FILES DOWNLOAD: tips n tricks

Showing posts with label tips n tricks. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Get The Ubuntu One Nautilus Integration Back In Ubuntu 13.10

In Ubuntu 13.10, there's no Nautilus integration for Ubuntu One because the package containing the Nautilus extension was removed.

Some of that functionality is integrated with the Sync Menu, but not all: currently, there is no way of knowing if a file is currently in sync with Ubuntu One. Also, some users might prefer to right click a file in Nautilus to share it / get a share link, instead of opening the main Ubuntu One interface. Read on to find out how to get this back in Ubuntu 13.10.

UbuntuOne Nautilus integration Ubuntu 13.10

Note: If you've upgraded to Ubuntu 13.10 instead of doing a clean install, the Ubuntu One Nautilus extension should be installed on your system. This change affects new Ubuntu installations only.

If you want to get the Ubuntu One Nautilus integration back in Ubuntu 13.10, you must install two deb packages from Ubuntu 13.04:

32bit:

mkdir /tmp/ubuntuone
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntuone-client-gnome/4.2.0-0ubuntu1/+build/4405130/+files/ubuntuone-client-gnome_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_i386.deb -O /tmp/ubuntuone/ubuntuone-client-gnome_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntuone-client/4.2.0-0ubuntu1/+build/4405193/+files/libsyncdaemon-1.0-1_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_i386.deb -O /tmp/ubuntuone/libsyncdaemon-1.0-1_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ubuntuone/*.deb

64bit:

mkdir /tmp/ubuntuone
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntuone-client-gnome/4.2.0-0ubuntu1/+build/4405128/+files/ubuntuone-client-gnome_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb -O /tmp/ubuntuone/ubuntuone-client-gnome_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntuone-client/4.2.0-0ubuntu1/+build/4405191/+files/libsyncdaemon-1.0-1_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb -O /tmp/ubuntuone/libsyncdaemon-1.0-1_4.2.0-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ubuntuone/*.deb

Then, restart Nautilus:

nautilus -q

And you should be able to see the sync status in Nautilus for all the files in your Ubuntu One folder. You can also share a file via the Nautilus context menu, etc.

Thanks to Shaun P @ LP: #1232053

Unity Global Menu Can Now Be Disabled For Individual Applications [Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr]

After a recent update in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, it's possible to whitelist or blacklist individual applications from using the Ubuntu AppMenu (global menu).

These settings are accessible via Dconf-editor, under com > canonical > unity-gtk-module.

To blacklist an application from using the Unity global menu in Ubuntu 14.04, install dconf-editor:

sudo apt-get install dconf-editor

Then open Dconf Editor, navigate to com > canonical > unity-gtk-module and add the class of the application(s) you want under "blacklist" or "whitelist". After adding some application(s) to the blacklist or whitelist, restart that application(s) or log out and log back in.

Example 1: to blacklist Gedit, add the following under com > canonical > unity-gtk-module > blacklist:

['gedit']

Example 2: to blacklist Gedit, Nemo and Audacious, add the following under com > canonical > unity-gtk-module > blacklist:

['gedit', 'nemo', 'audacious']

In the same way you can force applications to use the global menu by adding them under "whitelist". Applications that are blacklisted by default include: Eclipse, Acroread, Emacs and Freeciv.

To find out the window class (which you must add under "blacklist" or "whitelist"), use the following command in a terminal:

xprop | grep CLASS

Then, click on the application you want to blacklist or whitelist and the window class should be displayed in the terminal.

Make Firefox Use Native Notifications In Linux With GNotifier

Quick tip for Firefox users: GNotifier is a Firefox extension that makes the browser use native notifications on the Linux desktop. The extension currently supports GNOME (Shell), Unity, KDE and Xfce.

Below you can see a Firefox notification in action using GNotifier, under Unity and GNOME Shell:

Besides regular notifications, like the one displayed when a file is downloaded, the extension also supports the standard webkitNotification API (for instance, receiving notifications on new emails in Gmail) - to use this feature, Firefox needs an user script like THIS (you'll need Greasemonkey extension to install user scripts).

Get native Linux desktop notifications in Firefox with GNotifier

To install GNotifier Firefox extension, visit its page and click "Add to Firefox": GNotifier @ Firefox Addons.

The extension should start working immediately, without having to restart the browser.

Get Firefox And Phonon-GStreamer To Support H.264 In Ubuntu 14.04 [Updated]

The FFmpeg plugin for GStreamer 0.10 is not available in the official Ubuntu 14.04 repositories and because of this, Firefox doesn't support the H.264 codec.

Furthermore, without the FFmpeg plugin for GStreamer 0.10 package, KDE apps can't play H.264 videos in Kubuntu 14.04 if they use the GStreamer backend. Another issue with this is that Amarok can't play WMA files. There might also be other affected applications.

The bug was reported on Launchpad and it's not yet known if it will be fixed. Until (if) it's fixed, here's a work-around you can use to get Firefox and KDE apps that use the GStreamer backend to support H.264 in Ubuntu 14.04: basically, all you have to do is install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg by using a PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg

Here's the YouTube HTML5 page under Firefox in Ubuntu 14.04, before and after installing gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg:

Before

After

via Phoronix & lffl.org

How To Downgrade Proposed Repository Packages In Ubuntu

Enabling the proposed repository in Ubuntu is usually not a good idea because it's a testing area for updates so things can break. If you've enabled the proposed repository and something broke, here's how to revert the changes by downgrading the packages installed from the proposed repository.

Revert package upgrades from the Ubuntu proposed repository

1. Firstly, launch Software & Updates (or Software Sources, depending on the Ubuntu version you're using) from System Settings and on the Updates tab, disable "Pre-released updates (proposed)":

2. Next, we'll have to pin the packages from the Ubuntu repositories: for stable, updates, security and backports we'll use a priority greater than 1000 which will cause the packages from these repositories to be installed even if this constitutes a downgrade and for the proposed repository, we'll set a pin priority of less than 0 which prevents the packages from being installed.

To do this, create a file called "99-downgrade-proposed" under /etc/apt/preferences.d/ - I'll use Gedit below:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/preferences.d/99-downgrade-proposed

And in this file, paste the following:

Package: *
Pin: release a=saucy
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *
Pin: release a=saucy-updates
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *
Pin: release a=saucy-security
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *
Pin: release a=saucy-backports
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *
Pin: release a=saucy-proposed
Pin-Priority: -1

Replace "saucy" with your Ubuntu version in the file above. Then save the file.

