10 Or 20 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

When Unity came out I switched to Linux Mint which works a lot better for me. Now running Mint KDE 64 bit on most computers (switched to KDE mostly to get digiKam to run properly) and have helped many people set up Mint on their computers. Very few issues - generally considerably easier to set up and use than Windows. Probably the most irritating thing is that some computers, mainly with ATI graphics, don't like Google Earth in Linux. This can sometimes be resolved by using 32-bit GE instead of 64. Other computers have no problems with it.

I think you can run 32 bit Linix in a virtual machine set up on a 64 bit machine.

Mint is a good distro with growing pains, but it is growing and developing nicely.

I have loaded Ubuntu a few times, but since Cinnamon has been so actively developed I have been going back to Mint.

Which I am currently running. There is a new release coming out in May, no exact date set; but it will be a LTS release as well.

I have all my data backed up in Copy, thanks to a few people who signed up under my link and gave me 25 extra FREE gb of data.

I didn't need to run a 32 bit virtual box. Just downloaded 32-bit GE and installed it in a 64 bit machine. Works fine.

But the earth is only half as big, right?

For a lot less trouble you can just install Debian GNU/Linux and have an OS that works for you and not against you. There are reasons we all left M$. Why make GNU/Linux that difficult? GNU/Linux is Free Software you can run, examine, modify and distribute. Why accept all the restrictions Canonical imposes? With Debian, I install a minimal system, not even a desktop environment, and build it up with APT into what I want with a lot less fuss than wrestling Ubuntu GNU/Linux into submission.

Well, Robert, that seems to be the beauty thing about most Linux distros is that there is bound to be one that pleases anyone.

Thanks for the nice writeup and suggestions.

You wrote

> Install rar. I don’t know what this is but a lot of people seem to recommend it

"rar" is a program that creates and expands file archives. You can find out what programs do under any Unix system by using the "man" command. For example,

% man rar

Robert, that is an excellent way to do it. Did you compile the Debian base?

Since no one seems to mention it (maybe they are too geeky), Damn nice funny article :) Love your sense of humour. And yes, it's very useful too. If you want to to use Ubuntu and NOT try out any other distro (because we know that distro can also be a PITA) then the above listed stuff are the things to do. BTW I use and like Linux Mint 16 and the next release will kick Ubuntu's butt. But then who gives a shit. Ubuntu's progression is like: Good usable distro -> makes it better -> stubbornly tries newfangled counterproductive stuff but wanting to making a Mac-ish simple to use OS -> fucks it up for a few years -> tries to make it usable again bringing back old features. Hurrah! They have seen the light and give a shit about the user-base again!!

just install elementary OS. Fast, stable and beautiful.

Direct to bookmark
Thanx !!

Xubuntu is good and clean if you don't mind a '90s style desktop.

John, I personally think that in Windows, desktops reached their pinnacle with Windows 98 or 2000. Gnome 2.0 and Xubuntu and that overall flavor, which these days tastes like Cinnamon, is my preference.

Hello,
A very convenient way to integrate Dropbox into the system is to install it (and its integration) with the command:
sudo apt-get install nautilus-dropbox
Which will also load and install the proprietary dropbox binary for you.
Worked for me :)

dood you spelled cache cash, you win

Nice, will surly do if not all then most of the things you suggested :).

Great article, thanks! (Both rant and mods, that is.)
Maybe you might want to convert the "pretty quotation marks" around the gsettings input to remove 14.04's shopping suggestions from the Dash to the corresponding (single/double) straight quotation marks, to make that string work right away after copy-pasting it from the text.

I think the Dropbox issue is resolved by this fix - not just a 14.04 issue. http://blog.ishans.info/2013/12/26/fixing-authentication-is-needed-to-r…

I've just installed http://www.edubuntu.org/ onto my daughters machine and choose classic menus during installation. Will make a few tweaks for her in due course, surprised you didn't list Chromium here

thanks for collating list here and mentioning Copy.

I'll probably wait until 14.04.2 or 3 :)

I thoght I had no use for the keyboard indicator until I saw it's got a character map that enables you to copy characters you don't ordinarily use -- which saved me the trouble of digging up/configuring another applet, works very well.

Ah thats interesting. Thanks for pointing that out!

Thanks Greg, that was useful.
Before following your "things to do" I had problems with 14.04 not connecting to my camera and cellphone for image transfer, now the camera is fine but the Nokia cellphone is still a problem. Do you have any further suggestions?

Maybe try mounting it from the comments line. Is it hooked up with a USB?

Yes it's hooked up via USB. Never heard of "mounting from comments line" - please clarify what this means.

First, look in the system notification area to see if it is there somehwere.

If it is an android phone you may want to look at this:
http://www.mysolutions.it/mounting-your-mtp-androids-sd-card-on-ubuntu/

A think hooked to your computer via USB should be recognized by the system, but may not be mounted so that it can be accessed like a hard drive/file system/etc for some reason. It seems that one of your devices is being recognized and mounted the other not.

It is possible that the cell phone connection is bad for some reason. You can test that by trying to mount it to another computer. You can also swap USB cables, perhaps, to verify that the cable is working.

One way to tell if the computer even noticed the USB device being plugged in is to mount it and then right, at a terminal you've already opened, type in:
tail -s 3 -f /var/log/messages

which will give you the last several items (the "tail") of a file tha the kernel keeps about stuff it does. Or just look at /var/log/messages a file on your had drive in the "file system" part.

On that list there may be something that says something about USB and possibly a device, such as /dev/something (like sda2)

If so, that /dev/something is the name of the thing you plugged in.

It might even be named something obvious like /dev/usb-something

The problem is, some phones get mounted but not as file systems, but rather, as communication devices. I'm not sure why that happens. To access the data on that phone you have to do stuff that is a bit above my paygrade, essentially treating it as a separate computer that you are "teletyping" into.

Here is one possible solution but it is a bit esoteric:

http://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/480386-mobbile-phone-mass-sto…

If your phone has a card that comes out, the best way to do this may be to take it out and use that to access your photos/etc. If some of your photos/etc are on the internal memory, your cell phone probably has a way of transferring those data to the card.

For skype, sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list is more clear; near the bottom are instructions on which 2 lines to be un-commented and activated, save.
Next check: sudo gedit /usr/share/alsa/cards/USB-Audio.conf to see if your headphone is listed ( I had to add the line:
"Plantronics .Audio 646 DSP" 999 ). Following, sudo apt-get install skype:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386 works for me!

And you may need to brew your own IcedTea:
# sudo apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin
# mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins
# ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0_04/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins

Good column, thx and cheers :-)

Jay, thanks, excellent points.

