Configuration of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat)

This guide is for Ubuntu, but also compatible with a other Debian based OS as well, like Mint, Elementary OS, etc.

There are configurations for other versions such as 20.04, 18.04, 16.04, 15.10

All commands/configurations are tested (I am currently use this configuration), but anyway, everything you do is "at your own risk".

If you found any issue, please let me know on Issues Page or via email akalongman@gmail.com

Optional Configurations
Installation Packages
- Enable PPAs
- Flatpak
- System Tools
  - Install Nvidia Drivers (Install drivers from official repository for Nvidia Drivers)
  - Install Nvidia Cuda Toolkit (Install CUDA toolkit from official repository for Nvidia)
  - Install ATI Drivers
  - Utilities
  - Dark Theme
  - Oracle Java
  - Wine (Windows emulator) (Run Microsoft® Windows® applications on linux)
  - Nautilus-Actions (Graphically create custom context menu options for Ubuntu's Nautilus file manager)
  - Hardinfo (Everest/Aida alternative for linux)
  - Caffeine (Prevent the activation of the screensaver when using full-screen windows)
  - GNU Screen (Full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes)
  - Neofetch (A fast, highly customizable system info script)
  - GParted (Partition editor for graphically managing disk partitions)
  - Firewall
    - UFW
    - GUFW
  - Geekbench (Geekbench 5 is a cross-platform benchmark that measures your system's performance with the press of a button)
  - Clonezilla (Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery.)
  - Screen Testing Soft (This is a program for testing the quality of CRT/LCD screens. It displays various patterns and allows you to estimate the quality of your CRT/LCD monitor.)
  - Ventoy (Open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. You can copy many files at a time and ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them.)
- Other Tools
  - Google Chrome
  - Firefox
  - PlayOnLinux (Software which using wine allows you to easily install and use numerous games and apps designed to run with Microsoft® Windows®)
  - Dropbox (Allows users to create a special folder on their computers, which Dropbox then synchronizes so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which device is used to view it)
  - Sublime Text 3 (A sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose)
  - Pidgin
  - DBeaver (Database management tool)
  - VirtualBox
  - Android Studio
  - SmartGit
  - FileZilla (sFTP Client)
  - Spotify
  - Meld Diff Tool
  - Vagrant
  - Docker
  - Audacious Audio Player
  - XnViewMP (Powerful cross-platform media browser, viewer and converter)
  - Sticky Notes
  - Guake (Quake like Terminal)
  - Skype
  - Telegram
  - Slack
  - Viber
  - Gimp
  - VLC Player
  - KDEnlive Video Editor
  - Httpie (Terminal HTTP client)
  - Peek (Simple animated GIF screen recorder with an easy to use interface)
  - OBS (Video recording and live streaming)
  - USB Maker for Windows ISO on Linux
  - StarUML (A sophisticated software modeler for agile and concise modeling)
  - Gramps (A geneological tree manager)
  - uGet (A download manager)
  - Xournal (Xournal is a GUI application primarily developed for note-taking, sketching use case and PDF editing)
  - Transmission (A Fast, Easy and Free Bittorrent Client For macOS, Windows and Linux)
  - Timeshift (Timeshift for Linux is an application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS)
  - LibreOffice (LibreOffice is a free and powerful office suite, and a successor to OpenOffice.org (commonly known as OpenOffice))
- Development
  - LAMP
    - PHP
      - PHP 5.6
      - PHP 7.0
      - PHP 7.4
      - PHP 8.0
      - PHP 8.1
      - PHP 8.2
      - Switch PHP Versions
    - Composer
    - PHPUnit
    - Apache
    - Nginx
    - Generate SSL certificates for local domains
    - MySQL
    - Percona Toolkit
    - MyCLI Terminal MySQL Utility
    - PostgreSQL
    - Memcached
    - Redis
      - Multiple Redis Instances
    - ELK Stack Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana
    - Letsencrypt
    - Phalcon
    - Phalcon Dev Tools
    - Secure Permissions
  - Python
    - Virtualenv
  - Go
  - Ruby
  - NodeJS
  - Yarn
  - Ansible
- Gaming
  - Steam (Ultimate entertainment platform)
  - PCSXR (PlayStation 1 Emulator)
Customizations
Ubuntu Fixes
GUI
Virtual Machine Related
Synchronize Configurations
- Sync Sublime Text
- Sync FileZilla
Chrome Addons
Other Applications
Clean System

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Optional Configurations

Get System Details

Operating System

lsb_release -a
lsb_release -as     # Short Information
lsb_release -sc     # OS Codename
lsb_release --help

