Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and its official flavours have been released
a couple of days before. In this brief how-to, let us discuss how we
can enhance Ubuntu 14.04 and other older versions further for day to day
activities. This post we will share some interesting insights and ideas
about what you can and should do after a successful installation of
Ubuntu.
1. Update System
Before proceeding to upgrade, the first and important thing to do is update/upgrade software repositories and make sure your systems contains latest versions of all software.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
2. Configure And Tweak Ubuntu
2.1 Disable Unity Dash Online Search feature
Whenever, you start typing in Unity Dash to search for an application
or a file in your computer, your search terms will be automatically
sent to third parties such as Amazon, and the third parties will display
the relevant results (mostly ads) depending upon your search terms. If
you don’t like this feature and feel this is really annoying to you, you
can disable it.
2.2 Ubuntu Tweak
Ubuntu Tweak is a must have application
for Ubuntu and it’s derivatives. It is an application to configure
Ubuntu easier for everyone. It provides many useful desktop and system
options that the default desktop environment doesn’t provide. Using
Ubuntu Tweak you can install all needed applications with a simple
click, you can change the window buttons from Left to right…etc.
2.3 Ubuntu After Install
Like Ubuntu Tweak, there is an another similar tool called “Ubuntu After install” available. Ubuntu After Install
is a tool that can be used to install some of the best and essential
software after installing the Ubuntu desktop. It has a bunch of useful
applications, and will automate the installation process on a newly
installed machine to get near perfect desktop. I would not say a
complete desktop for all users, but a near perfect desktop. This tool
saves your time and effort, and installs all latest versions of
softwares by automatically adding the respective PPA’s to keep the
installed softwares up to date on your Ubuntu system.
The above two tools are enough to get a near perfect Ubuntu desktop for daily usage.
These tools will help you to install every essential applications and
tweak your system as per your needs for daily usage. You can omit all
other things given below. Still you want to continue, go on and check
them.
3. Desktop Environments
3.1 Cinnamon
Cinnamon
is a GNOME 3 fork that allow you to have a panel at the bottom with a
classic Menu, this is useful for people that want to use Ubuntu with a
classic Bottom Menu.
Cinnamon latest version for Ubuntu 14.04
is not yet ported to the stable PPA, however we can install it using
nightly builds which is not recommended for the production system.
If you want to install the most recent version of cinnamon, then follow the steps below.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-nightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon
Logout from the current session and
select Cinnamon as your desktop session at the user login prompt. Now
you’ll able to get the Cinnamon Desktop Environment.
3.2 Gnome
To install GNOME 3 in Ubuntu 14.04, enter the following command:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell ubuntu-gnome-desktop
During installation, the installer will
ask you to select the login manager of your choice (LightDM is the
default Unity manager and GDM is the GNOME default — Both will work).
4. Configure Online Accounts
One of the top things you need to do is to setup your online accounts (Facebook, twitter…). To do that click on the gear button on the top right corner and select System Settings.
Then, select Online Accounts (see below).
Now setup your online accounts and get
notifications in Ubuntu. For example, if you want to add your Facebook
account, click on the Facebook icon.
Enter your facebook username and password, and click Log in to authorize.
5. System Monitoring Eye Candy Tools
5.1 Conky
Conky
is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any
information on your desktop. There are many nice themes available for
conky that can display clock, CPU usage, RAM usage, swap, disk, net and
more.
5.2 Don’t like the default icons, Wanna try some cool icons?
Try the following cool Icon collections.
Want to change the default icons to something that match your taste? Check this nice collection of icons for Ubuntu (PPA included).
6. Multimedia
6.1 VLC Media Player
VLC
is the best media player for Linux it play almost everything, it has
many features that you can not find in any other media player, read this
post if you want to know what VLC can do: 25 things you can do with VLC Media player!
You can install VLC from Ubuntu Software Center or via terminal by using the following command:
sudo apt-get install vlc
Or install the most recent version 2.1.1 using the following PPA.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install vlc
6.2 XMBC
XBMC is
an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and
entertainment hub for digital media. XBMC is available for Linux, OS X,
Windows, and the original Xbox. While XBMC functions very well as a
standard media player application for your computer, it has been
designed to be the perfect companion for your HTPC. Supporting an almost
endless range of remote controls, and combined with its beautiful
interface and powerful skinning engine, XBMC feels very natural to use
from the couch and is the ideal solution for your home theater.
Open terminal and copy the following commands:
sudo apt-get install xbmc
6.3 Openshot video editor
My favorite Video editor is Openshot,
the best existing actually for Linux. You can install Openshot from
Ubuntu Software Center, but if you want to install the latest release,
you can do that by adding the following repositories:
Note: PPA is not yet working in 13.10 at the time of writing this article. Hope it will be updated soon.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openshot openshot-doc
7. Install Common Codecs And Enable DVD playback
Perhaps, installing a few common codecs might give you better playback for your media files.
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly libxine1-ffmpeg gxine mencoder libdvdread4 totem-mozilla icedax tagtool easytag id3tool lame nautilus-script-audio-convert libmad0 mpg321 gstreamer1.0-libav
To play encrypted DVDs, the libdvdcss2
package is essential. libdvdcss is a simple library designed for
accessing DVDs like a block device without having to bother about the
decryption.
