Setup Ubuntu

Aug 29, 2009 Linux

This is not an installation guide for UBUNTU Linux.
Just a description what you should do after installation, to get a perfect operating system based on UBUNTU.

Even this is not an installation guide, let me tell you what I am care about before installation:

• Before all, I always make try of Live CD. YOu can burn it to a blank CD, or just put the .iso file to your hard disk and run the Live system and check if eveything is OK.
• Backup you existing data
• Think carefully about partitioning scheme you want to use
• I do not use LVM (logical volumes), and don’t recomment to use because there are not any tool to read these partinion outside of you Linux installation
• Use ext4 filesystem, it’s much better than then previous ext3
• Upgrade your BIOS. Maybe you’ll find it funny, but when there is a new upgrade or OS installation, firstly I look for a BIOS upgrade if exists. It’s not related to Ubuntu and you can have a better BIOS.

So when you have you system up and run, you can start your UBUNTU optimization:

Run Synaptic or Update Manager

Update your system

Add some alias to avoid to much typing

gedit /root/.bashrc

Add these lines:

alias pinggo='ping google.com'; #an alias for ping google
alias h='cd /home'; #change quicker to a directory
alias logd='cd /var/log/'; #idem
alias unrar='unrar x '; #unrar need the default parameter to extract files
alias du='du -h '; #print human readable file space size

Enable bash programmed autocompletion

gedit /root/.bashrc

Change

#if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
#    . /etc/bash_completion
#fi

to

if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
    . /etc/bash_completion
fi

Disable PC speaker

If you don’t like the beep produced by PC speaker then disable it:

modprobe -r pcspkr
echo "blacklist pcspkr" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

If you haven’t installed yet, some must have installed softwares:

apt-get install mc xvnc4viewer sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts

Change mc (Midnight Commander) setting to use internal viewer and internal editor

sed -i 's/use_internal_view=0/use_internal_view=1/g' /root/.mc/ini
sed -i 's/use_internal_edit=0/use_internal_view=1/g' /root/.mc/ini

Enable root login on Ubuntu

Many people disagree using root login. But I don’t care them. My daily work would force me typing root password so many times, but I am lazy and am I sure that I know what I am doing.

The way is to allow root login:

• Navigate Menu > System > Administration menu > “Login Window”, under the “Security” tab enable “Allow local system administrator log in”.
• Edit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf file:
  ^?View Code BASH

  sudo sudo gedit

  Look for line that says “AllowRoot=false”. Change it to “AllowRoot=true”, then reboot your computer.

Change your root login

sudo su #enter user password
passwd #enter root pasword, 
logout #log in back and continue with root

Apache server

Enable Apache url rewrite on Ubuntu.

Because it doesn’t come with rewrite enabled by default you have to do this manually:

a2enmod rewrite

This command will create a symlink /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/rewrite.load to /etc/apache2/mods-available/rewrite.load

Change Apache document root/working directory

Edit /etc/apache2/sites-available/default, modify th file in this way, to have your DocumentRoot /home/www/html and allow using .htaccess file:

DocumentRoot /home/www/html
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
</Directory>

And don’t forget to (re-)start your apache server:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Found problems/bugs, look for these words: error, warning, fail

• type in konsole:

  dmesg

• Check other logs in /var/logs

And finally some useful UBUNTU links:

• UBUNTU installation
• The Perfect Desktop – Ubuntu
• UBUNTU guide
• UBUNTU Documentation for UBUNTU 9.04
• UBUNTU customization guide
• 10 Things To Do Just After Installing Ubuntu

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Tags: ubuntu