CPU Info

sudo dmidecode -t processor

nproc               # How many Processing Units
cpuid               # Must install cpuid from terminal
cat /proc/cpuinfo   # Lots of info

VGA Info

sudo lshw -C display

Motherboard Info

sudo dmidecode -t baseboard

BIOS Info

sudo dmidecode -t bios

Memory and Usage Info

free -h             # Human readable, or do --help for options
top or htop         # Must install htop
vmstat -s
cat /proc/meminfo   # Lots of info

Disks

Disk Space

df
df -B MB    # In Megabtyes,  etc

Or install ncdu and run

ncdu /

Disk Space Analyzer

sudo baobab

Disks UUID

ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid/

GUI Processes

gnome-system-monitor

Startup Times

You can find out which service takes how much time to finish starting up by entering the following command in terminal:

systemd-analyze blame

Overall startup time you can find via:

systemd-analyze time

Packages

List all installed Packages

dpkg -l

List only packages which were expressly installed

aptitude search '~i!~M'

Other Commands

Screenshots

To taking screenshot from terminal run this:

gnome-screenshot

With delay 5 seconds

gnome-screenshot --delay 5

With delay 5 seconds and only window

gnome-screenshot -w --delay 5

For changing default save directory for gnome-screenshot, use the command

gsettings set org.gnome.gnome-screenshot auto-save-directory "file:///home/$USER/Pictures/"

Print power consumption in watts

awk '{print $1*10^-6 " W"}' /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now

Also, you can install powertop for listing consumption per process.

sudo apt install powertop

You might need calibrate powertop before first use. For calibrate, run:

sudo powertop --calibrate

List all Keybindings

gsettings list-recursively  org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings | sort | more

See your keypressed:

xev

Or for a lot of details:

xev | grep KeyPress

Use 32Bit on 64bit

You can use 32Bit applications if you like, sometimes this is useful.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y unetbootin

Networking

To enable Networking, and make it accessible to all computers such as Windows also, first install Samba:

$ sudo apt install -y samba

Then edit the Samba config:

$ vim /etc/samba/smb.conf

Under [global] change the workgroup to what you use, the default is WORKGROUP:

workgroup = WORKGROUP

Then you will have to reload your Session.

Order of Grub

If you are running Grub as your default boot-loader, you can use this application to make it easier to change the order.

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y grub-customizer

Load the application either with <Super> and look for grub customizer or terminal gksudo grub-customizer.

Go to the General Settings tab, and you'll see default entry.

Click the drop-down list and you can either select Entry By Order (Left Column) Or a specific Item (Right Column).
If you are dual booting Windows and want Windows the default, Select the right column for Windows.
The reason is if more items are added, perhaps new kernels, then if Position 5 which held Windows will no longer be the default.

Mounting Drives

Mounting of Local Drives

Open /etc/fstab

sudo vim /etc/fstab

Add to /etc/fstab this line (You can get DISK UUID by command ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid/):

For NTFS disk:

UUID=[DISK UUID] /media/D ntfs-3g defaults,windows_names,locale=en_US.utf8 0 2

For ext4 disk:

UUID=[DISK UUID] /media/D ext4 defaults 0 2

After run

sudo mount -a

Mounting of Network Drives

Open /etc/fstab

sudo vim /etc/fstab

And add:

If requires authorization:

username@remote_address:/remote/path /local/path fuse.sshfs delay_connect,_netdev,idmap=user,uid=1000,gid=1000,noatime,default_permissions,IdentityFile=/home/<user>/.ssh/id_rsa,reconnect,transform_symlinks,allow_other 0 0

If not requires:

//remote_address/remote/path /local/path cifs guest,iocharset=utf8,uid=1000,gid=1000,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,noperm,_netdev 0 0

After run

sudo mount -a

Mounting Amazon Cloud Drive

Install Prerequisites

sudo apt install -y python3 python3-appdirs python3-dateutil python3-requests python3-sqlalchemy python3-pip

Install acd_cli (https://github.com/yadayada/acd_cli)

cd ~ && sudo pip3 install --upgrade git+https://github.com/yadayada/acd_cli.git

Initiate "sync" which will launch a browser (chrome/lynx/etc) to amazon.com and setup your oauth key.

acd_cli sync

Copy/Paste and store your oauth data. Note: it will most likely have improper newline breaks. Fixup in your favorite text editor.