3. Now you can start the downgrade by using the commands below:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Make sure "dist-upgrade" doesn't remove any important packages. If everything looks ok, proceed with the downgrade.

You'll have to keep in mind that it's possible to encounter "error processing packageX ... trying to overwrite fileX which is also in package Y" dpkg errors - see how to fix them HERE.

4. After downgrading, you can remove the file created under step 2:

sudo rm /etc/apt/preferences.d/99-downgrade-proposed

References / more info: 1 2 3 4

LightDM: How To Disable The User List Or Guest Session

Quick tips for Ubuntu / LightDM users: if you want to hide the LightDM login screen user list and / or the Guest Session for security concerns, because there are too many users or whatever other reason, here's how to do it.

Default LightDM login screen (Unity Greeter) with user list and Guest Session enabled

1. To disable the LightDM login screen user list and / or Guest Session, firstly create the /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/ folder in case it doesn't exist, by using the following command:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d

2. Next, you need to create a file called 50-my-custom-config.conf under /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/ To open/create this file using Gedit (as root), use the following command:

gksu gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-my-custom-config.conf

3.a. To hide the LightDM login screen user list (which means you'll have to manually enter your username), paste the following in this file (50-my-custom-config.conf):

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-hide-users=true
greeter-show-manual-login=true

Then save the file.

Here's how LightDM (with Unity Greeter) will look after this change:

3.b. To disable the LightDM Guest Session, paste the following lines in the /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-my-custom-config.conf file:

[SeatDefaults]
allow-guest=false

Then save the file.

Here's a screenshot with the Guest Session disabled in LightDM (with Unity Greeter):

3.c. Of course, you can combine the two. So if you want to hide the LightDM login screen user list and also disable the Guest Session, paste this in the /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-my-custom-config.conf file:

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-hide-users=true
greeter-show-manual-login=true
allow-guest=false

Then save the file.

Here's a screenshot with LightDM (Unity Greeter) in which the user list was hidden and the Guest Session was disabled:

Ubuntu LightDM disabled user list guest session

4. And finally, you need to restart LightDM (a logout is not enough). To do this, press ALT + F2 and copy/paste the following command:

gksu service lightdm restart

Then press ENTER.

You can also simply restart your system.

Why not use "sudo service lightdm restart" in a terminal? Well, for some reason LightDM can't be restarted from a terminal with 'sudo'. However, you can also restart LightDM by switching to a tty (to switch to tty1 press CTRL + ALT + F1; to switch back, use CTRL + ALT + F7) and then using the "sudo service lightdm restart" command.

How to revert the changes

To revert the changes made by following the instructions above, all you need to do is remove the /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-my-custom-config.conf file, by using the following command:

sudo rm /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-my-custom-config.conf

Then, restart LightDM as explained under step 4 or reboot your computer.

How To Disable GTK3 Client-Side Decorations (Header Bars)

Starting with GNOME 3.10, some GNOME applications have switched to "header bars" or "client-side decorations". These CSD (client-side decorations) don't work properly in some desktop environments / shells - for instance, in Ubuntu 14.04, Unity doesn't support CSD and because of this, some applications look broken. Luckily, there is now a relatively easy way (unofficial) of disabling client-side decorations. Read on!

In Ubuntu, Nautilus and a few other GNOME apps are patched so they don't use client-side decorations under Unity. However, not all applications were fixed - here are a few examples:

GNOME Clocks

Latest gThumb 3.3.2 (gThumb from the Ubuntu repositories was downgraded when the Ubuntu devs noticed it's using CSD)

GNOME Maps

PCMan, one of the LXDE founders, has created gtk3-nocsd, a small module which can be used to disable the GTK+3 client-side decorations. gtk3-nocsd can achieves this by letting GTK think there's no compositor available, in which case the CSD fail to start.

Update: gtk3-nocsd works with GTK3 older than version 3.16.1 or newer than version 3.17.3. That means it's compatible with Ubuntu 14.04 and 15.04 but not with the latest Ubuntu 15.10.

Here are the same 3 applications as above, with gtk3-nocsd (so with disabled client-side decorations), under Ubuntu 14.04 LTS:

There are a couple of issues though. The first one is that this solution seems to work with most, but not all CSD applications - in my test, GNOME Weather continued to use client-side decorations even after using gtk3-nocsd. And the second issue is that the CSD close button isn't removed when the client-side decorations are disabled. These issues have been fixed in the latest gtk3-nocsd version.

Update: Here's gThumb and GNOME Weather using the latest gtk3-nocsd under Unity (as you'll notice, there's no CSD close button any more, like in the screenshots above):

Install gtk3-nocsd

Ubuntu 14.04 or 15.04 users can install gtk3-nocsd by using the main failsdownloads PPA. To add the PPA and install gtk3-nocsd, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gtk3-nocsd

Or, if you don't want to add the PPA, download the gtk3-nocsd deb from HERE.

Other Linux distributions: grab the gtk3-nocsd code from GitHub, make sure pkg-config and gtk+3-dev are installed and compile it using "make".

Simply installing gtk3-nocsd won't disable the GTK3 client-side decorations. See the example below for how to use it.

Disable GTK3 client-side decorations using gtk3-nocsd (example)

To be able to use gtk3-nocsd, you need to preload the gtk3-nocsd.so file (which is installed under /usr/lib/gtk3-nocsd/ if you've used the Ubuntu PPA mentioned above) using LD_PRELOAD.

Update: for the latest version, the file is now called "libgtk3-nocsd.so.0" however, the PPA package continues to use the old filename (gtk3-nocsd.so) for compatibility purposes.

You can disable GTK3 client side decorations in two ways: either loading it in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile, which means that gtk3-nocsd will be used globally (but for your user only), without having to modify anything else, or you can use it for specific applications only.

A. To use gtk3-nocsd globally (for all applications but for your user only), open ~/.profile with a text editor - I'll use Gedit below:

gedit ~/.profile

And at the end of the file, paste this:

export GTK_CSD=0
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/gtk3-nocsd/gtk3-nocsd.so

Then save the file, restart the session (log out) and that's it!