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/./install-css.sh
7.1 Enable Flash Support On Browsers
For Ubuntu 32 bit & 64 bit:
To be able to watch some videos and see flash website in your browser
(Firefox/Chrome), you need to install flash plugin, go to Ubuntu Software Center and search word “flash” and install it.
Alternatively enter the following command to install flash plugins.
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer
8. Torrent Softwares
8.1 uTorrent
uTorrent is a
lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Linux, Windows OS and
Mac OS. The installation of uTorrent in Linux is different from Windows
and Mac OS. In Linux, uTorrent runs as a web server. You will access
uTorrent from your browser. You should start the uTorrent server in
order to access it from your browser.
8.2 Deluge
The Deluge application was designed to be
a full-featured torrent client. Deluge uses libtorrent in its back-end
and PyGTK for its user interface and is currently usable on
POSIX-compliant operating systems. It is intended to bring a native,
full-featured client to GTK desktop environments such as GNOME and Xfce.
An official Windows port is also available.
Open terminal and type the following commands:
sudo apt-get install deluge
9. Messengers
Here is the list of recommended
Messengers for your system. Don’t install everything. Install one by one
and pick up the right one for your requirement and delete the rest.
9.1 Pidgin
The best messenger client and 30 plugins, you can do voice and video chat with friends.
To install Pidgin, enter the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install pidgin
9.2 aMSN
aMSN is a free windows
Live Messenger clone. aMSN attempts to emulate the look and feel of
Windows Live Messenger, and supports many of its features.
aMSN has many features which are not
present in Windows Live Messenger. Users can set alarms, are able to see
others who have removed them from their contact list, and are able to
open many profiles at once. It is also very customizable, with
extensions and themes available at the main site.
To install aMsn, enter the following command in your terminal.
$ sudo apt-get install amsn
9.3 Jitsi
Jitsi is an open source
and multi platform audio/video Internet phone and instant messenger
written in Java. It supports some of the most popular instant messaging
and telephony protocols such as SIP, Jabber/XMPP (and hence Facebook and
Google Talk), AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger.
For details about Jitsi please check our previous article in the following link.
10. Gaming & Emulators
10.1 Steam
As you may know, Steam is an ultimate gaming
platform developed by Valve corporation. Steam is available for GNU
Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Recently, Valve has developed and released
SteamOS, a Linux based distribution built around Steam client. You can
either download and install SteamOS on your system, or just download and
install the steam client to play games on your existing operating
system.
To install Steam On Ubuntu 14.04, enter the following command:
sudo apt-get install steam
Click Ok to continue.
Accept the License agreement.
Now, the steam will be installed on your system. Launch it either from Dash or Menu.
At the first launch, Steam will check for updates and download and install them if updates available.
After updating Steam, you can enter into steam and start playing games.
If you don’t have an account, create it using the CREATE NEW ACCOUNT link.
This is how my Steam dashboard looks.
10.2 Gaming made easy with Playdeb
If you are a grate fan of gaming so is
important to add PlayDeb repositories to your Lucid Lynx. PlayDeb is a
gaming repository for Ubuntu aimed to provide titles already available
on getdeb.net in an easier to install and update format. You can install
many games by a simple click.
10.3 Wine
Wine enables Linux, Mac,
FreeBSD, and Solaris users to run Windows applications without a copy
of Microsoft Windows. Wine is free software under constant development.
Other platforms may benefit as well.
sudo apt-get install wine
11. Sharing Files/Folders
11.1 Samba
In order to share folders in Raring Ringtail with
other Linux and windows machines in your network, you will need to
install and configure Samba
11.2 Gigola
Gigola is an another
option to share files between Linux and Windows systems. Unlike Samba,
we can use Gigola to send files between Linux-to-Linux and
Linux-to-Windows systems.
12. Extras & Miscellaneous
12.1 Install Archive Management Apps
Install the following packages will allow you to deal with almost all and any zip formated files.
sudo apt-get install unace unrar zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar sharutils rar uudeview mpack arj cabextract file-roller
12.2 Y PPA Manager
Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to easily add
PPAs, search a package in all Launchpad PPAs, remove duplicate PPAs
(only works with separate .list files), backup PPAs and other
PPA-related tasks. Check out the Launchpad page for a complete features list.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager
Y-PPA-Manager can be launched either from Dash or Menu.
12.3 Install Java 7
Java is fast, secure, and reliable
programming and computing platform. There are lots of applications and
websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are
created every day. To install java simply run the following command
from your terminal.
sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk
If you want to try oracle-java 7, try the following steps.
First you need to remove OpenJDK for this run the following command from your terminal:
sudo apt-get purge openjdk*
Now you can install Java 7 by adding the following repository:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer
To remove Java 7, run this in terminal:
sudo apt-get remove oracle-java7-installer
12.4 FileZilla
Filezilla is one of the best ftp client for Linux.
