It has been almost 4 years since I am using Kubuntu in a row. Months ago I updated my primary OS to Kubuntu 16.04.1 LTS. In this post I am going to share some of my tweaks which I do right after installing any Kubuntu release.
First thing I do after installation is removing bloats. Here is a list of packages which I find unnecessary.
apt-get purge akregator firefox skanlite telepathy-* kontact korganizer cups avahi-daemon cups-browsed cups-common cups-daemon cups-server-common cupsdcupsd avahi-daemon discoverk3b dragonplayer konversation* amarok* kaddressbook kde-telepathy-kde-telepathy-*kde-wallpapers kdeconnect kdeconnect-plasma knotes krdc ksshaskpas ktnef language-pack-en plasma-discover-updater qapt-*
apt-get autoremove
You can keep the entries with cups if you use printers by the way. Again you can keep k3b if you have CD/DVD drive.
I hate it when apt prompts me extra packages or tries to install packages I don't need. So I disable the feature by running
echo 'APT::Get::Install-Recommends "false";' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf
echo 'APT::Get::Install-Suggests "false";' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf
Now let's add some PPA.
# caffeine, the screen inhibitor
add-apt-repository ppa:caffeine-developers/ppa
# winusb, bootable windows usb installer
add-apt-repository ppa:colingille/freshlight
# ffmpeg, no more info needed
add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/ffmpeg-3
# keepassx, my only favorite free password manager
add-apt-repository ppa:keepassx/daily
# official libreoffice ppa
add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
# graphical sqlite database browser
add-apt-repository ppa:linuxgndu/sqlitebrowser
# the best and easy to use screen recorder
add-apt-repository ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder
# the best music player on ubuntu
add-apt-repository ppa:me-davidsansome/clementine
# official vlc ppa
add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/sta
# latest virtualbox ppa
add-apt-repository ppa:virtualbox/ppa
# jre and jdk from oracle
add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
I want 32bit apps to run on my stystem too. So I did the following thing.
dpkg --add-architecture i386
Then I updated the package indexes by running
apt-get update
Now comes the list of must needed packages I use.
apt-get install aria2 autoconf baobab bcmwl-kernel-source bison boot-repair build-essential clementine cmake cmake-qt-gui curl darktable dcfldd d-feet eclipse exfat-fuse exfat-utils ffmpeg filezilla flex gawk gcc-multilib gimp git git-core gnome-disk-utility gparted ia32-libs inkscape kde-wallpapers keepassx lib32 lib32bz2-1.0 lib32gcc lib32ncurses5 lib32stdc++ lib32stdc++6 lib32z1 libav-tools libc6:i386 libgmp-dev libmosquitto-dev libmpc-dev libmpfr-dev libncurses5-dev libncurses5:i386 libssl-dev libstdc++6:i386 libx264 lm-sensors lua5.1 luarocks lua-sec mailutils makeinfo mercurial mosquitto-clients mosquitto-dev muon nginx nginx-full openssh-server php7-cli pick picocom qt4-qmake qt5-qmake qtchooser qtcreator shim shutter sqlitebrowser sshpass subversion testdisk texinfo unetbootin unrar unzip virtualbox vlc x264 x265 youtube-dl
As I am a Lua developer, I need some Lua modules now and often. I use luarocks for installing those.
luarocks install mosquitto json-lua luaposix luars232 penlight
You can update the UEFI label of the system by running
grub-install --bootloader-id Kubuntu /dev/sda
Almost there. Now I need to configure the ACPI, CPU and GPU thermal sensors.
yes | sensors-detect
Firewall is turned on by default. So I unblock SSH, FTP and HTTP port on my machine.
ufw enable
ufw allow ssh
ufw allow http
ufw allow ftp
I don't want SSH to turn on everytime I boot my PC automatically. So I disable SSH service.
systemctl disable sshd.service
I love to see the asterick * mark when entering password for sudo. I do it by running visudo and adding pwfeedback after Defaults.
Defaults env_reset,pwfeedback
There is one annoying thing left. Perl based utilities often warn me about LC. So I hardcoded my LC by doing this.
echo LC_ALL=\"en_US.utf8\" >> /etc/environment
Well, that's all. I will be adding more lines if I find out more tweaks and update the list of packages from time to time.