B. To use gtk3-nocsd with specific applications, you'll need to open the application .desktop file with a text editor and add "env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/gtk3-nocsd/gtk3-nocsd.so" (without the quotes) to the Exec line, just after "=".

Here's an example: to disable the client-side decorations for gThumb 3.3.2, open its desktop file as root with a text editor (I'll use Gedit below):

gksu gedit /usr/share/applications/gthumb.desktop

And in this file, search for the line that starts with "Exec=" and right after "=" and before "gthumb", add the following (without removing anything!):

env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/gtk3-nocsd/gtk3-nocsd.so

After editing gthumb.desktop, the "Exec=" line should look like this:

Exec=env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/gtk3-nocsd/gtk3-nocsd.so gthumb %U

In the same way you can disable client-side decorations for any application you want: GNOME Clocks, GNOME Maps, etc.

Install Google Earth In Ubuntu 14.04 64bit [How To]

Many of you already know about this, but since there are many users who are upgrading from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04, they might not be aware of what they need to do when a package, like Google Earth, fails to install because it depends on ia32-libs (on Ubuntu 64bit).

The ia32-libs package is no longer available in Ubuntu, starting with Ubuntu 13.10. The package was superseded by multiarch support so you don't need it any more, but some 64bit packages (which are actually 32bit applications) still depend on this package and because of this, they can't be installed in Ubuntu 14.04 or 13.10, 64bit.

Here's an example. Let's say you've downloaded the Google Earth 64bit package and want to install it in Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) 64bit via dpkg. Here's what happens:

$ sudo dpkg -i google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package google-earth-stable.
(Reading database ... 168539 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack google-earth-stable_current_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking google-earth-stable (7.1.2.2041-r0) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of google-earth-stable:
google-earth-stable depends on ia32-libs; however:
Package ia32-libs is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package google-earth-stable (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
..........................................
Errors were encountered while processing:
google-earth-stable

And if you try to install ia32-libs:

$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package ia32-libs is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
  lib32asound2 lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0

E: Package 'ia32-libs' has no installation candidate

That's because, like I said, the ia32-libs package is not available in the Ubuntu 13.10 and 14.04 repositories.

The "fix" or more specifically the correct way of installing these apps which depend on ia32-libs is to simply install the 32bit package on Ubuntu 64bit. Of course, that will install quite a few 32bit packages, but that's how multiarch works.

The problem with Google Earth is that the 32bit package doesn't support multiarch so it doesn't install all the 32bit dependencies it needs to run on Ubuntu 64bit. Below you'll find instructions on how to properly install Google Earth and its 32bit dependencies on Ubuntu 64bit.

Install Google Earth in Ubuntu 14.04 64bit

To properly install Google Earth (along with the required 32bit dependencies) in Ubuntu 14.04 (or 13.10) 64bit, use the following commands:

sudo apt-get install libfontconfig1:i386 libx11-6:i386 libxrender1:i386 libxext6:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libglu1-mesa:i386 libglib2.0-0:i386 libsm6:i386
cd /tmp && wget http://dl.google.com/dl/earth/client/current/google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

If you simply install the Google Earth 32bit package on Ubuntu 64bit without the extra dependencies from the first command above, you'll get errors when trying to start it, like these:

./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libfontconfig.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libX11.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libXrender.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libXext.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
./googleearth-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
etc.

For Ubuntu 32bit, simply download Google Earth and install it using Ubuntu Software Center, GDebi, dpkg or whatever you prefer.

via lffl.org

How To Enable AMD Radeon Dynamic Power Management (DPM) In Ubuntu 13.10

The open source AMD Radeon driver got dynamic power management support with Linux Kernel 3.11. With this, the GPU and memory clocks adjust dynamically based on load, useful for saving power.

This feature is not enabled by default, at least in Ubuntu 13.10 (it will probably be enabled by default in Ubuntu 14.04) so here's how to enable it.

I don't have an AMD graphics card so I couldn't test this, but failsdownloads reader towpik, who sent us this tip, says that using this feature, "the laptop is very cool and quiet. Finally!". Also, according to Phoronix, Radeon DPM is "fantastic for power use [and] thermal performance".

Please note that this will only work for Radeon HD 2000 graphics cards and newer.

Enable AMD Radeon DPM (Dynamic Power Management)

1. To enable DPM in Ubuntu 13.10, you need to open /etc/default/grub with a text editor (as root) - I'll use Gedit below:

gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

And in this file, search for the following line (it's on line 11 on my system):

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

After "splash" add a space and then add this:

radeon.dpm=1

After making the changes, this is how this line should look:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.dpm=1"

2. Then save the file and run the following command to update the Grub:

sudo update-grub

3. And finally, reboot.

For Ubuntu 13.04 and older, you need a newer Kernel (since Linux Kernel 3.11 or newer is required) as well as an updated firmware. Since there are many things that can go wrong and I am not able to test this because I don't have an AMD graphics card, I won't post installation instructions for these here, but if you really want this, try these instructions.

Thanks to towpik for the tip, some info via Askubuntu

Fix Aptana Studio 3 Crashing In Ubuntu 14.04 [Quick Tip]

If Aptana Studio 3 crashes for you under Ubuntu 14.04, here's a quick fix you can apply to get it to work properly.

The fix is pretty simple: in the folder where you've extracted / install Aptana Studio 3, you should have a file called "AptanaStudio3.ini" - open this file with a text editor and at the end of the file, add this line:

-Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.DefaultType=mozilla

That's it. Using this fix, Aptana Studio 3 now works properly on my Ubuntu 14.04 machine.

thanks to Ayman B. @ AskUbuntu for the fix!

How To Hide Files And Folders In Your File Manager Without Renaming Them [Quick Tip]

Usually if you want to hide a file or folder so it doesn't show up in your file manager, you can rename it by adding a dot (".") at the beginning of the filename.

However, there are situations in which you may want to hide a file or folder without renaming it. For instance, some applications insist on creating a folder in the user's home directory or in the Documents folder (and they can't be renamed) and so on. But I don't want these folders cluttered - I want to easily find what I'm looking for.