vim ~/.cache/acd_cli/oauth_data

Add your user to the "fuse" group to allow mounting

sudo addgroup <username> fuse

Mount the root of your Amazon Cloud drive to the /media/amazon directory

mkdir /media/amazon
acd_cli mount /media/amazon

Upload

-d     exclude duplicate files from upload
-x     upload threads

e.g. Upload your local /media/videos directory to the root of your Amazon Cloud Drive.

acd_cli upload -d -x 4 /media/videos /

SSH

Generate a New SSH Key

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@example.com"

Connecting to a Host

ssh user@host.com  (default port is 22)
ssh user@host.com -p 8000 (connect to specific port)
ssh user@host.com -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa (connect with specific ssh key)

.ssh Folder Permissions

chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/known_hosts
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Using the Config File

You can also create a ~/.ssh/config file and store entries such as:

Host aws
Hostname host.amazonaws.com
Port 22
Identityfile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
User myusername

Host my-vps
Hostname 34.16.67.129
Port 22
User root

You can then simply type:

ssh aws
ssh my-vps

Convert SSH to PEM

Sometimes you may need a PEM format SSH Key. You can easily add this alongside your other SSH keys.

openssl rsa -in ~/.ssh/keyname_rsa -outform pem > keyname_rsa.pem
chmod 700 keyname_rsa.pem

GPG

Generate a New GPG Key

Open a terminal and type:

gpg --gen-key

GPG will now ask you a number of questions about the type of key you want to generate. Follow the steps below to select the default option each time.

Check that your key has been generated by typing

gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG

and, if successful

/Users/hubot/.gnupg/secring.gpg
------------------------------------
sec   4096R/3AA5C34371567BD2 2016-03-10 [expires: 2017-03-10]
uid                          Hubot 
ssb   4096R/42B317FD4BA89E7A 2016-03-10

Add variables in your .bashrc

export GPGKEY=3AA5C34371567BD2

Generate ASCII Armored Version of Public Key

gpg --output gpg.asc --export -a $GPGKEY

Uploading The Key to Ubuntu Keyserver

gpg --send-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com $GPGKEY

You can check your keys on the http://keyserver.ubuntu.com/

Signing Git Commits Using GPG

To configure your Git client to sign commits by default for a local repository, in Git versions 2.0.0 and above, run

git config --global user.signingkey {YOUR KEY}

git config commit.gpgsign true

To sign all commits by default in any local repository on your computer, run

git config --global commit.gpgsign true

If you want sign one commit manually:

git commit -S -m "commit message"

If you want to use GUI clients for committing, you have to add some options to your ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf file

no-tty
use-agent

Backup The GPG Key

cp ~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg /path/to/backups/
cp ~/.gnupg/secring.gpg /path/to/backups/
cp ~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg /path/to/backups/
# or, instead of backing up trustdb...
gpg --export-ownertrust > ownertrust-gpg.txt

Restore The GPG Key

cp /path/to/backups/*.gpg ~/.gnupg/
# or, if you exported the ownertrust
gpg --import-ownertrust ownertrust-gpg.txt

If you just copy-pasted the .gnupg folder, you should register keys:

gpg --import pubring.gpg
gpg --import secring.gpg

Enable Native Virtualization

Check if supported by hardware

egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

If 0 it means that your CPU doesn't support hardware virtualization.

If 1 or more it does - but you still need to make sure that virtualization is enabled in the BIOS.

To check if enabled, you may execute:

kvm-ok

If you have KVM, you will see: "INFO: Your CPU supports KVM extensions INFO: /dev/kvm exists KVM acceleration can be used"

Install Necessary Packages

sudo apt install -y qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients bridge-utils

If you got an error: libdvd-pkg: apt-get check failed, you may have broken packages. Aborting...

You have to run sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg and try again.

Next, add your user to the KVM group and libvirtd group. To do so, type:

sudo adduser `id -un` libvirt
sudo adduser `id -un` kvm

Verify Installation:

virsh list --all

Format USB

Enter sudo mode

sudo su

List available disks and detect where it was mounted: /dev/sd[1 letter][optionally 1 number]. For example, /dev/sdc or /dev/sdc1

fdisk -l

lsblk

Unmount drive

umount /dev/sd[1 letter][optionally 1 number]

Format to FAT32

mkfs.vfat /dev/sd[1 letter]

You can use mkfs.ntfs for NTFS, mkfs.ext4 for EXT4 etc.