Jan, in that case you may be able to mount it

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2013/01/mount-umount-examples/

Since the whole world does not write in English only and many have to switch between 2 or more languages, the language indicator is not only helpful, it's essential. It seems that multilingual support gets really effed up from time to time (13.10 changed the language switching combination, 14.04 effed up language switching on the login screen, etc). Time machine back to the 80s.

Why does no one make scripts for these things? Why make us copy commands one by one? Here's my script, including all the suggestions from this article, plus from one or two others. Just save it into a file, chmod +x it (or right click, do properties, and give it permission to run) and run it in a terminal. WARNING: Make you sure you know what all these commands do and that you want to actually do them! Delete the lines you want. Use with caution. I take no responsibility if it causes your computer to become sentient, murder your family, and then self-destruct. You're welcome!

#!/bin/bash

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install calibre -y
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
sudo apt-get install vlc
sudo apt-get install rar
sudo apt-get install gimp
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool
sudo sh -c ‘echo “deb http://archive.canonical.com/ quantal partner” >> /etc/apt/sources.list’
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install skype
sudo apt-get install icedtea–7-plugin openjdk–7-jre
sudo apt-get install diodon diodon-plugins
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install calendar-indicator
sudo apt-get install dropbox
sudo apt-get install libappindicator1
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:diesch/testing
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install classicmenu-indicator
sudo apt-get install indicator-multiload
gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Lenses disabled-scopes “[‘more_suggestions-amazon.scope’, ‘more_suggestions-u1ms.scope’, ‘more_suggestions-populartracks.scope’, ‘music-musicstore.scope’, ‘more_suggestions-ebay.scope’, ‘more_suggestions-ubuntushop.scope’, ‘more_suggestions-skimlinks.scope’]”
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw
sudo tlp start
sudo apt-get install dolphin -y
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
echo "Downloading GetDeb and PlayDeb" &&
wget http://archive.getdeb.net/install_deb/getdeb-repository_0.1-1~getdeb1_a… http://archive.getdeb.net/install_deb/playdeb_0.3-1~getdeb1_all.deb &&

echo "Installing GetDeb" &&
sudo dpkg -i getdeb-repository_0.1-1~getdeb1_all.deb &&

echo "Installing PlayDeb" &&
sudo dpkg -i playdeb_0.3-1~getdeb1_all.deb &&

echo "Deleting Downloads" &&
rm -f getdeb-repository_0.1-1~getdeb1_all.deb &&
rm -f playdeb_0.3-1~getdeb1_all.deb
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
echo 'deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/debian/stable/ /' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libdvdcss.list &&
echo 'deb-src http://download.videolan.org/pub/debian/stable/ /' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libdvdcss.list &&
wget -O - http://download.videolan.org/pub/debian/videolan-apt.asc|sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get install synaptic vlc gimp gimp-data gimp-plugin-registry gimp-data-extras y-ppa-manager bleachbit openjdk-7-jre oracle-java8-installer flashplugin-installer unace unrar zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar sharutils rar uudeview mpack arj cabextract file-roller libxine1-ffmpeg mencoder flac faac faad sox ffmpeg2theora libmpeg2-4 uudeview libmpeg3-1 mpeg3-utils mpegdemux liba52-dev mpeg2dec vorbis-tools id3v2 mpg321 mpg123 libflac++6 totem-mozilla icedax lame libmad0 libjpeg-progs libdvdcss2 libdvdread4 libdvdnav4 libswscale-extra-2 ubuntu-restricted-extras ubuntu-wallpapers*
echo "Cleaning Up" &&
sudo apt-get -f install &&
sudo apt-get autoremove &&
sudo apt-get -y autoclean &&
sudo apt-get -y clean

Since installing Tweak Tool my menu bar is not functioning like before, e.g. if I have two or more windows open in a browser, the system used to show all the open windows minimised if I click on the relevant menu item so I can pick the one I want to go to. I have tried to establish which of the Tweak Tool settings controls this function but no success, so I have had to remove Tweak Tool, but this function is still mnot back. Where have I missed the boat?

Are you talking about chrome tabs when you refer to windows? Shown in the menu bar on top? Did you install something to make that happen?

Whoa, what is this when I click on online services? "Authorize Ubuntu to access your Twitter account". I don't think so.

I would agree with Greg, 13.10 was already a step in the right direction, and 14.04 continues that trend for Ubuntu. I had bought a high-end dedicated gaming laptop a while ago, but got so fed up with the Win8 on it that I removed it completely and put 13.10 on it, runs like a charm.

Regarding scripts, I have a colleciton of 60-70 bash scripts for installation & fixups that include your list & more, and includes instructions & descriptions. Each script has diagnostics, help, etc. to ensure correct use and successful installation, including dependencies. Works for 12.04 and 14.04, and I'm constantly updating, improving, and adding to them. Sure makes installation & "polishing" of Ubuntu an easy task...

I'm sure I'm not alone at this. But you're right -- no one publishes their scripts because they don't want to deal with people's issues or demands for support.

Even so, I have trouble getting the few Ubuntu users around me to even bother to look at what I have. I end up building systems for friends -- I'd rather they have a positive experience with Ubuntu, and I'm always learning by doing.

At least now I'm a bash expert. :^)

1/ skype. the normal font size is 6. must install qt4config. then run config-qt4. then choose your font and size (eg size 12).
2/ fonts. add the DROID font to system. these are much easier to read on monitor.

Since installing all those tweak tools, my Ubuntu 14.04 menu behaviour seems to have gone awry. I used to be able to access miniature versions of more than one window in the same app simultaneously; for example, when I had two or more sites open in the browser I could simply click on the Firefox icon to see miniature versions of all the currently open websites from where I could select which one I wanted to see.

The same principle in Thunberbird and other apps: I used to be able to go back to the main inbox window while an e-mail was being sent, this is no longer possible and is an irritation.

This feature is no longer working.

The problem appears to have started when I installed Unity Tweak Tool and Tweak Tool, but when I uninstall these apps the problem remains. I have tried various options offered by the tweak tools but to no avail.

Can you please assist me to recover the feature that I am missing?

I never had that capability to begin with so I'm not sure. But your answer may be here somewhere:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/128676/launcher-and-window-menu-bar-miss…

Have you been reading my mind Greg? Ie. Unity, and the beginning of some peoples' attempt to ruin Ubuntu?

Any relation to Bin Laden?

Can someone PLEASE tell me how to download files, en mass, from Ubuntu One before it is shut down?! This should NOT be this hard....
I've got 2.73 GB of old photos from a previous phone that I want to recover and there is no "download your stuff" button anywhere when accessing it through the browser. i'm running 14.04 - where 14.04 client has been done away with.