For such situations or whatever other reasons, there's another way of hiding files and folders (prevent them from showing up in the file manager only): you can create a file called ".hidden" (there's a dot in front of "hidden" so this is a hidden file!) and in this file, enter the name of the files and folders you want to hide, each on a separate line. Then, refresh the folder (press F5 or Ctrl + R) and those files or folders should no longer be visible in your file manager.

This should work (at least, it worked in my test) with the following file managers: Nautilus, Nemo, Caja, Thunar (I'm not sure when this was introduced but I can tell you that it doesn't work with version 1.2.2 available in Xubuntu 12.04; it does work with versions 1.6.3 and newer) and Pantheon Files (from Freya only), but there might be others to support it.

Note: for Thunar you'll need to navigate to a separate folder for the changes to be applied, refreshing isn't enough.

Here's an example: let's assume you have a folder called "FOLDER1" and a file call "FILE1" in your home directory and you want to hide both without renaming them. To do this, create a file called ".hidden" in your home directory and in this file, add the following two lines:

FOLDER1
FILE1

Then save the file and press F5 to refresh the home folder - "FOLDER1" and "FILE1" shouldn't be displayed any more.

Extra tip: HERE's a Nautilus extension which allows hiding files and folders using this method via the context menu.

Screensaver / Lock Screen Inhibitor `Caffeine Plus` Brings Back The Screensaver Toggle Option

Caffeine is a tool used to temporarily prevent the activation of the screensaver / lock screen / sleep mode when using full-screen windows. The application is useful when using video players that don't do this automatically, when listening to music while not using the computer, etc.

The latest Caffeine version (2.7.x), released back in May, no longer comes with an Ubuntu AppIndicator so you can't manually toggle it on/off any more, feature which was considered pretty important by many of its users. If you're one of them, you can now use Caffeine Plus, a Caffeine 2.7 fork which restores the Ubuntu AppIndicator icon, allowing you to manually toggle it on/off.

Like the original Caffeine, the fork also inhibits the screensaver / lock screen automatically if it detects a full-screen window.

Update: with the 2.8 release, the original Caffeine got its indicator back!

Install Caffeine Plus in Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10

Since I couldn't find Caffeine Plus in any PPA, I uploaded it to the main failsdownloads PPA for Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10 (if you use Ubuntu 12.04, use the original Caffeine application). Note that by installing Caffeine Plus, the original Caffeine package will be removed automatically.

To add the PPA and install Caffeine Plus in Ubuntu 14.04, use the commands below in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install caffeine-plus

If you don't want to add the PPA, grab the Caffeine Plus deb from HERE.

Thanks to Willi for the tip!

8 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander)

Ubuntu 13.10 was released today and for those of you who plan on doing a clean install, here are 8 useful things to do after the installation.

1. Install some extra AppIndicators (applets)

System Load Indicator is a port of the popular System Monitor GNOME Panel applet and it can display CPU, memory, network usage, hard disk I/O and more on the panel. Install it from the Ubuntu Software Center by clicking the button below:

Or, to install it via command line, use:

sudo apt-get install indicator-multiload

Cpufreq Indicator is the equivalent of the old GNOME CPU frequency scaling applet which can be used for changing the CPU frequency on-the-fly. Install it in Ubuntu by clicking the button below:

Or install it from the command line:

sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq

My Weather Indicator is an appindicator that displays the current weather on the Unity panel. The appindicator can also display a 5-day forecast, a desktop widget and supports four weather services: OpenWeatherMap, Yahoo, Wunderground and World Weather Online.

To install it in Ubuntu 13.10, use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install my-weather-indicator

Variety is an application that comes with an AppIndicator but since you basically only have to configure it once and after that you'll only need to use the AppIndicator, I'll list it here. Variety is a cool wallpaper changer that automatically downloads and changes your wallpaper on a given interval. Using it, you'll get cool, fresh wallpapers each day. From the AppIndicator you can quickly switch to the next (random) wallpaper or copy the wallpaper to favourites, for later use.

To install Variety in Ubuntu, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peterlevi/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install variety

You'll probably also want a clipboard manager. I recommend Diodon which is lightweight, supports files, image sections and more. To install it in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, click the button below:

Or open a terminal and copy/paste the following command to install it:

sudo apt-get install diodon diodon-plugins

More AppIndicators on failsdownloads and on AskUbuntu.

2. Tweak Unity

Unity Tweak Tool allows users to change various Unity settings such as auto-hide bahavior, window snapping and hot corners, tweak Dash, the Unity Launcher or HUD, change the GTK or icon theme, change the font face or size, move the window controls to the right and much more.

To install Unity Tweak Tool from the Ubuntu Software Center, click the button below:

Or, install it in Ubuntu 13.10 via command line:

sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

3. Privacy tweaks

As you probably know, by default Dash shows all the recently accessed files as well as other files found on your filesystem. By selecting Security & Privacy from System Settings, you can choose what file types can show up in Dash, exclude various applications or folders/partitions from showing up in Dash and there's also an option to clear usage data.

Furthermore, on the Search tab, you can disable online search results from being displayed in Dash. However, this option disables all the online search results so if for instance you only want to disable the shopping suggestions, you can run the following command:

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']"

More on disabling Dash (search) plugins, HERE.

Another way to deal with privacy in Ubuntu 13.10 is to use the Privacy Indicator, a tool hat lets you quickly enable/disable Zeitgeist (activity logging) or online search results from showing up in Dash, clear the Zeitgeist log or recent files (which show up in the Nautilus "Recent" sidebar item for instance).

Download Privacy Indicator (there's a deb available at the bottom of the page)

4. Enable the discrete card on systems with Hybrid graphics

The Ubuntu developers have worked to support Hybrid graphics in Ubuntu 13.10 (and 12.04 LTS). Below you'll find instructions on how to set this up.

Nvidia Optimus: unfortunately, the Nvidia Linux graphics drivers don't yet fully support Optimus - more on this subject, HERE.

Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) ships with a new package called "nvidia-prime" which enables the Nvidia graphics card on Optimus systems (which by default use the integrated Intel graphics chip). By using the instructions below, the Nvidia card will always be in use, so there's no way to switch it off to save power. Because of this, the laptop will consume more power and possibly overheat - in my case, the laptop gets really hot and for this reason I'm not using this solution but things may work better for your laptop (and if not, you can easily revert the changes).

