paste http://askubuntu.com/questions/211292/a-terminal-which-provides-select-to-copy-and-right-click-to-paste

Java

See Deal with Java.

Eclipse

eventually fetch Eclipse, extract and install the IDE flavor of your choosing (you can do it from the gui).

Slack.com for Linux

Fetch the latest version and,

ls -lhF slack-desktop-3.*-amd64.deb 
dpkg -i slack-desktop-3.*-amd64.deb 
apt -f install

Skype for Linux

Fetch the latest skype for linux as DEB and install,

    wget https://go.skype.com/skypeforlinux-64.deb
    dpkg -i skypeforlinux-64.deb
    apt -f install

DESTROY and re-initialize gnome keyring,

rm -rf ~/.local/share/keyrings
sudo apt install seahorse
seahorse &

Additional notes

Eventually install & setup Conky.

Eventually setup Netfilter to allow only outbound connections.

Workstation Networking

check your network settings handled by Network Manager,

nmcli device show ens2

Disable Automount

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.media-handling automount false
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.media-handling automount-open false
gsettings set org.mate.desktop.media-handling automount false
gsettings set org.mate.desktop.media-handling automount-open false

check,

dconf-editor

Domain Search

Three solutions:

Control Center -> Network
dhclient.conf
resolv.conf.d/

use the GUI

Control Center -> Network --> (general tab) Domain name: ...
Control Center -> Network --> (DNs tab) Search domains: ...

OR add some domain searches for DHCP sessions, e.g.

cd /etc/dhcp/
cp -pi dhclient.conf dhclient.conf.dist
vi dhclient.conf

prepend domain-search "example.com", "example.local";

OR change the resolvconf config directly

    cd /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d
    cp -pi base base.dist
    vi base

    search example.com

also make sure that the local system hostnames resolves itselfs as FQDN accordingly (it can point to 127.0.0.1 on a desktop)

CIFS ready

Setup your default workgroup when mounting windows file shares

    sudo apt install smbclient cifs-utils
    #smbfs samba
    vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

Troubleshooting

iwl3945 power saving issue

experienced on IBM/Lenovo T60 / R60e

If you get this error in the logs while loosing iwl3945 wireless network connectivity,

BSM uCode verification failed at addr 0x00003800+0 (of 900), is 0xa5a5a5a2, s/b 0xf802020
Unable to set up bootstrap uCode: -5

and this error when trying to UP the wireless network interface,

    SIOCSIFFLAGS: Input/output error

==> disable wlan power saving using NetworkManager,

vi /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf

wifi.powersave = 2

service NetworkManager restart
iwconfig wls3

Kodi / ureadahead

(optional) you might also want to remove that one in case it is installed and not needed (it was spamming my logs),

    sudo apt remove ureadahead
    #sudo apt purge ureadahead

locales

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
#sudo locale-gen
sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

OEM Installation

Choose the OEM auto-install if you need to delivery the computer to someone-else: finish-up the process as oem user, then click on the Prepare for shipping and the user will have a little setup wizard next boot.

Finish-up as OEM user, choose preferred mirror for packages,

Control Center -> Software Sources

and apply updates using the little shield button in the systray.

install additional languages depending on target users,

Control Center -> Languages

make sure Firefox is also available language-specific.

You’re now ready to click “Prepare for shipping” on the Desktop and reboot.

Note. few things are missing with this method e.g. Adblock for Firefox.

VirtualBox

DO NOT fetch the latest VirtualBox for Linux. Use the repos instead (well, the thing is already available now within Ubuntu):

deb https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian <mydist> contrib

apt update

Access the guests through SSH using the default NAT setup,

VBoxManage modifyvm myserver --natpf1 "ssh,tcp,,3022,,22"
VBoxManage showvminfo myserver | grep 'Rule'
ssh root@localhost -p 3022

How to SSH to a VirtualBox guest externally through a host? [closed] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5906441/how-to-ssh-to-a-virtualbox-guest-externally-through-a-host

Legacy Adobe Reader

See reader.

Bypassing national restrictions

Install friGate3 add-on on your web browser (tested with Firefox), add the target domain into List of sites e.g.,

rutracker.org

and edit the Proxy Servers e.g. to access https://thepiratebay.org/ from France,

https://ru-92-53-1.friproxy0.biz:443 [RU]
https://ru-85-60-1.friproxy0.eu:443 [RU]
https://ru-82-204-3.friproxy.eu:443 [RU]
https://ru-93-78-1.fri-gate.biz:443 [RU]
https://ru-93-78-3.fri-gate0.eu:443 [RU]
https://ru-92-53-5.friproxy.biz:443 [RU]
https://ru-85-60-5.fri-gate.biz:443 [RU]
https://ru-85-60-3.fri-gate0.biz:443 [RU]
https://ru-92-53-3.fri-gate.biz:443 [RU]
https://ru-93-78-5.fri-gate0.org:443 [RU]
https://ru-82-204-1.fri-gate0.eu:443 [RU]
https://ru-82-204-5.fri-gate0.org:443 [RU]

or access http://rutracker.org from Russia,

https://fr-220-163-3.fri-gate0.eu:443 [FR]
https://uk-170-185-1.fri-gate0.org:443 [UK]
https://fl-170-185-1.fri-gate.biz:443 [FL]
https://fr-221-177-1.friproxy0.eu:443 [FR]

Setting up an external drive

cfdisk ...
mkfs.ext4 -T largefile -m 0 /dev/...
e4label /dev/... NEWNAME
lsblk --fs --ascii

Ext4 https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ext4

4.3. Creating an ext4 File System https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/5/html/deployment_guide/s1-filesystem-ext4-create

Creating ext4 partition from console https://superuser.com/questions/643765/creating-ext4-partition-from-console