Christopher, since I never really had any files on Ubuntu One I have no idea, but I think that if you hook up with some of the other services such as COPY, they have a migration feature that helps you do this. My friend Mike seems to have had an easy time having his Ubuntu One stuff transferred over to Copy by using Copy to do the work. Since you get 5G free with Copy that should work for you.

Christopher, see image above.

Thanks for those useful tips. I've implemented many of them.
I've also installed cairo-dock and hidden the unity panel.
I like the cutesy interface of cairo-dock, It is much more configurable and additionally supplies the standard menus with a fast search function.
The application docks and stacks are particularly useful.
It is still slightly buggy but the benefits make the bugs bearable.

I tried Ubuntu in the version 12 range, but switched to Kubuntu, then found Linux MATE, version 14 at the time, and been with it ever since. If you liked gnome, you'd probably like Mint MATE too.

So so funny and so useful for us Ubuntu newbies! BTW I used your flash suggestion, fully expecting it not to work after HOURS of messing with Adobe's download (except it wouldn't), and VOILA, I can listen fo Grooveshark again without booting the Windows Enterprise I vowed to disavow. You have saved my sanity. Bookmark, boom.

I've never liked Gnome, I'm a huge KDE fan - that's why I stick with Kubuntu, which is an Ubuntu variant that comes with KDE as its default desktop. Of course I could install regular Ubuntu and then install and configure all the necessary KDE packages, but that's a lot of work.

Actually, I've been a KDE user since KDE 1.0, because unlike you, I knew enough about Linux to get S.u.S.E. to work (back when it still had those little dots in the 1990s). I just always found S.u.S.E. quite annoying because it didn't let you edit the configuration files by hand, you always had to use suseconfig, and the yast package manager was awful - so I switched to Debian around 2004. S.u.S.E. had been using KDE as its default desktop ever since KDE 1.0, but Debian was using Gnome, so I had to install all those packages manually. Besides, Debian still asked me lots of questions while installing anything, which is nice for a server OS but not so much for a desktop OS, so I was really happy when Ubuntu came and was as quick and easy to install as OS X or Windows.

Anyway, Unity sucks. But it's not Unity why I'm considering switching to another Linux distro, it's some basic decisions the people at Ubuntu made about the future road map of their operating system, which will make it drift away from the Linux mainstream, no matter which desktop you use.

We share concerns about Ubuntu's road map but I wonder if they are changing with the demise of One.

One of those early packages I tried was SUSE. I got it working of course, but it was impossible for me to figure out how to print (which ironically is something I almost never do these days) or to use the internet (very important).

I just installed Cinnamon 2.2 on top of the Ubuntu install and it is very nice, and working well. But you would not like it since it is very Gnomish.

No offense, but how can anyone who's ever used Winblows NOT know what RAR is. I almost stopped reading after that.

No offense, but how can anyone who’s ever used Winblows NOT know what RAR is.

When somebody says 'no offense, but...', it is a pretty good indicator that they intend to be snarky and they are deliberately drawing attention to that fact.

As an exercise, try re-phrasing your statement in a neutral way. It's not at all difficult and it is far more helpful.

Oh, I for one, did not know anything about the RAR format for a long time. But, if you ask me about .tar.gz I can say something useful.

I'm a very new user of Ubuntu 14.01 after many years of Windows XP. When I get a message that there's an update, the system tells me there not enough space and to run 'sudo apt-get clean'. I have no idea how to get to this or how to run it. I have loads of space on the hard drive. Please could someone explain in very basic terms. Thanks in anticipation.

Sorry, should have read Ubuntu 14.04

One other problem I'm having is that once booted up a window automatically opens for Keyboard Shortcuts.

How can I stop this happening?

Colin, do you have your hard drive partitioned into smaller portions so that the system is on a smaller "virtual" drive? Or, are you booting up from a CD/DVD or a thumb drive?

I have no idea why keyboard shortcuts would open on bootup.

Colin, as Greg points out, your Ubuntu is very short of disk space if you're getting a request to 'clean' your repository (which amounts to removing installer files that are no longer needed).

To do this, press Ctrl-Alt-T to open a terminal window, then enter the 'sudo apt-get clean' command. When it's done, you can close the terminal window. In the longer term, you'll need to make some rearrangements to increase the disk space allocated for Ubuntu. (Which of several methods really depends on how your system was installed.)

The Keyboard Shortcuts display is a new 'feature' for 14.04. It will always disappear with the first keypress or mouse click to do something in Ubuntu. It's a courtesy reminder, but doesn't affect anything.

Greg/Brainstorms, thanks for your support, much appreciated. The keyboard commands has now ceased opening, but I can run 'sudo apt-get clean'. Here's from a couple of attempts. Any ideas?

colin@Dell:~$ get sudo apt-get clean
No command 'get' found, but there are 19 similar ones
get: command not found
colin@Dell:~$ apt-get clean
E: Could not open lock file /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the download directory

My Ubuntu set up was just the default directly replacing Windows XP on my Laptop's hard drive. Generally it's really good and I think I much prefer it to Windows, any version!

Sorry, should have read 'can't run'

sudo apt-get clean

Then it will ask you for a password.

apt-get is the program you are running

clean tells it to cleanup

sudo allows you to run apt-get which can only be run with super user permission.

You should also, when you are done cleaning, run

sudo apt-get update

just to make sure everything is updated.

Greg, really appreciate your help.
After a few attempts, I was asked for a password, which I entered. Nothing seemed to happen, so I tried again but no request for a password. I then tried the updates, and all downloaded and installed OK. Thanks again, Colin

Colin, when you first (successfully) use the 'sudo' qualifier, you get 5 minutes of "free use" of 'sudo' without having to re-enter your password (a convenience).

You can usually get a command prompt even when the GUI desktop is frozen or otherwise unusable by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1. You'll need to log in to the console (for security reasons), then you can run command-line commands to recover, install, fix things, etc. F1 through F6 are Console Terminals, while F7-F12 are GUI sessions; you return to your GUI session with Ctrl-Alt-F7 (sometimes F8; you can always try others).

Most of the command line commands will display an error message if something goes wrong, but will give no output if they complete successfully. (You get a new prompt, but that's all.)

You can enter 'df -h' at the command prompt and it will display how much disk space is being used and how much is available (for all the disk partitions in your system that are mounted by Ubuntu).

There is also a graphical (GUI) tool you can use to resize your partitions to make more room, called 'gparted'. You can search for it with the Dash (and you may need to install it for Ubuntu running on a hard drive; the "Live CD" version, when booted up, has 'gparted' already available). Please Google and read up on using 'gparted' first, though. Backups are recommended (until you know what you're doing).