Unfortunately, that's not the only issue. You may also experience screen tearing and hotplug won't work so if you want to use multiple monitors, you'll have to manually set them up in xorg.conf. The advantages are that you'll be able to play games that aren't supported by the Intel graphics, use VDPAU-enabled media players, etc.

That said, if you want to give this a try in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, make sure you're using LightDM (the default Ubuntu display manager) and not some other display manager like GDM. Also, if you've installed Bumblebee, you'll need to purge it:

sudo apt-get purge bumblebee* bbswitch-dkms

Then, install the latest Nvidia drivers and "nvidia-prime":

sudo apt-get install nvidia-319 nvidia-settings-319 nvidia-prime

And finally, reboot (restarting X isn't enough).

If you want to revert this change, simply remove the installed packages:

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-319 nvidia-settings-319 nvidia-prime

And reboot.

AMD Hybrid graphics: I didn't test this because I don't have a system with AMD graphics, but according to the HybridGraphics Ubuntu wiki page, there aren't any known issues, so I assume that everything works properly (again, I'm not sure since I can't test it!).

To get proper AMD Hybrid graphics support in Ubuntu 13.10, all you have to do is install the latest fglrx driver and fglrx-pxpress from the repositories:

sudo apt-get install fglrx fglrx-pxpress

And then reboot the system (restarting X isn't enough).

5. Improve battery life

There are two tools you can use to improve your laptop's battery life: laptop-mode-tools or TLP. Both try to achieve the same thing, but from what I've read, TLP seems to save a bit more power. However, TLP is only available in a PPA so if you don't like adding PPAs, install laptop-mode-tools.

Important note: don't install both laptop-mode-tools and TLP!

To install laptop-mode-tools, click the button below:

Or install it from the command line:

sudo apt-get install laptop-mode-tools

Or, to install TLP, use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw
sudo tlp start

No configuration is needed for either TLP or laptop-mode-tools.

Another way to save power and prevent your laptop from overheating (the tool also allows running apps or games on the discrete graphics card on demand, using the "optirun" command - see below) is Bumblebee. Bumblebee is a tool for laptops that use Nvidia Optimus, that disables the Nvidia card when not in use.

Note: if you plan on using the hybrid graphics solution under step 4 for Nvidia Optimus, don't install Bumblebee!

To install Bumblebee, click the button below:

Or install it via command line:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia

Then reboot.

Currently there's a bug in Ubuntu 13.10 that prevents "optirun" from working. To fix it, use the following command:

- 32bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libturbojpeg.so.0 /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libturbojpeg.so

- 64bit:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libturbojpeg.so.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libturbojpeg.so

When you want to use the Nvidia graphics card for an application, run:

optirun APP-EXECUTABLE

replacing "APP-EXECUTABLE" with the application (or game) executable.

6. Install codecs, Java and encrypted DVD playback

To be able to play most audio and video formats, install Ubuntu Restricted Extras by clicking the button below:

Or install it using the following command:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

I suggest to also install the unrestricted versions of libavformat and libavcodec so you don't encounter issues with missing codecs when trying to use some video editors or transcoders - install them by clicking the button below:

Or by using the following command:

sudo apt-get install libavformat-extra-53 libavcodec-extra-53

You may also need Java, but you must figure out what you need. Most users will only need OpenJRE and the Java browser plugin which you can install by clicking the button below:

Or by using the following command:

sudo apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin openjdk-7-jre

For development, you'll also want OpenJDK which you can install by using the button below:

Or by using the following command:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

If for various reasons, you need Oracle Java (the package includes JDK, JRE and the browser plugin), you can install Oracle Java 7 by using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:failsdownloadsteam/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

Encrypted DVD playback: the Medibuntu repository no longer exists and while most packages in the archive are obsolete or unnecessary because most are now in the official Ubuntu repository or have better equivalents, livdvdcss is still required for playing encrypted DVDs.

You can enable encrypted DVD playback in Ubuntu 13.10 by using the following commands:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

7. Get the latest Rhythmbox and VLC

Two popular applications: Rhythmbox and VLC, haven't been updated to the latest version in Ubuntu 13.10. If you want to install the latest version for these apps, you can use PPAs.

Please note that by upgrading Rhythmbox, the plugins in the Rhythmbox third-party plugins PPA will stop working. The plugins Rhythmbox ships with will obviously work.

Rhythmbox (version in Ubuntu 13.10: 2.99.1, version in PPA: 3.0.1):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jacob/media
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rhythmbox

VLC (version in Ubuntu 13.10: 2.0.8, version in the PPA: 2.1.0):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ed10vi86/video
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vlc

8. Tweak Nautilus: disable recursive search and install a quick file previewer

The type-ahead find feature was remove from Nautilus starting with version 3.6. Later versions perform a search in the current directory and all its subdirectories when you start typing a file name. And this makes it unusable at times so if you find this behavior annoying, you can install Nautilus patched to allow disabling recursive search (you can easily enable it back if you want).

To upgrade Nautilus to the patched version that allows disabling recursive search, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dr3mro/personal
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
nautilus -q

Then, disable recursive search using the following command:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-recursive-search false

If later on you want to re-enable recursive search, use the command below:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-recursive-search true

GNOME Sushi is a quick file previewer for Nautilus. To install it, click the button below (this will install gnome-sushi and unoconv, required to be able to preview some files such as documents):

or install it via command line:

sudo apt-get install gnome-sushi unoconv

To use it, select a file (picture, text or document, sound file and so on) and press the SPACE key to preview that file. You can close the preview either by clicking the SPACE key again or clicking the window close button.

Now it's your turn. What are the first things you install or tweak after a fresh Ubuntu installation?

10 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr To Get A Near Perfect Desktop

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) will be released tomorrow and since many of you will install it as soon as it's released (or maybe you're already using Ubuntu 14.04), here's a list of 10 useful things to do to get a near perfect desktop.

While the tweaks below are targeted at Unity, many of them also work with other Ubuntu flavors like Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu or Ubuntu GNOME.

Update: the instructions / things to do below also apply for the latest Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn), except for:

1.2 (Pidgin Indicator is no longer required because Pidgin now ships with a Unity integration plugin; you can still use Pidgin Indicator if you want though);
3.1 (Firefox now supports H224 without any tweaks);
4.1 (you can continue to use Pipelight for various web services that require Silverlight, but that's no longer required for Netflix - to use Netflix with HTML5, simply install Google Chrome and it should work without any additional tweaks - that's now also the case for Ubuntu 14.04).

