Ubuntu 18.10 Install Notes

skp Install Help, My Inspiron 17R

I’m a little later than I wanted to be, but I’ve finally installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 18.10: Bionic Beaver. I like to do a fresh install to test my backup skills and to try to get rid of extra stuff I may have installed that I don’t need anymore.

This article is my install notes.

Wayland Notes

Looking back, my last install explored into the land of Wayland. Unfortunately, it didn’t stick. My screenshot tool quit working and my screen sharing tools quit working. There were just too many major issues. Ubuntu 18.10 goes back to making X11 the default, and I didn’t fight it.

You can confirm with the loginctl command or the XDG_SESSION_TYPE variable:

skp@cashew:~$ loginctl
   SESSION        UID USER             SEAT             TTY             
        c1        120 gdm              seat0            tty1            
         2       1000 skp              seat0            tty2            

2 sessions listed.
skp@cashew:~$ loginctl show-session 2 -p Type
Type=x11
skp@cashew:~$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
x11

Restoring files

Just for reference, below are the things I restored. I need to remember to go through what I restore, or I am just moving my old junk forward. For example, in Documents, I could stand to clean out a few things that are out of date and not useful anymore.

  • ~/.ssh: The keys for my remote ssh connections — most important because of backuppc restoring
  • ~/Documents: This is where I put all my document files
  • ~/Pictures: I have Shotwell pointed at this directory, so it contains all the pictures from my cell phone and digital camera
  • ~/GideonTaylor: I keep my work files in a different directory
  • ~/.config/google-chrome: The settings for Chrome (extensions, bookmarks, etc) (or, ~/.config/google-chrome-beta)
  • ~/.local/share/keyrings: My saved passwords
  • ~/.remmina: The settings for my remote connections
  • ~/.local/share/shotwell: The settings and thumbnails for my photos
  • ~/.sword: The downloaded Bible files for Xiphos (and the underlying Sword library)
  • ~/.filezilla: The settings for my FTP connections
  • ~/.vim: stores the plugins installed in Gvim
  • ~/.vimrc: preferences for Gvim
  • ~/.local/share/fonts for custom-installed fonts (see this post)
  • /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections: this saves all of my wireless connections and VPN connections
  • .local/share/applications (not the whole directory) for application shortcuts

Either a reboot or this command makes it pick up the restored passwords in the Gnome keyring:

gnome-keyring-daemon -r -d

For network manager, you have to fix the file permissions and restart it:

sudo chmod 600 /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/*
sudo service network-manager restart

Also, import for ssh: fix the permissions

sudo chmod 400 -R ~/.ssh

Networking

Chrome is my browser of choice. By restoring the profile, it even has the tabs open from my previous install. I downloaded the 64-bit Deb install package from Chrome’s website. I just installed it by double clicking on the package in the Downloads folder.

For VPN’s, I installed all of the VPN pacakges:

sudo apt-get install vpnc \
network-manager-vpnc \
network-manager-openconnect \
network-manager-openconnect-gnome \
openconnect \
network-manager-iodine \
network-manager-openvpn \
network-manager-strongswan \
network-manager-openvpn-gnome

Update 7/12/2018 …
I needed two more packages:

sudo apt-get install \
   network-manager-iodine-gnome \
   network-manager-vpnc-gnome

KeePass may not be network-related, but it stores all of my passwords on the Internet. The main program, I installed with apt-get:

sudo apt-get install keepass2

To assist with integrating it into Chrome, I used the ChromIPass plugin. I restored that when I restored the Chrome profile. Then, I needed to install the KeePassHttp plugin. I downloaded that from the GitHub website. I downloaded the file KeePassHttp.plgx.

I used the command line to copy the file to my KeePass directory (/usr/lib/keepass2):

cd ~/Downloads
sudo mv KeePassHttp.plgx /usr/lib/keepass2
sudo chmod 644 /usr/lib/keepass2/KeePassHttp.plgx
sudo apt-get install mono-complete

I don’t use Skype too much anymore, but just in case, I want it installed. I downloaded it from the Skype website:
Skype Download Page

This time, I just double clicked on the package in the downloads folder. I didn’t install libjpeg62:i386, and hopefully that doesn’t come back to bite me.

This installed Skype 8.22.0.2.

Althought Chime has taken over most of my meetings, we sometimes use Zoom. To install, I downloaded it from the download page. I double clicked on the package in the downloads folder to install.

I installed Filezilla with:

sudo apt-get install filezilla

Remina came pre-installed, but I like the latest version.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:remmina-ppa-team/remmina-next
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade remmina remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc

In the preferences, I changed the screenshots folder to my screenshots folder. I also checked “Start Remmina in tray icon at user login” under the Applet section. Finally, under Appearance, I changed the Tab Interface to “Tab all Connections”.