Congrats on making the jump to Linux. There's a bit to learn to get things set up & configured (as there was with learning Windows), but it's rewarding and the wider range of control you have is nice.

Colin, normally when "nothing happens" in Linux that is because everything went fine, as Brainstorms says.

You can install gparted, probably, with apt-get

sudo apt-get install gparted

Then enter password if asked, and you may also have to say "Y" at some point.

Brainstorms/Greg,

thanks for all you help. Luckily following the updates my old laptop is really flying again. I'm amazed how well a 9 year old laptop witha Celeron 1.4 processor and 2GB of RAM works with Ubuntu.

Even things where I had my doubts like not being able to get a printer driver from Epson were completly unfounded as the compatible driver in Ubuntu works just fine.

All the apps I use sit nicely in the Dash and have the virus scanner and firewall installed too.

I really appreciate all your kind advice which gives me a lot of confidence with Ubuntu.

Great!

You probably don't actually need the virus scanner. What is it, anyway?

It's like bandages after the civil war. Everybody kept them around but nobody needed them. Where the Civil War is Windows and After the Civil War is Linux. And Bandages are virus scanners.

I just got an email from Skype:
"We are now retiring older versions of Skype and it appears that at some point you signed into Skype with one of these. To continue signing into Skype on Linux you'll need to download the latest version. The new version comes with improved performance, the latest features and security updates, so you'll get the best possible Skype experience.

Update now at http://www.skype.com/download."

I could never get skype to work until I followed your install instructions, so I am dubious about trying to install skype's download again. I suppose it is too much to expect that your instructions will install the updated skype?

Some sites claim Canonical has 4.3 - but even after enabling Canonical in Software & updates, both the terminal command line and software center just install 4.2 again. The following worked for me:

Remove Skype 4.2:
sudo apt-get remove skype skype-bin

Purge Skype 4.2:
sudo apt-get purge skype skype-bin

Learn whether your linux install is 32 bit or 64 bit and download the appropriate file from Skype.

Install Gdebi from Software Center. In your file browser, find the Skype package in downloads and right-click on it, select open with Gdebi and click install

Delete your login folder from /home/[loginname]/.Skype/[loginname] otherwise Skype either hangs or comes up as 4.2 again. Hit Ctrl+H to see hidden files.

Donal, excellent, thanks

gdebi is a good idea to have on one's system. For those who don't know it is essentially the same thing as apt but it works on local packages that are in the form of .deb files.

In the old days before Ubunutu broke Linux (conceptually) gdebi was normally installed, it may well be part of a lot of installations. So software what was not in regular repositories, often highly experimental stuff, would be installed by downloading the deb package. Then, you just click on the deb package in your file manager (double click) and it installs. Now, you typically have to install gdebi to get this functionality.

BTW, several of the Skype commenters are using Mint, which seems to be more open than Ubuntu + Unity. I'm going to have to try it out.

Thanks for the rant. The Internet was made for rants.

is there any conflict between LibAV/mplayer2 & ffmpeg/mencoder/mplayer?

This conflict prevented the upgrade message appearing in my LTS 12 system. Only after I uninstalled all this stuff, I got the upgrade to 14 message. Thinking, If I need to re-install all this stuff or if it is possible to live without them?

Right now im using Ubuntu 12.10 and it has overheating issue. I have solved this prob by installing TLP.

Can anyone confirm whether Ubuntu 14.04 has the same issue and is it compatible with TLP and Psensor app.

Not sure about the overheating issue inherent to the particular release, but TLP is compatable.

Psensor is working fine on my Ubuntu 14.04

Hi, with reference to previous postings, I've run into difficulties again with there not being enough space in the Boot partician to install updates. I've now downloaded GParted which shows:
Partitian /dev/sda1 + key symbol
File system ext2
Mount Point /boot
Size 243.00MiB
Used 196.97MiB
Unused 46.03MiB
Flags boot

I can't see how to increase the size of this partician, so would be very grateful for some further advice.

So is sda1 a flash drive?

If that is part of a larger hard drive maybe you can Unmount it and increase its size. Do Gparted show other partitions?

Colin #82, see this page:
http://berkhamsted-web-design.co.uk/blog/update-manager-not-enough-free…
And halfway down this page is description of Synaptic Package Manager (and Gdebi):
http://www.techdrivein.com/2013/06/30-things-to-do-after-installing-ubu…

@82:
Colin, take a look in your '/boot' directory... Do you have more than 2 "vmlinuz*" files present? If so, you don't need the extras, and they would account for your '/boot' directory (partition) using 192MB and not having enough space.

You only need to have two copies of the kernel in '/boot', one as your primary and one as a backup. The primary is the highest-numbered kernel; the backup is the second-highest.

You can safely remove the others; this will make the space you need to install your updates.

The way to remove them is to enter "sudo apt-get remove linux-image-X.YY.0-ZZ" where X, Y, an Z refer to the kernel you wish to remove.

For example, if you're running kernel 3.13.0-34 (which is current) and have as a backup kernel 3.13.0-32, and have extra kernels 3.13.0-29 and 3.13.0-28, then you would do this:

sudo apt-get remove linux-image-3.13.0-28 linux-image-3.13-0-29

and it will remove the two unneeded kernels and leave the two you do need. Then you should have enough space to update.

You'll likely find that this is a task you need to do periodically, since you have such a small '/boot' partition. (I wrote a script to do this for me.)

Folks, thanks for your replies, all very much appreciated.

I managed to use the Synaptic Package Manager and Sudo apt-get clean which has freed up enough space to allow all the updates and are now running kernal 13.13.0-34.

I'd guess that I'll need to incease the size of the boot partician in GParted, but not quite sure how to go about this, unmounting etc. and how big it should be. The hard drive size is 40GB.

As always any advice will be much appreciated.

Colin, enlarging your boot partition on a system with a single 40GB hard drive is difficult and will likely require you to have another hard drive handy. You'd need to back up your entire system, repartition the drive, then roll in the backup. Or, back up just your data files (your /home account), then wipe the drive and rebuild from scratch (using the 'manual' option for partitioning and giving the boot partition more room than the default), then copy back your data files.

(These issues and how to deal with them are things you learn by building Linux systems multiple times. It might seem like drudgery, but it's the best way to learn these things.)

Here's another option you have to resolve this (which is possibly better for someone with only 40GB of space): Eliminate your boot partition altogether. Red Hat-based Linux requires a separate boot partition, but Debian-based Linux (of which Ubuntu is an example) does not. Even so, if you choose the "I'll do it for you" installation option, it will create one when it installs. I expect this is what happened when you installed Trusty...

