setup a ubuntu desktop computer

I set up Ubuntu for the 1st time since several years ago.

Set up basic configuration

Settings

Open Show Applications > Settings and set each configuration.

Displays

Set a resolution

I ended up to set 1920x1080.

• At first, I set 3920x2160 but, there was a performance issue with my graphics card.
• I reduced the resolution to 2880x1620 (16:9), but there was a garbled issue on many applications.

Enable Night light mode

• Open Night Light tab
• Enable Night Light toggle

Mouse & Touchpad

Change the scroll direction on the middle button of a mouse by turning on Mouse > Natural Scrolling.

Support Multi gestures of Touchpad

Note that most of gestures still doesn’t work.

Folllow this article to set up this. Install Gestures and its dependencies.

> sudo apt install python3 python3-gi meson xdotool libinput-tools gettext

Then install libinput-gestures.

sudo gpasswd -a $USER input
ghq get github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures
cd /path/to/libinput-gestures
sudo make install
libinput-gestures-setup autostart start

Next, install a flatpak to download Gestures.

sudo apt install flatpak gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Before next step, restart your computer for the flatpak setup.

Then download Gestures from FLATHUB.

Troubleshooting

Error No module named 'packaging

I got an error No module named 'packaging when I ran libinput-gestures-setup autostart start for some reasons. Following this stackdriver question, I ran sudo apt install python3-packaging and restarted my desktop, and then it started successfully.

Swipe left and right to go back and forward on a browser doesn’t work

I haven’t been able to solve it yet. The configuration uses xdotool, but it looks it has an issue to get a window on the tool. I couldn’t even get an active window on the CLI.

> xdotool getactivewindow
XGetWindowProperty[_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW] failed (code=1)
xdo_get_active_window reported an error

Keyboard

Before setting a keyboard, install Gnome tweaks by next command.

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks

Use Emacs shortcut keys everywhere

• Run gnome-tweaks
• Open Keyboard & Mouse tab and enable Emacs Input There are other ways described in this thread

Swap Caps Lock key with a Ctrl key.

• Run gnome-tweaks
• Open Keyboard & Mouse > Additional Layout Options > Caps Lock behavior and choose Caps Lock is also a Ctrl.

See this page for more details.

Region & Language

In order install a language other than English, go to Manage Installed Languages > Install/Remove Languages and choose a language you wanna install. Then restart a computer

Use clipboard history

Follow this article.

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-gpaste

Also, to manage extensions, install next tool if you haven’t installed it yet.

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-prefs

Once you restart your GNOME shell, you can use them.

There are shortcut keys for this tool to use this clipboard more efficiently. See the full list in this article

• Ctrl + Alt + H: Open the GPaste history on the top bar
• Ctrl + Alt + S: Mask the current item as a password

Themes

Change themes based on time

From this article. First of all, GNOME shell extension and “chrome-gnome-shell” need to be installed, following this document. Then run gnome-tweaks and see there is Extensions > User themes. If not, restart a computer and check it again. Then install a browser extension for gnome extension and install Night Theme Switcher.

Install applications

Install development tools

Run next commands to install git, emacs, and tmux

sudo apt git emacs tmux fish

Install gh

Note that it’s not recommended to install it via snap according to this comment I also got the issue on the above. So, follow an official document to install this cli.

curl -fsSL https://cli.github.com/packages/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg
echo deb [arch=(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/githubcli-archive-keyring.gpg] https://cli.github.com/packages stable main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/github-cli.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gh

Install docker

First, install docker. I forgot how I did, so please check the Internet. Then in order to run docker commands without sudo, add your user into docker group, by following this article

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Then restart your machine.

Install 1Password GUI and CLI

Follow official documents to install them

• GUI
• CLI

To set up CLI, run the next command at first

> op signin my.1password.com example@example.com

ULauncher

I installed ULauncher as a launcher in Ubuntu. To download it, run next command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:agornostal/ulauncher && sudo apt update && sudo apt install ulauncher

But it didn’t work as expected. In order to make it work, I have to update a few things by following this document

YouTube

In order to play live streaming videos on Firefox, we need to install “ffmpeg” by sudo apt install ffmpeg and restart Firefox. I found this on this page.

Google Drive

Set up Google account on online accounts at first.

Then run next commands to install, make a mounted directory, and mount a Google Drive to the directory.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alessandro-strada/ppa
sudo apt update && sudo apt install google-drive-ocamlfuse
google-drive-ocamlfuse
mkdir ~/GoogleDrive
google-drive-ocamlfuse ~/GoogleDrive

This is from this page.

However, this mount is only active until I shutdown a computer. In order to keep mounting even after shutdown, the command google-drive-ocamlfuse /home/username/GoogleDrive to be added on Startup Applications. This page describes about Startup Applications on Ubuntu.

Grub

• In order to set the default boot option as the last OS you chose, edit /etc/default/grub and set GRUB_DEFAULT=saved and GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true.
  • See this article for more details.

• In order to fix grub boot errors, boot-repair may be helpful to install and use it, run

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt update
    sudo apt install -y boot-repair && boot-repair
  

Troubleshotings

Solve garbled fonts on a console

According to this question, “ttf-ubuntu-font-family” is required. Install it by sudo apt ttf-ubuntu-font-family.

.deb file cannot be installed on Nautilus or Firefox

Install gdebi by next command and open .deb file using GDebi Package Instaler.

sudo apt install gdebi

I followed this question and answers.

TODOs

• On tmux, copy the text to a system clipboard
• Set up a copy text history

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