1. Install Ubuntu AppIndicators (applets)

Ubuntu ships with just a few indicators by default because well, it can't guess what everybody needs. So here are some indicators you might find useful.

1.1 Calendar Indicator is one of my favorite Ubuntu indicators. This AppIndicator displays your 10 upcoming events in the indicator menu, can add new events (which of course, are synced with Google Calendar) and it has a complete calendar view where you can see all your Google Calendar events, edit or add new events, etc.

To install Calendar Indicator in Ubuntu 14.04, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install calendar-indicator

1.2 Pidgin may not be the default IM client for a few Ubuntu releases, but it's still a very popular application. Pidgin uses a tray icon by default but you can now use an AppIndicator which is especially useful since the old Unity systray whitelist is no longer available.

Pidgin Indicator is not an part of Pidgin by default but it works great and you can install it in Ubuntu 14.04 by using the main failsdownloads PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pidgin-indicator

Once installed, open Pidgin and from its menu select Tools > Plugins, then scroll down until you see a plugin called "Ubuntu Indicator" and enable this plugin.

1.3 Since Ubuntu doesn't ship with a weather indicator, I recommend My Weather Indicator, an appindicator that displays the current weather on the Unity top panel. The tool can also display a 5-day forecast (it depends on which Weather service you use), it comes with some very nice (optional) desktop widgets and more.

To install it in Ubuntu 14.04, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install my-weather-indicator

1.4 Variety is more of a fully featured application than just a simple AppIndicator, but I'll add it here anyway since I'm sure many of you will love it.

Variety is a wallpaper changer that automatically downloads and changes your wallpaper on a given interval. Using it, you'll get cool, fresh wallpapers each day. Or each hour. Or... well, it's up to you when the wallpaper changes. From the AppIndicator menu you can quickly switch to the next (random) wallpaper or copy the wallpaper to favorites, for later use.

To install Variety in Ubuntu, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peterlevi/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install variety

1.5 Cpufreq Indicator is the equivalent of the old GNOME CPU frequency scaling applet which can be used for changing the CPU frequency on-the-fly. Install it in Ubuntu by clicking the button below:

Or install it from the command line:

sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq

Note that Cpufreq Indicator doesn't work with Intel P-State (see 8.2).

For more Ubuntu indicators, see our AppIndicator tag.

2. Tweak Unity

2.1 Some Unity settings are available in the Appearance settings, some in CCSM, some can only be accessed via Dconf and so on. With Unity Tweak Tool, you have access to almost all these settings in one place, using a very nice user interface.

Unity Tweak Tool allows you to change various Unity settings, like auto-hide behavior, tweak the Dash, the Unity Launcher or HUD, change window snapping and hot corner settings, change the GTK and icon theme, access various font settings and more.

To install Unity Tweak Tool from the Ubuntu Software Center, click the button below:

Or, install it in Ubuntu 13.10 via command line:

sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

2.2 Privacy

By default, Dash displays all the recently accessed files along with other files found on your system. But you can change this by selecting Security & Privacy from System Settings, and then tweak everything to suit your needs:

On the Search tab, you can select to disable online search results from being displayed in Dash. However, you may want to use some scopes so instead of completely disabling this, you can open Dash and on the applications lens (the second lens) click "Filter results", then select "Dash plugins" - here, you can enable/disable any Dash plugin you want:

To disable a plugin, click it and then simply click "Disable":

If you want to disable the shopping suggestions, you can run the following command in a terminal:

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']"

2.3 An option to enable minimize on click for the Unity Launcher was one of the most requested Ubuntu features and you can now enable this in Ubuntu 14.04.

Update: Unity Tweak Tool was updated with an option to enable minimize on click for the Unity Launcher.

To enable minimize on click for the Unity Launcher (Unity Tweak Tool doesn't support this yet), install CompizConfig Settings Manager. You can install it by clicking the button below:

Or, to install it via command line, use:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Then, open CompizConfig Settings Manager from Dash, click the "Ubuntu Unity Plugin" and on the Launcher tab, enable "Minimize single window applications (unsupported)":

Note that this feature only works with single window applications.

2.4 Try the new locally integrated menus (LIM)

Ubuntu 14.04 ships with a new (non-default) type of menu called "LIM", or "locally integrated menu". Locally integrated menus are displayed in the window decorations for unmaximized windows, instead of the default Unity approach which is to display the menu on the top panel, and are displayed on mouse over.

Since the Unity global menu is not appreciated by everybody, maybe you'll find LIM better, so give it a try. To enable it, open System Settings > Appearance and on the Behavior tab, select to show the menus "in the window's title bar":

3. Fixes

3.1 Get Firefox to support H.264

The FFmpeg plugin for GStreamer 0.10 is not available in the official Ubuntu 14.04 repositories (because FFMpeg is not available either - libav is used instead) and because of this, Firefox doesn't support the H.264 codec.

Furthermore, without the FFmpeg plugin for GStreamer 0.10 package, KDE apps can't play H.264 videos in Kubuntu 14.04 if they use the GStreamer backend. Another issue with this is that Amarok can't play WMA files. There might also be other affected applications.

Before:

After:

To "fix" this, all you need is install the "gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg" package and its dependencies. If you've upgraded from an older Ubuntu version, this package might already be installed but if this is a fresh install, you can get the package from a PPA. Add the PPA and install it using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg

3.2 Fix Skype not using the correct system theme on 64bit

On 64bit Ubuntu systems, Skype uses the Clearlooks theme instead of the default Ubuntu theme, Ambiance (this also happens with other themes).

This occurs because Skype is a 32bit application and the GTK2 theme engine (Murrine or Pixmap in most cases) is not installed for 32bit.

Before:

After:

To fix this, you need to install the 32bit Murrine and Pixmap GTK2 engines:

sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-murrine:i386 gtk2-engines-pixbuf:i386

3.3 Fix missing Skype tray icon / appindicator on Ubuntu 64bit

On 64bit, the required package to get a Skype tray / appindicator icon is not installed automatically. To fix this, use the following command:

sudo apt-get install sni-qt:i386

The Skype tray icon might disappear after you log in, but it should show up after a few seconds.

