First Thing I Do After Installing Ubuntu

By | 2008/11/05

I generally don’t jump on the meme bandwagon but I thought this one might be of interest to some of you.  My old co-worker, Clint Savage, jumped on a meme regarding “What’s the first thing you do after installing <distro>?”

I’d be very interested in what my reader-base does after first installing Ubuntu.  Perhaps you’ll discuss it in the Ubuntu Tutorials Forum?

In any case, this is the first command I run after installing Ubuntu:

sudo aptitude install htop nautilus-open-terminal ubuntu-restricted-extras vim-full gnome-do gnome-do-plugins

Did I miss anything?

27 thoughts on “First Thing I Do After Installing Ubuntu

  1. Rusty

    for headless distros, ‘vim’ rather than ‘vim-full’ though almost anything would be better than ‘vim-tiny’ that gets included…

  2. Rusty

    correction ‘servers’ rather than ‘distros’ above…

  3. Sean

    Other then the restricted extras, I setup Adobe AIR, wine and picasa3 right off the bat.

  4. ssam

    preload

    it makes applications start faster by loading their files into the disk cache in RAM.

  5. pongu

    add medibuntu and install non-free-codecs, which depends on ubuntu-restricted-extras or kubuntu-restricted-extras or xubuntu-restricted-extras (depending on which desktop you’ve installed) and w32codecs or ppc-codecs or w64codecs (depending on kernel, to my understanding) and dvd-support.

  6. crep4ever

    first things I do:

    get rid of some services such as tracker, bluetooth etc …

    also install emacs, inkscape, xfig, git, subversion, build-essential, latex, awesome, mplayer … and so on

    then set up web configuration with firefox modules and bookmarks

    finally set up multimedia content to be sure noting is wrong with totem and rythmbox

    and when I have to print or use any device, I configure drivers …

  7. amd-linux

    I install Ubuntu Tweak ( http://ubuntu-tweak.com/ ) which enables all the useful additional repos like Medibuntu (but does not mess up the system like Automatix did), then the Mac4Lin and Nimbus theme in order to get rid of the brown standard theme (sorry, neither me nor anybody in my family likes the default theme/brown colors).

  8. happ

    I run command you recommended above, and now terminal is stuck with sun-java6-bin configuration window. Here is license agreement window with on the bottom, but it is not clickable, so configuration can not proceed. Any advice?

  9. Ben

    build-essential and compizconfig-settings-manager are the only two packages left out of my standard list for Ubuntu.

  10. Deven Phillips

    Here’s the first command that I run:

    sudo aptitude install openssh-server amarok frozen-bubble vlc mozilla-thunderbird sun-java6-jdk sun-java5-jdk eclipse eclipse-jdt xchat

  11. me.yahoo.com/a/85HdShYMl

    I always install openssh-server. Remote administration. Of course then you must take the important security precautions etc etc.

    other packages: xchat-gnome (for my IRC), googlizer, preload, meld (for diff), mozilla-thunderbird (for my wife), gparted

  12. Eric Amundson

    That’s a great start, although I also install:

    Filezilla
    KeePassX
    Thunderbird
    Subversion
    RapidSVN
    last.fm
    Compiz Fusion Icon
    Simple Backup

  13. Ian MacGregor

    First things I do when installing Kubuntu:

    sudo mkdir /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /etc/hdparm.conf /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /etc/ssh/ssh_config /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /etc/sudoers /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/master_copies
    sudo cp /etc/X11/Xsession.options /etc/master_copies

    sudo aptitude purge dolphin strigi-applet strigi-daemon openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-common openoffice.org-draw openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-kde openoffice.org-writer python-uno openoffice.org-style-crystal openoffice.org-style-human

    sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

    sudo aptitude install build-essential htop rkhunter chkrootkit imagemagick mjpegtools mkisofs

    sudo rkhunter –update
    sudo rkhunter –propupd
    sudo rkhunter -c -sk
    sudo chkrootkit

    sudo aptitude clean

  14. Stemp

    Add Medibuntu repo
    Remove Mono
    Add OpenSSH

    And Since Intrepid, remove Firefox and install abrowser

  15. Dan

    One of the earlier commenters mentioned Adobe Air, and I’d love to see more details on the installation. I’ve seen a couple of different methods for installing, but I’ve never been able to get apps to work (on 8.04).

  16. BobCFC

    The first thing that I do is change the fonts and make them smaller. At the moment I am using Droid Sans size 8, (from the new Google Android kit), it’s narrower and looks sooo much better both as a system font and for reading webpages.

    Also I enable LCD font smoothing

  17. freemoth

    these all look like great suggestions but i’d appreciate some explanation as to what does what – what’s the best place for a newbie Kubuntu user to pick up on which packages are most useful to load and/or remove?

  18. Danu

    installing video and wifi driver. when applicable, next compiz:)

  19. LinuxCanuck

    The first thing that I do is change it so that it looks the way that I want it to. I change the theme, the wallpaper, add transparency to the menu bar and add the applications that I use most frequently. After that I begin to update and get multimedia working.
    For me the most important thing is for it to look (and work) the way I like it, otherwise it just does not feel like my desktop.
    BTW, in KDE I work the same way, except I move the menu bar to the top first.

  20. Mike

    First thing I do is go hunting for pages like this one.

  21. Ted

    I actually don’t use “Ubuntu” per se… I love Ubuntu, but I hated having to reconfigure everything, download a decent theme, etc (please PLEASE get rid of the brown…I would probably run it native if it wasn’t so Ugly!). I digress. I use Linux Mint, which comes with nice selection of packages, the medibuntu, restriced extras etc, pre installed. I then install Vmware, nmap, metasploit, hping2, tcpdump, p0f, amap, john, etc. I do…security testing…anyway…moving on…. Thanks for the wonderful site, and thank you even more for helping the community!

  22. SteveB

    What is the purpose of Gnome-do?
    Is there an instruction book?

  23. Lane

    The first thing I do is enable root logon so that I can operate the system like someone who knows what they're doing.

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