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Jake Rayson

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Web design & FOSS

Front-end web technologies and Free Open Source Software.

Tuesday 10 November 2009, 2:10 PM

The time it takes

Posted by Jake Rayson

I've written a MegaListOne of all the things I needed to do when creating a new install of Ubuntu GNU Linux for my workshop laptops that I'm setting up. I was actually quite amazed at how long it takes and how much there is to do once you're out of the box.

Configuration, eh?

• Create "guest" - full rights
• Sound theme: No sounds
• Nautilus: list view, smaller icons
• Touchpad: disable mouse clicks, scrolling disabled
• Theme: Dust Sand controls, New Wave Window border, icons dark humanity
• Change selected color
• Clock: 24 hours, display with seconds
• Install Simple CompizConfig Settings Manager, choose Minimal + simple switcher
• Install fonts into /home/guest/.fonts (arial, calibri, cambria, candara, comic, consola, constantia, corbel, courier, droid, franklin, georgia, impact, lucida, palatino, profont, symbol, tahoma, times, trebuchet, verdana, webdings)
• Install software
  o Install add-ons (including xmarks & html validator, and Benjamin Drung's workaround ppa)
  o Install GNOME Do
  o pyRoom
  o pyRenamer
  o Inkscape
  o create resources
  o Scribus NG 1.3.5 from appnr.com
  o Scribus doc
  o Scribus template
  o Tux Paint
  o Filezilla
  o Dia
  o Freemind (and openjdk)
  o Geany & plugins
  o Jack
  o Audacity
  o VLC
  o Pure data 0.41-4-1
  o Avidemux
  o vrms
  o supercollider
• Add .gimp preferences
• Add System Monitor to panel
• Clean up startup applications
• Create same settings for guest user


Comments on this post

J.A. Watson

Jake - I keep a similar list, and it's interesting to see where they overlap, and where they differ:

- e2label the partition
- Disable touchpad tapping
- check that keyboard mapping is correct
- Adjust GRUB options - disable timeout and remove duplicate entries for various partitions
- Panels: Remove Help, Change Workspace selection to 2-vertical, change time format to 24-hour, autohide
- Enable advanced desktop effects, if possible
- Synaptic install gparted, gthumb, ntfs tools, ubuntu-restricted-extras (this gets me java and flash, among others), cpufreq-utils
- Setup Bluetooth mouse and printer
- Adjust Power preferences: blank screen on lid close, shutdown when power switch is pressed
- Install Hubble pictures, change desktop background and screen saver
- Firefox: blank startup, disable multi-tab exit warning, disable password storage

Obviously, some of the differences reflect the difference in how we use our computers, some are the differences between desktop, laptop and netbook systems. Some are personal preference, but there are several of yours that I need to go and look more closely at - that's one way that I find interesting new things, thanks!

jw

Posted by J.A. Watson on Nov 10, 2009 3:31 PM

Jake Rayson

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  • Jake Rayson
  • Web / Multimedia Developer, North Kent
  • Member since: November 2006

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