Here's how to eliminate a boot partition on a running Ubuntu system. Note: You will need to know how to use one of the command-line text editors on your system, or you'll need to know how to launch one of your GUI text editors with superuser privilges (Alt-F2, then "gksu gedit", for example).

Caveat: This is risky; if you don't follow the procedure closely, you can render your system unbootable. It's prudent to make a full backup before you try this. (However, I've done this dozens of times "without a safety net" -- I don't backup before doing this, because I know how to walk the wire with my eyes closed. There's no substitute for experience...)

1.) Open a terminal window by pressing "Ctrl-Alt-T".

2.) Become the superuser by entering "sudo -i" and entering your password when prompted. (Your prompt character should change from $ to #.)

3.) Enter "df -h" and verify that you do have a separate boot partition: There will be a line in the output that shows "/boot" in the "Mounted on" column. If you can't find this, then you do not have a separate boot partition!

4.) Note the "block device" that contains "/boot", which is listed in the first column of the output, under "Filesystem". This will be something like "/dev/sda1".

5.) Remount your boot partition by entering "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt" (where you may need to substitute your actual partition for the "sda1" part).

6.) Verify that the above was successful by entering "ll /mnt" (where "ll" is lowercase LL, in case that's not clear): You should see the same output as you get for entering "ll /boot" (since they are displaying the same partition contents at this point).

7.) Unmount your /boot directory by entering "umount /boot". If this succeeds (and it can be done safely while you're booted), then "ll /boot" should show no files present.

8.) Copy the boot partition files into /boot by entering "rsync -avx /mnt/ /boot/". This puts all your boot files into your main partition.

9.) Unmount your boot partition by entering "umount /mnt".

10.) Change your 'fstab' file so that you no longer try to mount your boot partition by editing "/etc/fstab" (using 'nano', 'pico', 'vi', etc., or a GUI editor as superuser). There will be one line in this file that specifies mounting to /boot. Edit to add a # character at the beginning of this line. (This turns the mount command into a comment.)

11.) Rebuild your GRUB configuration file so that it will no longer try to boot from a separate boot partition by entering "update-grub".

12.) Rebuild your initial RAM filesystem file; this is the file that Linux copies to a RAM disk to use temporarily while booting. Do this by entering "cd /boot" then entering "update-initramfs -u", which will update the current kernel's "initramfs" file (but it won't touch your backup kernel's initramfs file -- just in case).

13.) Reboot and hold your breath... :^)

When it's back up, you'll no longer be using your boot partition, only your OS partition. This will work regardless of whether your Ubuntu system is using RAID, LVM, or straight partitions.

Brainstorms, thanks for your reply. I have a boot partician as you described, and assume it's the normal default.
Currently showing:
Size:236m, Used 82m, Available 142m, Use 37%, Mounted on /boot
I'll look at this again if I run into further problems!

Thanks again.

Colin, your setup is typical, but it only allows for a few kernels to be installed before running out of room. It's a known issue, but Debian-based Linux distros do not automatically prune obsolete kernels as do Red Hat-based Linux distros. (They claim that they don't know if it's safe to remove them automatically or not -- so they don't.)

As a consequence, whether you keep your boot partition or not, and whether you enlarge it or not, you will need to periodically manually remove stale, unneeded kernels and their "header" folders (which are kept in '/usr/src').

If you don't, eventually, even with enough space left on your disk, these large file sets will gobble up enough "inodes" (file system indices) that you will be unable to write new files on your disk.

Several people who have been running the LTS (Long Term Support) versions of Ubuntu (desktop & server) have been finding this out the hard way...

Since I update my systems manually, I do this sort of maintenance function at the same time.

Why are we installing multiple kernels on Colin's machine?

Greg, tis not we, but Canonical that adds additional kernels to our installations... Periodically, the Ubuntu distro maintainers update the kernel and the new version appears in the list of packages to be updated. And in they go (silently, more or less, if you use the GUI updater; I update via the command line so that I can see what's going on).

It is possible to turn this off; i.e., you can create a blacklist of packages to *not* update, and kernel updates are probably the most popular example.

However, updating the kernel is the default, and Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc. have a problem that results from this: The updater installs the new kernels, but fails to prune outdated kernels & their header packages, which build up. Over time, the detritus chokes the file system to disfunction.

Red Hat's distros do automatic pruning, and keep only the 3 most recent kernels (although, really, only two are needed). Ubuntu users have to manually do this pruning. Tthey really shouldn't have to even know about this...

Why wasn't this a problem in the past? Well, because Ubuntu was releasing new distros every 6 months and most people were upgrading before things got out of hand. (New kernels come out roughly every 3 weeks; upgrading your distro wipes out the old kernels when the new one is installed.)

Now, there seems to be a shift towards sticking with the LTS versions -- something that "server" version users do as a matter of course. This leads to "kernel clot" after 2-3 years if no maintenance is done to remove the old stuff.

Bug reports/change requests have been written on this subject, but there's no sign that they'll change the way they're doing things. Worse, there doesn't seem to be any official app or script to do the purging manually. (I had to write my own.)

Jan, you're at no risk of running out of space, since your boot directory is part of your 120GB SSD...

However, there's another unfortunate consideration, which has to do with file system indexing resources. The file system keeps track of "what's kept where" on the disk using data structures called "inodes" (index nodes).

There are a finite number of inodes on a disk, and normally you're not at risk of using them all up -- a condition which would prevent you from being able to add more files.

However, every time you update and install a new kernel, its "header files" packages come with, and these packages can contain > 10,000 files. Now consider running an LTS version for 2+ years, and getting a new kernel every month on average...

Server administrators have been finding that when they accumulate on the order of 20 or 25 kernels, they run out of inodes for their OS partition -- and the system locks up. Even if they still have unused space on their drive.

You'll have long time before this becomes an issue for you, but it can be puzzling at first why your system would be mis-behaving if/when it happens. (I myself have run OS partitions to 100% full, but that's easy to diagnose and usually easy to fix, too.)

What to do about it? Every now & then (say, 6 months), take a look at your /boot directory, and plan on purging all but the two most recent kernels + their header packages.

How to purge? Open a terminal window, and enter

sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-3.13.0-34 linux-headers-3.13.0-34-generic linux-image-3.13.0-34-generic linux-image-extra-3.13.0-34-generic

for each kernel you want to remove, substituting the actual number of the kernel you want to remove in place of the "3.13.0-34" in the above example. Repeat for all extra kernels. Be sure to keep the two highest-numbered kernels!