Eject drive

eject /dev/sd[1 letter]

Write iso Image to USB

List available disks and detect where it was mounted: /dev/sd[1 letter][optionally 1 number]. For example, /dev/sdc or /dev/sdc1

fdisk -l

lsblk

If you want write Windows ISO on the USB, use this method: USB Maker for Windows ISO on Linux

Make sure the USB device is unmounted (not safely removed, but unmounted) If it is mounted you can unmount it:

sudo umount /dev/sd[1 letter][optionally 1 number]

For writing image run:

sudo dd bs=4M if=path/to/your/iso/file.iso of=/dev/sd[that 1 letter]

Convert .ISO to .IMG format

Install the genisoimage

sudo apt install -y genisoimage

And after run

geteltorito -o dest.img source.iso

Add Printers

HP

You must install HPLIP software. Read more on https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing

sudo apt install hplip hplip-gui

Find installed HP application and run.

Update BIOS on Laptop/PC

You can see BIOS version via BIOS Info command

Update BIOS on Lenovo

Install genisoimage via sudo apt install genisoimage

Go to support.lenovo.com (or better use a search engine because the Lenovo website is ugly) and search for the BIOS upgrade of your laptop model.
Download the most recent ISO file. Look for "BIOS bootable update CD".
Convert the ISO image to IMG format via genisoimage -o bios.img g2uj18us.iso Convert .ISO to .IMG format
Insert any USB stick into your laptop. The image file is just ~50 MB in size so even USB sticks with low capacity will work. Keep in mind that the stick will be completely overwritten.
If you are in a graphical environment then unmount the USB stick.
Find out the device name of the stick. For example /dev/sdb (show devices via sudo fdisk -l). Don't just assume it's sdb. If it's on another device on your laptop then you will destroy your data.
Copy the image to the USB stick: sudo dd if=bios.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M
Reboot your laptop and press F12 for booting device from your stick.
Make sure your laptop has its power supply plugged in. (It will refuse to update otherwise.)
Follow the instructions.

Sniff Local Traffic

BetterCAP is a powerful, flexible and portable tool created to perform various types of MITM attacks against a network, manipulate HTTP, HTTPS and TCP traffic in realtime, sniff for credentials and much more. Full documentation https://www.bettercap.org

Install dependencies

sudo apt install -y build-essential ruby-dev libpcap-dev

And install BetterCAP

sudo gem install bettercap

You can run sniffing via

sudo bettercap --sniffer

Play Sound Through Multiple Outputs

Install paprefs package

sudo apt install -y paprefs

Go to the PulseAudio Preferences and on the Simultaneous Output tab check Add virtual output device for simultaneous output on all local sound cards

After that restart pulseaudio

pulseaudio -k

Then go to your sound settings and you will see the option to output to multiple sound devices.

Terminal Prompt Customization

Put the file ps.sh under /etc/profile.d directory.

In the ~/.bashrc and /root/.bashrc files add line:

source /etc/profile.d/ps.sh

Set CPU Governor to Performance

Install cpufrequtils and set governor

sudo apt install -y cpufrequtils
echo 'GOVERNOR="performance"' | sudo tee /etc/default/cpufrequtils
sudo systemctl restart cpufrequtils

Disable default ondemand governor:

sudo systemctl disable ondemand

You can check governor via

cpufreq-info

Or:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Run Script on System Startup

The below steps will show you to run an example bash script which reports disk space usage of the /home directory and saves the report in the /root directory every time the Ubuntu system boots.

Create shell script in /usr/local/bin/ to run on startup.

vim /usr/local/bin/disk-space-check.sh

The below is an example of such script:

#!/bin/bash

date > /root/disk_space_report.txt
du -sh /home/ >> /root/disk_space_report.txt

Create Systemd service file under /etc/systemd/system/ folder.

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/disk-space-check.service

And put the content:

[Unit]
After=network.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/disk-space-check.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Set proper permissions:

sudo chmod 744 /usr/local/bin/disk-space-check.sh
sudo chmod 664 /etc/systemd/system/disk-space-check.service

Enable the service unit:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable disk-space-check.service

Systemd helpful commands:

systemctl list-units --type=service List existing services
systemctl list-units --type=target List possible targets
systemctl list-dependencies <name>.target List dependencies for

Manage Swap

For more modern systems (>1GB), your swap space should be at a minimum be equal to your physical memory (RAM) size "if you use hibernation", otherwise you need a minimum of round(sqrt(RAM)) and a maximum of twice the amount of RAM. The only downside to having more swap space than you will actually use, is the disk space you will be reserving for it. More you can read here.

Check swap

cat /proc/swaps

The swappiness parameter controls the tendency of the kernel to move processes out of physical memory and onto the swap disk. Because disks are much slower than RAM, this can lead to slower response times for system and applications if processes are too aggressively moved out of memory.