Install it via command line:
sudo apt-get install filezilla
12.5 Dropbox
Dropbox is a free service that lets you
bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. This means that any
file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your
computers, phones and even the Dropbox
website. Dropbox also makes it super easy to share with others, whether
you’re a student or professional, parent or grandparent.
12.6 Oracle VirtualBox
If you want to run another OS in a virtual machine, install Virtualbox.
12.7 Cheese: Web Cam Software
Cheese uses your webcam
to take photos and videos, applies fancy special effects and lets you
share the fun with others. To install cheese on your Ubuntu desktop,
enter the following command:
sudo apt-get install cheese
12.8 digikam
digiKam is an advanced
digital photo management application for Linux, Windows, and Mac-OSX. It
can be used by Photographers to view, manage, edit, enhance, organize,
tag, and share photographs under Linux systems.
You can easily install it using command:
sudo apt-get install digikam
12.9 Gimp
Regardless of whether you need to edit
images daily on a professional level or just a hobbyist, GIMP is an
essential tool for all.
sudo apt-get install gimp gimp-data gimp-plugin-registry gimp-data-extras
12.10 Install Compiz
To install Compiz use the following command:
sudo apt-get install compiz compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-plugins
13. Desktop Effects
Want to spice-up your desktop with
awesome wallpapers, well you can use the following two programs to
change your desktop wallpapers in a particular interval.
13.1 Variety
Variety is a wallpaper
changer for Ubuntu which is feature-full, yet slim and very easy to use.
It can automatically download wallpapers from various online sources
such as Flickr, Wallbase.cc, World sunlight map (a live wallpaper that
changes as the day progresses), Wallpapers.net, NASA Astronomy Picture
of the Day, Desktoppr.co etc. It allows rotating them on a regular
interval or on demand, and provides easy to use ways to separate the
great images from the junk.
13.2 Wallch
Wallch is an application
that can be used to change your Ubuntu (Ubuntu derivatives) desktop
wallpapers automatically at a particular period of time. It supports
Gnome and Unity. It also let you to stop/start wallch, change to
next/previous wallpaper. You can adjust/change the wallpaper changing
interval. Wallch supports live Earth wallpapers which updates
automatically every half an hour, therefore you can set the live Earth
wallpapers as your desktop background.
14. Other worth trying applications
14.1 App Grid
App Grid is a light
weight alternative for Ubuntu Software Center. It allows you to filter
applications by installed, pending, categories, name and rating. It is
released under proprietary license and is available for Ubuntu 12.04,
12.10, 13.04 and 13.10.
14.2 Boot UP Manager(BUM)
Boot-Up Manager is a
Perl-Gtk2 application to manage runlevels configuration of any
Ubuntu/Debian derivative systems. Using this program we can easily start
and stop boot-up scripts, without the necessity to handle through
complex symbolic links and permissions.
14.3 TLP: Improve Battery performance
TLP is an advanced power
management tool for Linux that gives the settings and tweaks to enhance
your existing power management automatically without the need to know
every technical details. It is purely a command-line tool and doesn’t
have a GUI. It should work on almost all laptops.
14.4 BleachBit: Clean up your system
BleachBit deletes the
unnecessary files, free up cache, delete cookies, clear internet
history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn’t
know was there. This tool can be used in both Windows OS and Linux
systems. And it will support the following applications such as Firefox,
Internet Explorer, Adobe Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari and more.
It not only deletes the files, but it includes some advanced features
such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to
hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming
Firefox to make it faster.
14.5 Timeshift
Timeshift a application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine
tool in Mac OS. TimeShift protects your system by taking incremental
snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can
be restored later to bring your system to the exact state it was in at
the time when the snapshot was taken.
14.5 TypeCatcher
TypeCatcher is an Open Source application developed by Andrew
Starr-Bochicchio. It allows you to easily download and install Google
webfonts for off-line use.
14.6 Apt-fast
Apt-fast is a “shell script wrapper” for apt-get and aptitude that can drastically improve APT download times by downloading packages with multiple connections per package. apt-fast uses aria2c or axel
download managers to speed up the APT download time. Just like the
traditional apt-get package manager, apt-fast supports almost all
apt-get functions such as install, remove, update, upgrade, dist-upgrade etc. And one more notable feature is it supports proxy too.
14.7 Apt-proz & ProZilla
apt-proz is a shell script similar to apt-fast that
increases the download speed of apt-get and aptitude by many times (at
least for the developer!). While apt-fast uses Axel or aria2c download
manager, apt-proz uses ProZilla download accelerator instead.
ProZilla is a full featured command line download
accelerator for Linux operating systems. It downloads a files by
splitting into multiple pieces and downloads them simultaneously form
multiple connections. It supports pause/resume, http/ftp protocols.
Also install the following useful software’s if you like.
- Opera – The fastest browser on Earth is even faster. But that is not all. Use Opera Turbo to double your page-download speed on slow connections.
- Google Chrome – Web browser from Google
- Google Earth – Travel to cities across the globe, dive into the depths of the ocean, explore remote islands or even fly to faraway galaxies.
Now you’ve reached the end of the article. At this stage, you’ll have a perfect and full fledged Ubuntu 14.04 Desktop.
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