My Ubuntu Manual

To install Ubuntu, boot with the CD "Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop i386". Choose "Start or install Ubuntu".

Wait for the system to be ready.

Click on the "Install" icon, which will ask for:

1. the language used for the installation process;
2. your location;
3. your keyboard layout;
4. how to partition the disk;
5. which documents and settings to migrate;
6. your name, login and password and the name of your computer.

It's then ready to install!

"Manually edit partition table" launches the Partition Editor gparted.

• Delete all the old partitions (are you really, really sure?).
• Create at least 2 new partitions:
  • ext4 for the / mount point, and
  • a linux-swap.

512 MB swap should be enough for any desktop system with 512 MB RAM or more.

Consider adding more swap if you are running applications that really require much memory, like VMware for instance. 2 GB is more than generous for a swap partition, then.

Here, I have:

• a swap partition of 2048 MB (sda1),
• a reiserfs partition of 91053 MB (sda3) for the / mount point, and
• a reiserfs partition of 5453 MB (sda4) for the /var mount point.

# sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x67224d98

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1         249     2000061   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2   *         913        3523    20972857+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3            3524       14593    88919775   83  Linux
/dev/sda4             250         912     5325547+  83  Linux

Search for hints in the dmesg output, like "try …".

See http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/installing-vista-fonts-in-ubuntu/ to add Consolas.

sudo aptitude install sun-java6-fonts

Add the Keyboard Indicator applet to your panel:

• Right-click on an empty space on the panel where you want to add the applet
• Click "Add to Panel…"
• Choose "Keyboard Indicator" from the "Utilities" section
• You can now right-click on the "Keyboard Indicator" to manage your keyboard layouts.

Optionally change the shortcut used to switch the keyboard layout, by choosing another option in the "Keyboard Preferences" menu -> "Layout Options" -> "Group Shift/Lock behavior".

• Common keys
  

  Go to "System" menu -> "Preferences" -> "Keyboard Shortcuts" to find the keyboard shortcut editor. Many of the common multimedia & control keys should be predefined, and if they aren't you should be able to assign functions to them through "Keyboard Shortcuts" very easily.

• Bind commands to keys
  

  Launch gconf-editor (from the menu under "Applications" -> "System Tools" -> "Configuration Editor").

  Go under apps/metacity in gconf-editor. You will see among others:

  • global_keybindings and
  • keybinding_commands.

  If you click on global_keybindings, on the right pane, you can assign some entries for run_command_1 and so on, like:

  • <Super>e !!,
  • <Super>g,
  • <Super>r !!,
  • <Super>w,
  • etc.

  These have to be filled up with the relevant keysym for your key (like: XF86Play, XF86MyComputer, etc). Use xev to see.

  Then you can assign the matching command (or script) under keybinding_commands, like:

  • nautilus,
  • emacs,
  • konsole,
  • firefox,
  • etc.

This should add Emacs key-bindings to a solid number of applications:

• M-! gconf-editor <RET>
• Navigate to "Desktop" -> "Gnome" -> "Interface"
• Double-click on gtk_key_theme and
• Set it to the value Emacs

To edit the keyboard shortcuts for the gnome terminal, open the "Edit" -> "Keyboard Shortcuts" menu, and remap copy to Ctrl-C (for example) and paste to Ctrl-V.

sudo aptitude install cupsys cupsys-client foomatic-filters

To manually add a network printer (bypassing Samba), just navigate with your web browser to your local CUPS (http://localhost:631, by default) and:

• "Add a Printer"
• "Name" it: "C510"
• Select the "Device": "LPD/LPR Host or Printer"
• Select the "Device URI": e.g. "lpd://10.10.10.248/ps"
• Select the "Make": "Generic"
• Select the "Model": "Generic PostScript Printer Foomatic/Postscript (recommended) (en)"

The added printer is described in /etc/cups/printers.conf.

lpstat -p

List all available printers

lpstat -p C510

Display printer status information

A full list of the options supported directly by the spooler is available from the CUPS web site.

Saved options are supported in CUPS through printer instances. These are copies of a printer that have certain options associated with them. Use the lpoptions command to create a printer instance:

lpoptions -p C510/2up -o number-up=2

User defaults and instances are created in ~/.cups/lpoptions.

See Some commands for (re-)formatting documents for output.

Before anything else, for the sake of security, backup the original /etc/apt/sources.list:

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.orig

Automatix is a free graphical package manager for the installation, uninstallation and configuration of the most commonly requested applications.

It massively simplifies the installation of a whole range of multimedia codecs, burning and ripping software, file sharing software, email clients, VoIP enabled chat clients, browsers, encryption software and a lot more!

This is a fantastic tool that all first-installations of Ubuntu should download and run!

http://www.getautomatix.com/

Simply download the .deb, install it, and it will make a few additions to your /etc/apt/sources.list file, and then it presents an extremely easy to use and intuitive GUI, much like Synaptic does!

Alternatively, you could use EasyUbuntu, an easy to use script of the same kind that gives the Ubuntu user:

• the most commonly requested apps (VoIP, etc.),
• Xvid codecs,
• MS fonts, and
• tweaks that are not found in the base distribution.

wget http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/files/easyubuntu-latest.deb
wget -q http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- |\
    sudo apt-key add -

You could as well generate your own /etc/apt/sources.list file with:

http://www.ubuntu-nl.org/source-o-matic/

Update and upgrade:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude -y dist-upgrade

Click "reload" in Synaptic or run aptitude update any time you change repositories.

Recommended packages

Packages that are almost always found with a specific package, but are not actually required for its use. By installing them, you can avoid having to know about "magic" packages and almost always install all related tools at one time.

Suggested packages

Packages that may make another package more usable.

By default, none of the APT tools install recommended packages, but aptitude and synaptic have built-in support to auto install recommended packages.

For aptitude, use the –with-recommends command-line option when installing or upgrading packages.

For synaptic, select Settings -> Preferences -> General, and click the check-box labeled "Consider recommended packages as dependencies".

Otherwise, you can automatically install the recommended/suggested packages by installing the wajig package.

sudo aptitude install wajig

Then, based on your choice, you can use one of the following commands provided by wajig:

installr   Install package and associated recommended packages
installrs  Install package and recommended and suggested packages
installs   Install package and associated suggested packages

So, for example, if you want to install the Apache package with all its suggested and recommended packages, issue the following command:

sudo wajig installrs apache

To install rpm packages on Ubuntu systems, use alien.

sudo aptitude install alien