As you might guess from all the typing (or, better, copying & pasting and editing), this is tedious. It is. Which is why it's best to write a script to do it (where you run the script and give it the numbers and let it do all the typing for you).

It's too bad this is necessary... Shame on Canonical for not providing an admin tool to automate this!

Usefull post, thank you :-)

Four things to di BEFORE installing Ubuntu Unity.
1. Don't
2. Install Ubuntu-Gnome instead.
3. Set your preferences in Tweak and install vlc/codecs.
4. Live happily ever after.

I preferred Gnome 3 after it had matured a little -- and never understood the backlash against it. So installing it became part of the system building ritual.

...Until installation starting being a headache. Then I gave Unity 7 a serious try. And liked it, finally. It's quite usable now, and I expect it will get even better when v8 appears.

The only thing I still don't like is the disappearing window scrollbars. Ubuntu Tweak took care of that (and putting the icons back in the menus).

My problem with both unity and Gnome 3 is that it has all become about the desktop, and not my particular uses of it. This is a windows like thing for me. And, I admit it may just be me. Unity in it's fully developed Ubuntu glory is a great example. Say I want to start up emac. I hit the "windows" key (ironically) and start typing. I've got the "em" typed in and suddenly I'm looking at a huge HUD display that is starting to find Amazon.com books for me that start with "em", files and software on my coputer that stars with "em" ... it is like an over zealous kid trying to get my attention "look at me, I can do this, and this, and this, and this. "

What I really wanted my OS to do is to shut up and stay out of the way until I finished typing ...

emacs

... then emacs runs. No fanfare, no distraction.

To me the best "desktop" would be an area about the size of the typical panel in which I could type commands and that would make stuff happen, with a few of those commands giving me optional GUI methods of doing things. The next best thing to me is a simple pane on which I put the seven or eight icons that represent the software I use 80% of the time (that's three icons) and all of the other softare I use the rest of the time (the remaining icons).

I know you can turn off the Home Shopping Channel in Ubuntu but the fact that such a thing is central to it indicates what they are thinking and doing.

Greg, this is something that a user will either love or hate -- which is fine. I doubt Unity is supposed to be utopia for all... just "most" -- especially when the PC-tablet-smartphone convergence is declared reached. :^)

For the way you prefer to work, you're likely to be happier with a Gnome 2-based UI or XFCE. That equates, in the Ubuntu world, to Cinnamon, Mate, or Xubuntu.

You can get the first two with minimal fuss by installing LinuxMint instead of Ubuntu (or start by installing Ubuntu server and then add these desktops manually if you want an Ubuntu system... or even install one in Debian, for that matter). A Xubuntu install will build you an XFCE system straightaway.

The Mate desktop is now in the repos (as of 14.04); you'll need to Google a Cinnamon install procedure for that UI. Personally, I like Cinnamon, and I like it more than Mate.

@Brainstorms - he keeps on telling me he is going to finally try LinuxMint with Cinnamon, but I think he gets itchy for the new release and installs the new Ubuntu as soon as it is out. And then he posts about how much of a pain Unity is.

It's a cycle. I have gotten used to it.

My laptop runs Ubuntu 14.04 with the mate desktop. My desktop runs debian with XFCE.

Yes, that is they cycle! I actually installed Cinnamon, though, on the laptop but I didn't like it that much, then Ubuntu 14.04 came out with less broken menus (another example of Ubuntu jumping the shark; no matter what users think they like, dissapearing menus are not good for them!) so I installed it.

I do like Mate well enough but it suffers from the problems mentioned above with desktop functionality chaos. But, Mint with Mate would probably not have some of those problems.

Jan, I've had mixed experiences with Cairo Dock and related docs. But as Peter says it is not hard to mess with is.

By the way, on xfce there is a panel item called "verve command line". This is a space where you can type comnads. If you type a typical bash command you get nothing, as far as I can tell, but if you type a command that would invoke an X program, the program opens.

Greg, I need your help. I had photos before I upgraded to 14.04 but I can't seem to locate them. When I upgraded from 10 to 12 everything was there without a whip. How can I retrieve these if they are sitting anywhere?

Did anything else disappear?

My old documents and music. I think I had one or two files on my desktop as well.

May also want to include adding "gksu" as in order to access files as root (for remobving selections from boot you don't want or modifying the lightdm file from the file and not terminal requires gksu). "sudo apt-get install gksu".

I did what you did - I tried dozens and dozens of distros looking for something that worked the way I wanted my computer to work. In the process I learned alot which was good.

In the end I settled on Mint Linux KDE LTS. The LTS version just became my favorite this year after a decade of trying the newest and shinies versions of everything I liked. My app problems went away with the LTS version. It isn't the newest any shiniest version but it works.

I love Mint Linux KDE LTS. I'm never going back to Windows and a Mac is very nice but it isn't home like Mint Linux. I have software for 99% of what I do with a computer in Mint KDE. The only thing lacking is 3D CAD. FreeCAD is getting close. All I'm waiting for is their assembly functions to mature. In the mean time I'll keep using Solidworks (another favorite but unfortunately not usable in Linux-land).

Great article. keep them coming.

Great info on this thread.

Greg, the title "10 or 20 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr - Greg Laden's Blog" permanently shows on the top menu bar on my screen whenever Chrome is open. Doesn't matter if I open a new tab or navigate to a new page.

The browser is set to open a specific page at startup, one other than your own.

Can you set me free, please?

@DePertuis: Is it a bookmark? My bookmark folders show up in the top bar of Chrome and any bookmarks that aren't in folders show up to the right of the bookmark folders.

@ Joe Average: Also switched to Mint. Also pleased. Skype install was much easier, just had to add libasound drivers afterwards. I use Revit and AutoCad at work, but FreeCAD sounds affordable for home.

See this: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/11/08/10-or-20-things-to-do-afte…

@Jan #120,
No need to avoid Ubuntu!

From what you've said, I don't think this is an Ubuntu issue... If it's unable to set the resolution properly, it could be because it's not able to read to the display's EDID info correctly. (This tells the graphics card what the display size & frequencies are, so that it can figure out how to configure its output to get the expected proper display.)

This information can be manually set in these cases where the automatic routines have a problem. It was easier to do in the past, because X11 would create and use a configuration file, '/etc/X11/xorg.conf', so you would just edit that. Nowadays, the Xorg configuration is automatically generated and this file doesn't exist by default.

Nevertheless, there are published procedures for creating and editing this file for cases such as this. Take a look at these:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution

For modeline calculators, you can use either of these pages:
http://www.arachnoid.com/modelines/
http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl

I agree with you (and others) who think that mesa-utils should be included by default in Ubuntu (and it's one item of many I always add to Ubuntu immediately on building a system), but I don't think it's as clear that your friend's problem has Ubuntu at its root.