The default setting in Ubuntu is swappiness=60. Reducing the default value of swappiness will probably improve overall performance for a typical Ubuntu desktop installation. A value of swappiness=10 is recommended, but feel free to experiment.

To check the swappiness value

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

To change the swappiness value with a swappiness value of 10 can be made with

sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf

And add/edit line

vm.swappiness=10

Install Fonts

Assume you have your fonts under ~/Download/Fonts

To add these fonts, you have to run:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/fonts/truetype/custom
sudo mv /home/longman/Downloads/Fonts/*.TTF /usr/share/fonts/truetype/custom

sudo mkdir /usr/share/fonts/opentype/custom/
sudo mv /home/longman/Downloads/Fonts/*.otf /usr/share/fonts/opentype/custom

To clear cache, run:

fc-cache -rv

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Installation Packages

cd ~

Run these commands and tweak them as needed. The -y flag installs without a prompt. Run these commands from the terminal.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Enable PPAs

PPA's are provided within categories below, I highly recommend using PPA's or at least installing this package in case you ever use them.

Enable Canonical partners repository

sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ $(lsb_release -sc) partner" && sudo apt update

Flatpak

Flatpak is a next-generation technology for building and distributing desktop applications on Linux

sudo apt install -y flatpak gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

And restart the system.

System Tools

This is for tweaking the UI

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y\
    gnome-tweak-tool\
    chrome-gnome-shell\
    gnome-shell-extensions\
    dconf-editor\
    synaptic

Install Nvidia Drivers

You can check your VGA Info

Find out the right driver version for your graphics card on https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/

Install Nvidia Drivers

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y nvidia-driver-XXX

Type your version instead XXX

And after select your installed driver from drivers tab

sudo software-properties-gtk

Remove Nvidia Drivers

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

To Edit Nvidia Settings; Type the following in the Global Launcher (Super Key/Windows Key):

nvidia settings

Install Nvidia Cuda Toolkit

The NVIDIA® CUDA® Toolkit provides a development environment for creating high performance GPU-accelerated applications.

The toolkit includes GPU-accelerated libraries, debugging and optimization tools, a C/C++ compiler, and a runtime library to deploy your application.

wget https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/ubuntu2004/x86_64/cuda-ubuntu2004.pin
sudo mv cuda-ubuntu2004.pin /etc/apt/preferences.d/cuda-repository-pin-600
sudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/ubuntu2004/x86_64/7fa2af80.pub
sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/ubuntu2004/x86_64/ /"
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install cuda

Install ATI Drivers

For installing ATI drivers, read this official documentation: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDGPU-PRO-Install.aspx

Utilities

Install the Utilities:

sudo apt install -y vim git mercurial meld curl htop xclip unzip gdebi preload bleachbit ubuntu-restricted-extras cifs-utils unace unrar zip p7zip-full \
    p7zip-rar sharutils rar openssh-server lm-sensors whois traceroute nmap font-manager sshfs mc libavcodec-extra libdvd-pkg nfs-kernel-server openvpn \
    easy-rsa network-manager-openvpn-gnome exfat-fuse apt-transport-https ethtool net-tools dos2unix \
    liblz4-tool network-manager-openconnect-gnome network-manager-fortisslvpn-gnome openfortivpn tree duplicity screen lib32z1 \
    libglib2.0-dev-bin pv software-properties-common cpu-checker libnss3-tools python3-pip libcanberra-gtk-module sshpass jq libfuse2 libxi6 libxrender1 \
    libxtst6 mesa-utils libfontconfig libgtk-3-bin tar dbus-user-session libminizip1 libgdk-pixbuf-xlib-2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libopenal-data libopenal1 \
    libsndio7.0 gnome-shell-extension-manager bpytop ca-certificates-java cargo clang clang-18 default-jdk default-jdk-headless default-jre default-jre-headless \
    fonts-dejavu-extra icu-devtools java-common lib32gcc-s1 lib32stdc++6 libatk-wrapper-java libatk-wrapper-java-jni libc6-x32 libclang-common-18-dev libclang-rt-18-dev \
    libgit2-1.7 libhttp-parser2.9 libice-dev libicu-dev libobjc-13-dev libobjc4 libpfm4 libsm-dev libstd-rust-1.75 libstd-rust-dev libxml2-dev libxt-dev libz3-4 libz3-dev \
    linux-headers-generic llvm-18 llvm-18-dev llvm-18-linker-tools llvm-18-runtime llvm-18-tools openjdk-21-jdk openjdk-21-jdk-headless openjdk-21-jre openjdk-21-jre-headless \
    p7zip python3-gpg python3-ldb python3-markdown python3-psutil python3-samba python3-talloc python3-tdb rustc samba-common samba-common-bin samba-dsdb-modules putty-tools

To set up the git defaults

git config --global user.name "your name"
git config --global user.email "your@email.com"

That will create a ~/.gitconfig with:

[user]
    email = you@email.com
    name = your name

Dark Theme

Ubuntu 20.04 ships with a new dark theme option, but it's not enough.