I installed Dropbox by downloading from their Download Page. It installed easily by double clicking on the package. After installing, you have to start dropbox from the menu and go through the “download” and setup stuff.

Configuration and Utilities

Here are some of the tools like I like:

  • MenuLibre — uesful for adding items to the menu
  • 7zip & RAR — compression algorithms
  • Synaptic — more dependable / advanced for installing packages
  • Y PPA Manager — tool for managing PPA’s
  • Gnome Tweak Tool — allows tweaking additional settings
  • Xiphos — a Bible tool that works off of the Sword project
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install menulibre \
      p7zip-full p7zip-rar \
      synaptic \
      y-ppa-manager \
      gnome-tweak-tool \
      xiphos

For Gnome Extensions, I had to install the browser extension first from this page. And, I had to install the program:

sudo apt-get install chrome-gnome-shell

Here are a few gnome extensions that I like to install:

Some of the applications that I installed are App Images. To make it register them so I can access them through the menu, I installed this program:

cd ~/Downloads
wget https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/10/appimaged_1.0_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i appimaged_1.0_amd64.deb
systemctl --user enable appimaged.service
systemctl --user start appimaged.service

The changes I made in the “Tweaks” tool:

  • Top Bar — Turned “Date” on to show date in top bar

Under system settings, I made the following changes:

  • Devices, Mouse & Touchpad: turned Natural Scrolling off
  • Details, Date & Time: Changed Time Format to AM/PM

Finally, I removed Firefox, Amazon, and some of the other icons from favorites on my left bar. I also made KeePass and Chrome a favorite.

LibreOffice

Initially, Ubuntu came with this version installed:
Version: 6.0.3.2
Build ID: 1:6.0.3-0ubuntu1

I want to keep it up to date, so I am enabling this repo:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

After applying that repo, it upgraded to:
Version: 6.0.4.2
Build ID: 1:6.0.4~rc2-0ubuntu0.18.04.1

There are a few settings that I like to make in the Options (Tools > Options). I like the ribbon interface. LibreOffice > Advanced: under optional features, I checked “Enable experimental features”. Then, I can select View > Toolbar Layout > Notebookbar. After that, there is a hamburger menu on the far right. In there, I can turn the menubar back on and get the best of both worlds.

In Impress, I went to LibreOffice Impress > General and checked the “Enable remote control”.

Virtual Box

You could just download the virtualbox package directly (from here).

Instead I used the commandline:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian `lsb_release -cs` contrib"
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.2

Then, I download the extension pack from Oracle’s website.

Programming Tools

  • GVim: Power text editor — vim is the CLI version, and vim-gnome is the GUI version (I like both for different situations)
  • Git: Version control system … git-cola is the GUI client, installs CLI program as a dependency
  • Meld: compare tool like “Beyond Compare”, etc. nautilus-compare is an add on to launch from the file manager
  • Java: I use several Java tools
  • MS Visual Studio Code: I have allowed this to replace brackets
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install \
       vim \
       vim-gnome \
       git-cola \
       meld \
       nautilus-compare \
       oracle-java8-installer

I found Java 9 is discontinued. I installed Java 10 from a different place.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linuxuprising/java
sudo apt update
sudo apt install oracle-java10-installer
sudo apt install oracle-java10-set-default

I created a directory for the Vi backup files (this is configured in my .vimrc):

mkdir ~/.vimtmp

Visual Studio Code is currently my editor of choice for website development. I downloaded it from the website. Here are the extensions that I installed:

To install, I opened the “quick open” with Ctrl+P and typed: “ext install johnpapa.angular-essentials”. A second time, I typed “ext install humao.rest-client”.

(FYI: extensions are stored in ~/.vscode/extensions/).

I am using Node JS more and more for website development. So, I am just installing it with my system.

sudo apt-get install nodejs
sudo apt-get install npm
sudo npm install bower -g
sudo npm install -g gulp
sudo npm install -g grunt

Here are the versions:

$ node --version
v8.10.0
$ npm -g ls --depth=0
/usr/local/lib
├── bower@1.8.4
├── grunt@1.0.2
└── gulp@3.9.1

I installed the open source version of Soap UI from their website.

sh ~/Downloads/SoapUI-x64-5.4.0.sh

I installed the Gluon Scene Developer from their website. This time, I downloaded and installed the Java 9 version (I didn’t see a Java 10 version).

