Ubuntu 20.04 Essentials and Productivity

This is part two of my Ubuntu 20.04 Install Notes. In this post, I walk through restoring my files from another laptop, networking tweaks, cloud drive syncing, and productivity apps.

Restoring files

Here’s my list of files that I restored:

• ~/.ssh: for remote connections through ssh 
• ~/Documents: main location for personal
• ~/DigitalEagleServices: work-related files
• ~/.config/google-chrome: The settings for Chrome (extensions, bookmarks, etc) (or, ~/.config/google-chrome-beta) 
• ~/.local/share/keyrings: I don’t think I worried about this one this time, but I probably will in the future
• ~/.remmina: The settings for my remote connections 
• ~/.sword: The downloaded Bible files for Xiphos (and the underlying Sword library) 
• ~/.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 

Beyond just copying the files. There’s a few more things to do …

For the network manager connections, I have to make sure that their permissions are correct for them to work.

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

For the SSH keys and such, here’s what I set:

sudo chmod 600 ~/.ssh/*
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/known_hosts
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/config
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/*.pub

Networking

I like to be prepared with all of the VPN clients. So, here’s a quick install of all of them:

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

Remmina is already installed. I just tweaked two different settings:

• Appearance tab: changed “Tabbed Interface” to “Tab all connections”
• Applet tab: checked “Start in tray upon user login”

Drive Syncing

I used both Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive to sync files to my computer. The dropbox client is just an easy install from their website. Before installing, I installed the python-gpg package:

sudo apt install python3-gpg
sudo apt install ~/Downloads/dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb

A moment after installing the package, it pops up a window that offers to start Dropbox. Dropbox starts by saying it needs to download the daemon. I did that and then, it asks to login. Finally it tells me to restart Nautilus.

Next, I installed InSync for Microsoft OneDrive. I downloaded the client from the InSync website. I installed with this command:

sudo apt install ~/Downloads/insync_3.1.4.40797-bionic_amd64.deb

Then, I started it and clicked OneDrive to connect my account. It started syncing right away.

System

To make AppImages work better, I installed the daemon:

cd ~/Downloads/
wget "https://github.com/AppImage/appimaged/releases/download/continuous/appimaged-x86_64.AppImage"
chmod a+x appimaged-x86_64.AppImage
./appimaged-x86_64.AppImage --install

Productivity

First things first, I like Xiphos for the Bible app. Unfortunately, I didn’t find Xiphos in the repositories like it used to be. Apparently, there’s an issue with the GtkHtml dependency. I had to build it myself. The instructions made it to its own post.

For LibreOffice, I like to install the repository so that I get the latest updates.

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

Printer

To make my Dell E525W printer work, I downloaded the driver from the Dell website.

I installed the driver itself with:

sudo apt install ./dell-color-mfp-e525w_1.0-28_all.deb

It had already installed the printer in my Printer Settings. But, I had to change the driver to the one that I downloaded. I went to printer details. Then, I went to Install PPD File. I picked the file from: /usr/share/cups/model/Dell/Dell_Color_MFP_E525w.ppd.gz