In the Settings > Appearance select Window Colors to Dark.

The "problem" stems from the factor that the new "Dark" setting only changes the look and feel of apps that run on the desktop. It does not change the colour of the desktop UI itself. To fix this, install the User Themes GNOME Shell extension and GNOME Tweak Tool:

sudo apt install -y gnome-shell-extensions gnome-tweak-tool

Open GNOME Extensions app and slide the toggle next to "User Themes" to on.

Restart GNOME Shell (Alt + F2, type r, hit enter)

Lastly, open the GNOME Tweaks tool and select "Appearance" in the sidebar, locate the Shell section and Select Yaru Dark from the menu adjacent.

Oracle Java

Download and install deb package from https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase-jdk15-downloads.html

And update alternatives

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/lib/jvm/jdk-15.0.1/bin/java 1
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/lib/jvm/jdk-15.0.1/bin/javac 1
sudo update-alternatives --config java

Wine

To run windows applications Wine is the best option. I often use HeidiSQL with Wine.

Enable i386 architecture

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Download and add the repository key:

wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -

Add the repository:

sudo add-apt-repository -y 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ focal main'

Install:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y --install-recommends winehq-stable

Nautilus-Actions

Use Nautilus-Actions to easily and graphically create custom context menu options for Ubuntu's Nautilus file manager.

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:daniel-marynicz/filemanager-actions
sudo apt install -y filemanager-actions-nautilus-extension

After installing it, quit and restart the Nautilus file manager with the following command. You can also press Alt+F2 and type this command instead of running it in a terminal.

nautilus -q

After installation you can launch fma-config-tool.

You also can install some Nautilus extensions

sudo apt install -y nautilus-admin nautilus-meld nautilus-checksum-menu

Hardinfo

Hardinfo is a Everest/Aida alternative for Linux. Its shows system information

sudo apt install -y hardinfo

Caffeine

Caffeine is a tool used to temporarily prevent the activation of the screensaver / lock screen / sleep mode, when using full-screen windows. The application is useful if you're using a video player that doesn't do this automatically, when listening to music, etc.

sudo apt install -y caffeine

Note: After the installation, the command-line version of Caffeine is set to start automatically on login. If you want the indicator to start automatically, you'll have to add "caffeine-indicator" to your startup applications.

GNU Screen

Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes, typically interactive shells. Each virtual terminal provides the functions of the DEC VT100 terminal and, in addition, several control functions from the ANSI X3.64 (ISO 6429) and ISO 2022 standards (e.g., insert/delete line and support for multiple character sets). There is a scrollback history buffer for each virtual terminal and a copy-and-paste mechanism that allows the user to move text regions between windows. When screen is called, it creates a single window with a shell in it (or the specified command) and then gets out of your way so that you can use the program as you normally would. Then, at any time, you can create new (full-screen) windows with other programs in them (including more shells), kill the current window, view a list of the active windows, turn output logging on and off, copy text between windows, view the scrollback history, switch between windows, etc. All windows run their programs completely independent of each other. Programs continue to run when their window is currently not visible and even when the whole screen session is detached from the users terminal.

sudo apt install -y screen

Neofetch

A fast, highly customizable system info script

Neofetch is a CLI system information tool written in BASH. Neofetch displays information about your system next to an image, your OS logo, or any ASCII file of your choice. The main purpose of Neofetch is to be used in screenshots to show other users what OS/Distro you're running, what Theme/Icons you're using etc.

Installation:

sudo apt install -y neofetch

GParted

Partition editor for graphically managing disk partitions https://gparted.sourceforge.io/

sudo apt install -y gparted

Firewall

UFW

UFW, or Uncomplicated Firewall, is an interface to iptables that is geared towards simplifying the process of configuring a firewall. While iptables is a solid and flexible tool, it can be difficult for beginners to learn how to use it to properly configure a firewall. UFW is installed by default on Ubuntu. If it has been uninstalled for some reason, you can install it with

sudo apt install -y ufw

To enable UFW, use this command:

sudo ufw enable

Configuring examples:

To configure your server to allow incoming SSH connections, you can use this command:

sudo ufw allow ssh

However, we can actually write the equivalent rule by specifying the port instead of the service name. For example, this command works the same as the one above:

sudo ufw allow 22

For example, to allow X11 connections, which use ports 6000-6007, use these commands:

sudo ufw allow 6000:6007/tcp
sudo ufw allow 6000:6007/udp

GUFW

GUFW is a GUI for UFW

sudo apt install -y gufw

Geekbench

Download archive from https://www.geekbench.com/download/linux/ and extract.