4. Web browser (Firefox, Google Chrome / Chromium) tweaks

4.1 Firefox, Google Chrome/Chromium: if you want to use services such as Netflix, Maxdome and others, you can use Pipelight. Pipelight lets you use Microsoft Silverlight, Widevine (the built-in Chrome Widevine doesn't work with many websites), and more with native Linux web browsers (Pipelight itself uses Wine).

Before installing Pipelight, it's strongly recommended to close your web browser. Without doing this, the plugin may fail to install or crash the browser (you can copy the instructions below to a text editor).

To install Pipelight in Ubuntu 14.04, you can use its official PPA. Add the PPA and install Pipelight using the commands below:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pipelight-multi

Then, install the Silverlight plugin using the following command:

sudo pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight

To install the Widevine plugin, use the command below:

sudo pipelight-plugin --enable widevine

A lot more about Pipelight, here: Pipelight: Use Silverlight In Your Linux Browser To Watch Netflix, Maxdome Videos And More

4.2 Chromium will soon stop using the Netscape Plugin API, and as a result, the Linux Adobe Flash will stop working. To get Flash working in Chromium, you can use the Pepper Flash Player installer (Pepper Flash is extracted from Google Chrome), which is available in the official Ubuntu 14.04 repositories. To install it, use the following commands:

sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree
sudo update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install

For more about this, see: Pepper Flash Player Installer For Chromium Available In The Ubuntu 14.04 Repositories

4.3 Firefox doesn't use native notifications under Linux. A work-around for this issue is to use GNotifier, a Firefox extension that makes the browser use native notifications on the Linux desktop. The extension currently supports GNOME (Shell), Unity, KDE and Xfce.

The extension is available HERE and doesn't require restarting the browser after it's installed.

5. LibreOffice tweaks

LibreOffice has 2 cool features (well, one of them isn't exactly a feature but anyway) that aren't enabled by default: a sidebar that enables quick access to document styles, formatting, etc. and a cool new monochrome icon set.

5.1 To enable the LibreOffice sidebar, simply select View > Sidebar from the LibreOffice menu.

5.2 To use the monochrome icon set, firstly install it by clicking the button below:

Or, install it via the command line using:

sudo apt-get install libreoffice-style-sifr

And then to activate it, from the LibreOffice menu select Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View and select "Sifr" under "Icon size and style":

6. Nautilus "tweaks"

The heading says "tweaks" in quotes because one of them is not exactly a tweak, but a replacement.

6.1 Use the search / type-ahead feature that suit your needs

In Ubuntu 14.04, Nautilus was patched to use type-ahead find instead of its default behavior for a few Nautilus releases, which is recursive search. However, there's a Dconf option you can use to switch between these two behaviors.

Type-ahead find allows to type the name of a directory or file in the file manager to select it without searching in the sub-folders while the recursive search is, like the name suggests, a search inside the current folder and all its sub-folders.

Recursive search

Type-ahead find

To switch to recursive search in Nautilus under Ubuntu 14.04, use the following command:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-interactive-search false

If you want to switch back to type-ahead find ("interactive search"), use the command below:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-interactive-search true

More info: Nautilus Type-Ahead Find Feature Enabled By Default In Ubuntu 14.04

6.2 If you don't like Nautilus 3.10, switch to Nemo

As you know, Ubuntu 14.04 uses Nautilus 3.10 as the default file manager. Nautilus is nice, but it lacks many features it once used to have, like the dual pane view (which was triggered using F3). You can get this back by using Nemo, which I patched to work properly under Unity and to get rid of the Cinnamon dependencies (the original patches were created by Jacob Zimmermann, I just updated them for a newer Nemo version and added some other patches for better desktop integration).

Since there are some quite a few things you should know before replacing Nautilus with Nemo in Ubuntu 14.04, I won't post the instructions here, but you can read all about it in an article I posted a while back: Install Nemo With Unity Patches (And Without Cinnamon Dependencies) In Ubuntu (it includes instructions for replacing Nautilus with Nemo, installing some Nemo extensions as well as how to revert the changes in case you want to go back to Nautilus as the default file manager).

7. Nvidia Optimus tweaks

Note for AMD hybrid graphics users: you can use fglrx-pxpress and AMD Indicator which are basically the equivalents of the tweaks below for AMD, but since my laptop uses Nvidia Optimus, it means I can't test this on AMD hybrid graphics so I won't post instructions here. See the Ubuntu wiki for more info.

7.1 Switch between Nvidia and Intel graphics

Installing nvidia-prime can get your system to boot in low graphics mode if it's not used properly so be careful. This should be considered an "expert" feature and should only be used by those who know how to fix their system in case something goes wrong!

It's also important to note that you need to use LightDM (so this won't work for Ubuntu GNOME users by default because it uses GDM - you'll need to switch to LightDM) and the proprietary Nvidia drivers!

In Ubuntu 14.04, you can switch between the Nvidia and Intel graphics from the Nvidia Settings. Firstly, install nvidia-prime:

sudo apt-get purge bumblebee*
sudo apt-get install nvidia-prime

(the first command makes sure all the Bumblebee packages were purged - without this, nvidia-prime won't work)

Then simply open Nvidia Settings, select "PRIME Profiles" on the left and select the graphics card you want to use:

Note that switching between CPUs requires a logout so you can't for instance run the desktop using the Intel graphics while running a game using the Nvidia graphics under the same session. For that you can continue to use Bumblebee, but unfortunately you can't use both, so remove nvidia-prime if you want to use Bumblebee.

7.2 Prime Indicator (requires the nvidia-prime package, see 7.1)

To quickly switch between the Intel and Nvidia graphics or see which graphics card is currently in use, you can use Prime Indicator. You can install it in Ubuntu 14.04 using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install prime-indicator

8. Laptop tweaks

8.1 Improve battery life

There are various tweaks that you can apply to your laptop to save battery power, but many of them depend on the hardware, Linux distribution, some are outdated or too hard to apply for regular users and so on.

TLP is an advanced power management command line tool for Linux that tries to apply these settings / tweaks for you automatically, depending on your Linux distribution and hardware.

To install TLP in Ubuntu 14.04, use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linrunner/tlp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tlp tlp-rdw
sudo tlp start

Important: make sure laptop-mode-tools is not installed (simply run "sudo apt-get remove laptop-mode-tools" and it will be removed if it's installed), as it conflicts with TLP.