Whereas OSes such as OSX and Windows are essentially monolithic, meaning that one company is in control of and produces all the elements of the OS, this is not true of Linux. Linux (or, more properly termed, GNU/Linux) is an amalgam of modules produced & contributed by many different organizations. Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu, chose to include X-Windows (X11) for its windowing system.

Even X11 has (at least) two different implementations, XFree86 and Xorg (one forked from the other). Canonical chose Xorg to implement their X11... For rendering displays, (most) Linux systems use OpenGL, which depends on the libraries produced by the Mesa Project -- which is not owned by Canonical, nor the X.Org Foundation, nor GNU, nor "Linux"...

And consequently, any bugs in any of these component parts are not managed by any single entity, although Canonical (and its derivation parent, Debian) takes on the role of working with the various projects to ensure compatibility of its particular assembly of Linux elements, and collects & reports bugs as part of that responsibility.

But even a company as large as Canonical cannot "enforce" the resolution of bugs -- any more than anyone can enforce making users to report bugs in a timely and well-documented manner when they encounter them. (Devs can't fix what they're not aware of.)

So it's not so simple... The bug is not so much "in Ubuntu" as it is "in a component library that makes up Ubuntu" -- and in this case, likely not under (direct) control of Canonical.

And so this can also make it difficult to pinpoint which element is causing the problem (and consequently which organization has the ability to fix it). Here Canonical can help, through the use of its centralized bug reporting tool in Launchpad (which often has workarounds for cases where bugs have yet to be resolved). I would search there as well.

In your friend's case, if he can see a rendering of the GUI desktop, then the graphics driver is working correctly. (Even this was pointed out in your link.)

If his desktop is not being displayed at the proper resolution for his laptop display, then it is very likely to be a problem reading the display's EDID data, which would cause the windowing system to have to "guess" at an appropriate combination of sizes & scan frequencies. And in this case, it guessed wrong.

If the display is not "playing nice" with established industry standards, then it is clearly the device's bug, not Ubuntu's or X11's. As I mentioned, there is a workaround to deal with this and fix the display: Manually create a modeline in a (new) 'xorg.conf' file that is compatible with the laptop's display. Once this is created, it will work on each boot-up, and work with every version of Ubuntu, past, present, and future. (So he should make a copy & keep it in a safe place as long as he owns this laptop -- such as an email to himself.)

Sometimes the end-users need to take it upon themselves to implement work-arounds to fix issues with Linux... But then, they *can*. If this were Windows, we wouldn't even have this conversation. You'd be at the perpetual mercy of Microsoft (or one of its partner product developers).

One other thing, also pointed out by the link you included: The inability of the system to report the display information in the System Settings pane does not indicate that the graphics system isn't working... That display is a convenience, but there are no dependencies in the system on it working or displaying information correctly.

However, I will agree that it's a "bug" of one sort for this information field to be included in Ubuntu, yet Ubuntu does not install (by default) the necessary library package for the information to be decoded & represented.

And, be sure to check your friend's '/var/log/Xorg.0.log' file(s) for specific information as to why it could not determine the correct display parameters. That's where you'll see something that tells you that the EDID data was not read correctly (if this is the problem).

@donal, yes I have the same setup. I didn't have a Greg Laden Scienceblog bookmark when I first spotted the problem, but I do now, until this is resolved.

Found 7 cookies from Scienceblogs. Deleted. Rebooted.

Chrome still itself you.

#Chrome still sees itself as you.

Odd

Fixed it. Un- re-installed Chrome. Kept bookmarks, but title bar is now "Google Chrome." Even while here.

What possibly happened: When I chose the page(s) to open on program startup, yours might have been one if them captured when I selected "Use Current."

Later, I saw the error in Settings and deleted your page there, but some fragment remained somewhere on my system.

My best guess.

Keep up the good work, Greg.

Greg/Brainstorms/Donal,
it's quite a while since I visited, but since the kind advice given above, my switch from Windows XP to Ubuntu 14.04 last summer has been very successful. Updates come in regularly, and install easily.

The only thing I really use an old PC running XP for is photos, where I like to use PaintShop Pro v7. Is there something similar for editing and printing photos?

The Gimp is a great pixel based editing program. Very powerful. There is a paint like program for basic stuff people like called Pinta. It is pretty good. I don't use it because I often have to manipulate text being added to the graphics, and it does not do that the way I like.

For vector drawing a commonly used program is inkscape. OpenOffice/LibraOffice Draw is also avaialble, though I don't use it. Also xara extreme is great.

Colin, Greg: There's no need to give up PaintShop Pro v7!

Like many Windows applications, it runs on Linux, natively... (After you've added the Windows API libraries.)

If you like researching, tinkering, and debugging, you can install Wine and figure out how to make it work.

However, if you're like me and "just want it to work", then head over to codeweavers.com and buy a copy of CrossOver for Linux and install that.

CrossOver will hold your hand and lead you through the short procedure to install PaintShop Pro in your Ubuntu, and will automatically handle all dependencies, install needed DLLs, etc. for you.

PaintShop Pro v7 is known to work exceptionally well in CrossOver (i.e., Wine), so there's no reason not to keep using it.

Thanks for the info on Crossover. That is a constantly changing situation with the project being more and more able to handle Windows software often, actually, better than the way Windows handles it (or at least that used be true when Windows software would occasionally crash the whole system.)

Yes, CrossOver is an excellent addition to Linux (and Macs), and enables me to run nearly all of the Windows-only applications I still need to run. (It's how I run MS Office 2010, for example -- works great for that, although I'll use LibreOffice preferentially.)

It's one of the few applications for Linux that I pay for, but I'm glad to pay for it, for several reasons: One, it's of good quality; two, it's a utility that enables other necessary functions (i.e., running Windows apps); and three, the company that makes it is "on our side".

By that I mean CodeWeavers is the "parent company" of the Wine project, contributing most of the improvements to this open-source project. They're helping to relieve the community of users from Microsoft's vendor lock-in strategy, giving them a choice of OS to run.

CrossOver makes running Windows apps in Linux/Mac easy -- no need for a virtual machine (or Parallels) and no need to buy a Windows OS license. Windows apps then look & act like your other installed Linux apps (including having clickable icons to launch them).

Also of note: Windows viruses DO NOT FUNCTION in Wine or Crossover; the OS features they depend on aren't there for them to hook into. That makes it not just more convenient, but safer than using a virtual machine.