Move folder under /opt

sudo mv Geekbench-5.3.1-Linux /opt/geekbench5

Now you can run benchmark

/opt/geekbench5/geekbench5

Clonezilla

Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery.

Download live USB image: https://clonezilla.org/downloads/download.php?branch=stable

Prepare USB device

mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sd[1 letter]

And Write iso Image to USB

Screen Testing Soft

This is a program for testing the quality of CRT/LCD screens. It displays various patterns and allows you to estimate the quality of your CRT/LCD monitor.

sudo apt install -y screentest

Ventoy

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk over and over, you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly. You can copy many files at a time and ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them.

Download the installation package, like ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz from here and decompress it. Run the shell script as root, where XXX is the USB device, for example /dev/sdb:

sudo sh Ventoy2Disk.sh -i -L "MY-USB" /dev/XXX

Attention that the USB drive will be formatted and all the data will be lost after install.

You just need to install Ventoy once, after that all the things needed is to copy the iso files to the USB. You can also use it as a plain USB drive to store files and this will not affect Ventoy's function.

You can configure how Ventoy will work using configuration file /ventoy/ventoy.json on the USB drive.

My configuration file looks like:

{
    "control": [
        { "VTOY_DEFAULT_SEARCH_ROOT": "/install/iso" }
    ],
    "theme": {
        "display_mode": "CLI"
    }
}

Full documentation you can find here

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Other Tools

Google Chrome

Add google chrome repository and install

    sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list'
    wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -
    sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y google-chrome-stable

Then launch it with $ google-chrome and you can pin it to a gnome bar.

Firefox

Install via snap:

    sudo snap install firefox

PlayOnLinux

Installation

sudo apt install playonlinux

Dropbox

Installation

sudo apt install nautilus-dropbox

Sublime Text 3

A sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose

Add repository:

wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt install apt-transport-https

Stable version:

echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list

Dev version:

echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/dev/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list

Install:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y sublime-text

Configuration of synchronization between devices explained here

Pidgin

Installation

sudo apt -y install pidgin

Configuring google talk account

Basic

Protocol: XMPP
Username: [username without @]
Domain: [username domain after @]
Password: [account password]

Advanced

Connect Port: 5222 Connect Server: talk.google.com

DBeaver

Download from http://dbeaver.jkiss.org/download/

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use.

Check latest version number on https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

During writing this manual, latest version was 7.0

Installation

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/oracle-virtualbox-2016.gpg] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list'
wget -O- https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc | sudo gpg --yes --output /usr/share/keyrings/oracle-virtualbox-2016.gpg --dearmor
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-7.0

If you get error, first run: sudo apt --fix-broken install

Suggested to Enable Native Virtualization

Also, you can read Virtual Machine Related

Android Studio

Installation

I recommend to install JetBrains Toolbox from https://www.jetbrains.com/toolbox-app/ and install Android Studio from toolbox.

After downloading android sdk, update PATH variable:

vim ~/.bashrc

add lines:

export PATH=${PATH}:/path-to-android-sdk/tools
export PATH=${PATH}:/path-to-android-sdk/platform-tools

Smart Git

Download deb bundle from https://www.syntevo.com/smartgit/download/

FileZilla

Installation

sudo apt install -y filezilla

Spotify

Installation

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://repository.spotify.com testing non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list'
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y spotify-client

TeamViewer

Download from http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux.aspx

Meld Diff Tool

sudo apt install -y meld

Vagrant

To install Vagrant, you need to download and run the installation kit. Before going further, be sure that you have dpkg and Virtual box installed:

sudo apt install -y dpkg-dev virtualbox-dkms

Make sure linux headers already installed

sudo apt install -y linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Go to the https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html page of Vagrant and check for the latest release. During writing this manual, last version was 2.0.1

wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/2.0.1/vagrant_2.0.1_x86_64.deb
sudo dpkg -i vagrant_2.0.1_x86_64.deb

Reconfigure the VirtualBox DKMS:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms

Docker

Installation

wget -qO- https://get.docker.com/ | sh

Working with Docker is a pain if your user is not configured correctly, so add your user to the docker group with the following command.

sudo usermod -aG docker $(whoami)

Log out and log in from your server to activate your new groups.

sudo apt install -y docker-compose

Audacious Audio Player

Installation

sudo apt install -y audacious

XnViewMP

XnView MP is the enhanced version of XnView Classic. It is a powerful cross-platform media browser, viewer and converter. Compatible with more than 500 formats such as PSD etc.