I downloaded SQL Developer from Oracle’s website. Then, I used these commands to install it:

cd ~/Downloads
sudo apt-get install sqldeveloper-package \
                     debhelper
make-sqldeveloper-package -b output \
       sqldeveloper*.zip
sudo dpkg -i sqldeveloper*all.deb

I downloaded Eclipse from the Eclipse website.

cd ~/Downloads/
tar -xzvf eclipse-inst-linux64.tar.gz
cd eclipse-installer
./eclipse-inst

I chose the “Eclipse IDE for Java Developers” version.

After the install, I installed the following components from the Help menu.

  • Collaboration > Dynamic Languages Toolkit – Mylyn Integration
  • Collaboration > Eclipse GitHub Integration with task focused interface
  • General Purpose Tools > e(fx)clipse – IDE
  • Programming > JavaScript Development Tools Chromium/V8 Remote Debugger
  • Programming > PHP Development Tools (PDT)
  • Programming > PHP Development Tools (PDT) PHPUnit Support
  • Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > Eclipse Web Developer Tools
  • Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > Eclipse Java Web Developer Tools
  • Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > Javascript Development Tools
  • Web, XML, Java EE and OSGi Enterprise Development > PHP Development Tools

Visual Media Programs

I installed the following other programs for working with visual media:

  • Gimp: for editing photos
  • Inkscape: vector-based drawing
  • Xournal: has features that allow marking up a PDF
  • Shutter: I used for taking and annotating screenshots
sudo apt-get install gimp \
        gimp-data-extras \
        inkscape \
        xournal \
        shutter

After installing, I changed some Shutter settings: Edit > Preferences. On Main > Directory, I changed the directory to a new one that I created called screenshots. Pictures is for photos, in my opinion, not screenshots. Under Behavior > First-launch Behavior, I checked “Start Shutter at login” and “Hide window on first launch”.

I had issues with the indicator showing up. I found that I could run the following three commands:

sudo apt-get install libappindicator-dev
sudo apt-get install cpanminus
sudo cpanm Gtk2::AppIndicator

I also had issues with the Edit button being disabled. I had to download the support packages manually:

Then, installed:

sudo dpkg -i libgoocanvas3_1.0.0-1_amd64.deb \
             libgoocanvas-common_1.0.0-1_all.deb \
             libgoo-canvas-perl_0.06-2ubuntu3_amd64.deb

I found that my Gimp was out of date when I started working with someone at church. So, I used this repo to update it to match their version:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Audio Media Programs

These are the audio programs that I like:

  • Audacity: sound editing
  • MuseScore: sheet music editor
  • soundconverter: converting audio between formats
  • winff: Front end to ffmpeg
sudo apt-get install audacity \
          winff-gtk2 \
          soundconverter \
          musescore

Note: The MuseScore Maintainers Team hasn’t updated their repository to bionic.

Video Media Programs

These are the programs I use for playing and editing video:

  • mplayer – nice general video/music player from the command line
  • smplayer – gui version of mplayer (couldn’t find gnome-mplayer anymore)
  • vlc – video player
  • kdenlive – video editor
  • openshot – video editor
  • cheese – nice for testing to make sure the webcam works (already installed)
  • EasyTAG
  • YouTube Downloader — downloads videos from Youtube
sudo apt-get install smplayer \
      vlc \
      kdenlive breeze-icon-theme \
      openshot \
      youtube-dl \
      easytag

Then, I installed the codecs for videos:

sudo apt-get install \
     libdvdnav4 \
     libdvdread4 \
     gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad \
     gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly \
     ubuntu-restricted-extras

Finally, I installed the Open Broadcaster Software from their website. Here are the commands:

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

Printer

I have a Dell e525W Printer. I downloaded the official driver from the Dell Website. The zip file contained at deb package. Once installed, I went to settings and added the printer.

Our church has an MX-3140N Printer. It requires special authentication, and I had to tweak the ppd file to get that to work. I have that backed up in my etc/cups/ppd directory. Unfortunately, I have to be at church where my comptuer can see the printer to set it up.

3D Printing

This is a new section for me. Now that I have a 3D Printer, I have to install the software to go with it.

For designing stuff, I installed OpenScad. I found they have a repository now.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openscad/releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openscad

Cura is the next program that I use for slicing the models and creating the gcode files. I have to download that directly from Cura’s website. I placed the Cura-3.3.1.AppImage file in the ~/bin directory. Note: Cura is in the Ubuntu Software Center, but that version is 3.1. I wanted the latest.

Games

0ad has been a hit in our house. I like to keep up to date with it, so I’ll install from their repo

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wfg/0ad
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install 0ad

Resources

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