I'll keep Crossover in mind, though I don't use any windows apps at home anymore. I used to have a copy of Photoshop LE that came with a scanner, but now I use Gimp. My license of Autocad expired, so now I just use the office's software.

Yes, Crossover contributes to wine, and also, last time I bought it, it was cheap. For what you get it is VERY cheap, if you have even one Windows app you want to port over to Linux.

Folks, thanks for your advice. Very much appreciated.

WOW!!! this is a prime example of someone who you should not take an example from... For example, your comment of "rar, i dont know what it is but others do"... You could have spent 2 seconds doing a google to find out the answer.. These days 7Zip is the new and better option..

[I could do that with everything I'm not familiar with ... google it and based on a very shallow understanding make a recommendation. I'd rather not do that, though. It would be irresponsible.

I'd rather people who a) know about a particular thing, b) have the ability to explain it usefully and c) are polite cover those areas.

My particular role in the Open Source and Linux communities is as a person who is not a hacker, or system admin, or developer, using Linux and FOSS for my day to day activities, promoting the idea that other people like me can do that, and where I've got some knowledge, spread it around a bit but not pretend to be an expert on parts of this ecosystem that I am not an expert on. Linux isn't for everybody, but it is also not exclusively for those who are experts on every aspect of it. -gtl]

I suggest you learn before you post... You've got a few unhappy viewers because they simply go.. The internet told me to do it!

[Exactly. "The Internet told me to do it" is not the way to go. This is a learning process for everyone. I learn before I post, and for the parts I did not learn I don't fake it. -gtl]

I find using a post install script very handy http://pastebin.com/n4i0mvL0

*Henry Hengst* : Thanks for the Script,.. I am in and out of Ubuntu and various Distros; appreciate the shortcut to getting Ubuntu off and running..

Mr. Laden,
I can honestly say that, I have not more enjoyed reading a 'things to do' with Ubuntu listing, than your post, here. I found your humor to be sharp, but not so stingy as to be a turned off. My personal reasons aside, for needing to find a Linux Distro that would suit my needs, stability and reliability are utmost important. While I have tried a number of other distributions, I find Ubuntu to be the 'more' stable. IMOO, it is the system, I love to hate.
Maybe it is that we can see the promise that is suggested by it's easy 'installation', and near seamless integration with so many various machines ( I have installed Ubuntu on half a dozen machines without a hitch - but many other Distros have failed, for differing reasons). I would like to try Linux Mint, my next go round; having avoided it, because of it's number three status making it a greater target for attack by unscrupulous, would-be virus and spy-bot engineers out there). Does anyone have anything to address, towards such fears? Could Linux Mint, being now so widely distributed, become a greater target of attack? Yea,.. Ubuntu, would probably be right near-by, I would suppose..
Anyway, Loved the post, and have added you to my speed dial,.. Cash,.. Lmao!

@Brainstorms/Greg,

Regarding Linux scripts... when I do see them, I rarely see any kind of error-level checking. As an old-time DOS/4DOS user, it's something that's always bothered me about most Linux scripts I've encountered. Do you guys check for success/failure before moving down to the next line or subroutine when sharing scripts?

Jamed, you are assuming we make errors! :)

But seriously, I'm personally not providing scripts, but one liners, specifically because it is not worth doing so given individual's custom needs and the possibility of unknown variation between cases.

Jamed, I go to greater lengths, and make full-blown scripts to handle everything I frequently do, including installing all the extra stuff I add to Ubuntu when I build a system from scratch.

So I have a main script that gets included in all my individual installation scripts, and it starts with an error handler. All of my scripts pre-qualify any dependencies before executing routines or making calls, and on return they check return codes to verify that things went as expected. The handler prints a detailed error message to help pinpoint what didn't work, where, and why.

It was a lot of work to write, but it was worth it, as it gets re-used a lot. The other reason is that with things like installations, I want to be sure of the state of the system before proceeding at each step, and for each app I'm installing.

The result is that it now takes ~20 minutes to install the OS from scratch, and about the same amount of time to install what probably amounts to hundreds of other apps & libraries. (My install size goes from the stock ~4 GB to around 8 or 9 GB when I'm done.

But it's a very full-featured and user-friendly desktop system when I'm done. (Which includes Crossover & Windows 7 in VirtualBox.)

"Why Ubuntu thinks you need to know what keyboard is running but not which user is behind the keyboard is an enigma wrapped in a riddle. "

The majority of the people on earth are bilingual. I have to switch between keyboards a couple of times an hour. Comparatively few people need to see who is logged on at all times.

I hope this clears that up :)

Rebecca. I am multilingual. I never switch keyboards. I strongly suspect that very few people actually switch keyboards very often.

I appreciate your correcting me on this, but I'd like to see backup. I think most people don't use this feature, so it is likely as suggested a status indicator that should probably be off rather than on by default.

Always prepared to be proven wrong, of course!

I am multi-keyboardal. My wife is multi-lingual.

I type both Dvorak and Qwerty. In U.S. English. My wife uses the standard Qwerty, and occasionally a language-specific keyboard.

When other people need to use my keyboard (typically to show me something or do a search for me), I have to switch to Qwerty. (Only one other person I know is Dvorak-literate.)

But otherwise, the status bar indicator is probably superfluous for most people, as Greg points out. But so is the account name indicator, for single-user machines.

I have several machines that are multi-user, however, and it is important that a given user can quickly recognize what account they're staring at when they sit down. (Because it's painfully difficult to get users to learn to lock their account when they leave the machine -- which forces the next person to log into their own account, rather than caving into the temptation to use the account of the previous person...)

So, I always turn on "Show my login name in the menu bar" for every account when I set up a machine.

BTW, it's quaint that you provided all the "gsettings" terminal commands for these kinds of tweaks, but many of them are available in "Settings..." (the above being on the "User Accounts" tab), or via Ubuntu Tweak (Google it), or via the Unity Tweak Tool (Google it).

I know, I know... You don't like Unity. Version 7 is nice...

> I strongly suspect that very few people actually switch keyboards very often.

You must be kidding. It's probably only the case if you're 100% American and don't have to deal with anything but English. However, people from other countries need multiple keyboards like air, even if they only speak one language.

I'm Russian myself and most of the things I type when speaking to friends or flaming on the web I type in russian. But, surprise, most of the domain names, email addresses, passwords, console commands, config files and programming languages requires having latin keyboard. For programmers it's also common to be told to keep comments and commit messages in their native language. So you're actually in a minority. In outer word people have to switch keyboards very often.

...and having broken Alt+Shift combination in Ubuntu doesn't help at all. But at least I see now why it takes Canonical over 3 years to fix it.