Download and install from http://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/#downloads

Sticky Notes

Just like Google Keep and Windows Sticky Notes, it allows you to jot down thoughts, lists, and reminders on desktop.

Installation

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:umang/indicator-stickynotes
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y indicator-stickynotes

Guake

Guake is a dropdown terminal made for the GNOME desktop environment. Guake's style of window is based on an FPS game, and one of its goals is to be easy to reach.

Installation

sudo apt install -y guake

Skype

Install using snap:

sudo snap install skype

Install using snap:

sudo snap install telegram-desktop

Slack

Install using snap:

sudo snap install slack

Viber

Download AppImage from https://www.viber.com/en/download/

Create applications folder, if not exists: mkdir ~/applications

mv viber.AppImage ~/applications && chmod a+x ~/applications/viber.AppImage

Execute ~/applications/viber.AppImage

Gimp

Installation

sudo apt install -y gimp gimp-data gimp-plugin-registry gimp-data-extras

VLC Player

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Installation

sudo apt install -y vlc

KDEnlive Video Editor

Install using snap:

sudo snap install kdenlive

Httpie

You can easily use httpie from terminal: http get https://google.com

Installation

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y httpie

Peek

Simple animated GIF screen recorder with an easy to use interface

Installation

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:peek-developers/stable
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y peek

OBS

Free and open source software for video recording and live streaming https://obsproject.com/.

Installation

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:obsproject/obs-studio
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y obs-studio

USB Maker for Windows ISO on Linux

You can easily use Startup Disk Creator and UNetbootin to create Linux to USB. But if you need to create Windows bootable USB from your Linux OS use woeusb:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:tomtomtom/woeusb
sudo apt install -y woeusb-frontend-wxgtk

StarUML

A sophisticated software modeler for agile and concise modeling (http://staruml.io/)

You can download .AppImage file from http://staruml.io/download

Make downloaded file executable and run.

Gramps

Gramps is a free software project and community. It is a genealogy program that is both intuitive for hobbyists and feature-complete for professional genealogists.

To install, run:

sudo apt install -y gramps

uGet

uGet is a powerful download manager.

To install, run:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:uget-team/ppa
sudo apt install -y uget uget-integrator

You can also install browser extensions for uGet integration:

Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/uget-integration/efjgjleilhflffpbnkaofpmdnajdpepi

Xournal

Xournal is a GUI application primarily developed for note-taking and sketching use case. As the name implies, Xournal is quite a handy tool when you are keeping a journal especially on a touchscreen-capable laptop. Beyond this use case, Xournal has in fact an excellent PDF editing capability, and can export a modified PDF file as well.

To install, run:

sudo apt install -y xournal

It's very useful tool for adding a Signature Image to a PDF Document with Xournal. There are two ways to add your handwritten signature to a PDF document with Xournal. You can directly draw your signature using built-in Pen drawing. Alternatively, you can create an image file of your signature using another tool, and import the image into the PDF document using Xournal.

To hand-write your signature, click on Pen icon at the top-left of Xournal's GUI menu. You can also print and type anything (e.g., date) by clicking on Text icon. To add an image of your signature on Xournal, click on Image icon at the top of Xournal's GUI menu, or go to Tools → Image in the menu option.

Transmission

Transmission is designed for easy, powerful use. We've set the defaults to just work and it only takes a few clicks to configure advanced features like watch directories, bad peer blocklists, and the web interface. When Ubuntu chose Transmission as its default BitTorrent client, one of the most-cited reasons was its easy learning curve.

To install, run:

sudo apt install -y transmission

Timeshift

Timeshift for Linux is an 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 at a later date to undo all changes to the system.

To install, run:

sudo apt install -y timeshift

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free and powerful office suite, and a successor to OpenOffice.org (commonly known as OpenOffice). Its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity.

To install, run:

sudo apt install -y libreoffice

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Development

LAMP

Linux Apache MySQL PHP

- Installation for the following:

PHP 5.6/7.0/7.4/8.0/8.1/8.2/8.3 (and Modules)
Apache 2 (and Modules + Dynamic hosts)
Nginx (Optional)
MySQL
Redis
and more.