For more information, see our article on TLP.

8.2 Thermald + Intel P-State

While some users have reported that their laptops actually get a bit hotter using this, but that they get better performance with Thermald + Intel P-State (see the comments), for my laptop, this has done wonders and I can say that my now quite old laptop was never cooler. That of course might not be the case for you (since it depends on your hardware), but you can give it a try and see for yourself.

Since the instructions are pretty long, I won't post them here. Instead, see our Thermald + Intel P-State article.

9. Install codecs, Java and encrypted DVD playback

9.1 To be able to play most audio and video formats, install Ubuntu Restricted Extras by clicking the button below:

Or install it using the following command:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

9.2 I suggest to also install the unrestricted version of libavcodec so you don't encounter issues with missing codecs when trying to use some video editors or transcoders - install them by clicking the button below:

Or by using the following command:

sudo apt-get install libavcodec-extra

9.3 You may also need Java, but you must figure out what you need. Most users will only need OpenJRE and the Java browser plugin which you can install by clicking the button below:

Or by using the following command:

sudo apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin openjdk-7-jre

For development, you'll also want OpenJDK which you can install by using the button below:

Or by using the following command:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

If for various reasons, you need Oracle Java (the package includes JDK, JRE and the browser plugin), you can install Oracle Java 7 by using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:failsdownloadsteam/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

9.4 Encrypted DVD playback: the Medibuntu repository no longer exists and while most packages in the Medibuntu archive are obsolete or unnecessary because most are now in the official Ubuntu repositories or have better equivalents, livdvdcss is still required for playing encrypted DVDs.

You can enable encrypted DVD playback in Ubuntu 14.04 by using the following commands:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

10. Other tweaks / things to install

10.1 As you probably know by now, Ubuntu One will be shut down. If you were using this cloud storage service, there are many alternatives you can use, which work under Linux. Dropbox is probably the most popular, but you can also use Google Drive, which is getting better and better and it's cheap too if you want some extra space (you also get 15GB of free storage).

There's no official Google Drive client for Linux (yet), but you can use a tool like Insync (paid), or Google Drive Ocamlfuse, a tool that lets you mount Google Drive in Linux. To install Google Drive Ocamlfuse in Ubuntu 14.04, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alessandro-strada/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install google-drive-ocamlfuse

Once it's installed, you'll firstly need to authorize it with Google, by running the following command:

google-drive-ocamlfuse

This should open a tab in your default web browser, asking to allow google-drive-ocamlfuse to access your Google Drive. Click "Allow", wait a few seconds for google-drive-ocamlfuse to retrieve the authorization code and you're done.

Now let's mount Google Drive. Create a folder in your home directory, let's call it "gdrive":

mkdir ~/gdrive

And mount Goole Drive using the command below:

google-drive-ocamlfuse ~/gdrive

That's it.

More info: Mount Google Drive In Linux With google-drive-ocamlfuse

10.2 If you're constantly getting crash report popups, disable Apport

Apport is disabled by default in stable released according to THIS (thanks Silviu!) however, it's not disabled if you've installed an alpha, beta or daily build.

Reporting bugs is important for Ubuntu, but if you get a large number of crash reports and nothing is actually crashing, you can disable error reporting. To do this, you need to edit "/etc/default/apport" with a text editor such as Gedit (as root):

gksu gedit /etc/default/apport

and change "enabled" from "1" to "0", then save the file.

After completing the steps above, Apport won't be started at boot any more, but let's stop the running Apport process too, so you don't have to wait until you restart your computer:

sudo service apport stop

More info: How To Get Rid Of Internal System Error Apport Popups In Ubuntu

10.3 Unity global menu & HUD support for Java swing applications

Unity global menu java swing applications

By default, Java Swing applications (IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio, jDownloader and others) don't support Unity global menu (AppMenu) / HUD. You can get these features though, by using JAyatana, which you can install in Ubuntu 14.04 by using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danjaredg/jayatana
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jayatana

Once installed, log out and log back in.

More info: Get Unity Global Menu / HUD Support For Java Swing Applications With JAyatana

10.4 Adobe Flash Player (YouTube and a few other websites only, it seems) hardware acceleration with Intel graphics

libvdpau-va-gl is a VDPAU driver that uses OpenGL under the hood to accelerate drawing and scaling, and VA-API (if available) to accelerate video decoding.

Using it, you can get hardware acceleration on some Intel graphics cards for Mplayer (well, we already have mplayer-vaapi but it hasn't been merged) and even Adobe Flash Player. That means a lot less CPU usage.

For instance, in my test, a full-screen 1080p flash YouTube video used around 160-170% CPU without libvdpau-va-gl and about 14-17% CPU when using libvdpau-va-gl:

Since there are a few things you should know and the instructions include 2 use cases, I won't post the instructions here and instead, I'll add a link to our libvdpau-va-gl article: Adobe Flash Player Hardware Acceleration on Intel Graphics Cards

How about you? What are the things you usually do after installing Ubuntu?

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Get native Linux desktop notifications in Firefox with GNotifier

Revert package upgrades from the Ubuntu proposed repository

How to revert the changes

Monday, October 26, 2015

Install gtk3-nocsd

Disable GTK3 client-side decorations using gtk3-nocsd (example)

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Install Google Earth in Ubuntu 14.04 64bit

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Enable AMD Radeon DPM (Dynamic Power Management)

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Install Caffeine Plus in Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10

Saturday, October 17, 2015

1. Install some extra AppIndicators (applets)

2. Tweak Unity

3. Privacy tweaks

4. Enable the discrete card on systems with Hybrid graphics

5. Improve battery life

6. Install codecs, Java and encrypted DVD playback

7. Get the latest Rhythmbox and VLC

8. Tweak Nautilus: disable recursive search and install a quick file previewer

Friday, October 16, 2015

1. Install Ubuntu AppIndicators (applets)

2. Tweak Unity

3. Fixes

4. Web browser (Firefox, Google Chrome / Chromium) tweaks

5. LibreOffice tweaks

6. Nautilus "tweaks"

7. Nvidia Optimus tweaks

8. Laptop tweaks

9. Install codecs, Java and encrypted DVD playback

10. Other tweaks / things to install