BC Wiki - Configuring Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Category: software

Software Installation

Create and customize launcher icons by hand

Create custom application launcher icons for the current user by creating `.desktop` files in `~/.local/share/applications/` and images for these icons in `~/.local/share/icons/`. For example, the contents of `.local/share/applications/trans-connect-d105.desktop`:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Torrents @D105
Icon=bc-d105
Exec=trans-connect-d105
StartupNotify=false
OnlyShowIn=Unity;
X-UnityGenerated=true
X-Desktop-File-Install-Version=0.22

This application is represented by ~/.local/share/icons/bc-d105.png (note the lack of full path and file extension in the `.desktop` file) and when clicked, runs the script `trans-connect-d105` in the system $PATH (meaning, this script has executable permissions and is somewhere like ~/bin/

</code> so it can be executed in the terminal from any working directory just by typing the script’s name, full or relative path needed). Add the application to your launcher by searching for them in the Unity dash and then dragging and dropping them to the launcher.

To install an application for all users, instead put `.desktop` in `~/usr/share/applications/` and images for these icons in `/usr/share/pixmaps/`.

Apt Install

sudo apt install unity-tweak-tool ppa-purge git gimp guake stellarium chromium-browser python-pip libfreetype6-dev libpng12-dev libffi-dev libssl-dev ant openjdk-8-jdk mdadm kate autokey-gtk pidgin

Personal Package Archives (PPAs)

Nothing currently! See ‘Not Used’ below.

Free Downloads

Add Facebook Chat to Pidgin, via webupd8:

"Facebook shut down their XMPP service in 2015 and because of this, Pidgin/libpurple no longer supports Facebook Chat. For those of you who want to use Facebook Chat in Pidgin, there's a new plugin which makes this possible, called purple-facebook."

Non-Free Downloads

From Source

The latest stable version of the Arduino IDE in the repositories is 1.0.5; this is really old, so we can clone the Arduino source from Github and build the newest stable version (v1.6.9) ourselves:

git clone git@github.com:/arduino/Arduino.git ~/repo/arduino

Service Log-Ins

Configuration Commands

Look and Feel

Change the number of workspaces with the Unity Tweak Tool or by editing these keys in the dconf database:

Note that these keys will NOT exist in a fresh install - they’ll appear when you turn on the workspace switcher in Unity Tweak Tool. It is probably possible to active the workspace switcher plugin and create the keys from the terminal.

gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.datetime custom-time-format '%Y.%m.%d %T'
gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.datetime time-format 'custom'
gsettings set com.canonical.indicator.datetime show-week-numbers true
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences default-folder-viewer 'list-view'
gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences default-sort-order 'name'
gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Bottom
sudo sed -i "s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g" /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10

sudo nano /etc/default/locale
  LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
  LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"
  LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
  LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"

Operating System Settings

Change the default terminal to use Tilix

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec 'tilix'

Remove Unity Shopping Lens

DOESN’T WORK:

sudo apt purge unity-lens-shopping

mkdir ~/repo
  ssh-keygen

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf
# Decrease swap usage
vm.swappiness=10

sudo apt install unity8-desktop-session-mir

Enable ‘Minimise on Click’

gsettings set org.compiz.unityshell:/org/compiz/profiles/unity/plugins/unityshell/ launcher-minimize-window true

Move The Unity Launcher

 gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Bottom

Virtual Environments for Python Development

preparing a virtualenv containing Julia in Jupyter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13mw6SAP94zFa_jtcaoYqHKwppNv5V3bb1fvpwBQM7Z0/edit#

Setting up virtualenvwrapper:

pip install virtualenvwrapper
nano ~/.bashrc
 # setup for virtualenvwrapper
 export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
 export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin
 source /home/brandon/.local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

mkvirtualenv graveslab
pip install requests[security]
pip install numpy scipy matplotlib jupyter

RAID Configuration

To get an existing RAID1 array working after adding its configuration information to /dev/mdadm/mdadm.conf, I first needed to remove dmraid with sudo apt remove dmraid and reboot; /dev/md0 then appeared, and I could mount this by configuring /etc/fstab.

Uninstalling Stuff

If you install something from the repositories and decide you don’t want it, it’s easy to completely uninstall with:

sudo apt-get remove `&&` `sudo` `apt-get` `autoremove`

If you install something from a Personal Package Archive (PPA), manual removal takes a couple steps. Use `ppa-purge` to automate these steps:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge sudo ppa-purge `/`

Stuff I Don’t Use

Apparently you can integrate Google Drive with the Nautilus file manager via GVfs and Gnome Online Accounts, but I haven’t played with it.

Pidgin is up-to-date in the repos, so there’s no need to install from a PPA or compile from source:

Xenial repos: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/xenial/+source/pidgin
1:2.10.12-0ubuntu5
Uploaded:
2016-03-10

https://www.pidgin.im/
2.10.12

VLC is already the newest stable version, so this doesn’t do anything:

newest stable version of VLC:
https://launchpad.net/~videolan/+archive/ubuntu/stable-daily

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily
was: 2.2.2-5
now: 2.2.2-5 (so this didn't do anything)

Libreoffice is already the newest stable version, so this doesn’t do anything:

newest stable version of libreoffice:
https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
was: 1:5.1.2-0ubuntu1
now: 1:5.1.2-0ubuntu1 (so this didn't do anything)

Gimp is already the newest stable version, so this doesn’t do anything:

Newest stable version of GIMP:
https://launchpad.net/~otto-kesselgulasch/+archive/ubuntu/gimp

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install gimp
was: 2.8.16-1ubuntu1
now: 2.8.16-1ubuntu1 (so this didn't do anything)

References:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/134035/how-do-i-get-the-latest-gimp-version-available
http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2015/11/how-to-install-gimp-2-8-16-in-ubuntu-16-04-15-10-14-04/
http://tipsonubuntu.com/2015/04/04/instal-latest-gimp-image-editor/

I prefer the default theme over the ARC theme, so I didn’t use it:

add the ARC GTK theme:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/06/arc-gtk-theme

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Horst3180/xUbuntu_16.04/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/arc-theme.list"
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:Horst3180/xUbuntu_16.04/Release.key
sudo apt-key add - < Release.key
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install arc-theme

install the ARC theme for Firefox:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/08/an-official-arc-theme-for-firefox-is-now-available

References

Bugs

Fixing network-manager-openconnect in Ubuntu 16.04:

How to install just one package from xenial-proposed?

Removing a package’s build dependencies: