This is a placeholder for a better post that I’ll get to some day.

Ubuntu linux is a great operating system… or at least it /has/ been great and is a great alternative to running windows.

These are the first steps to correct the caveats I have with the direction of the new ubuntus.

First install the regular old ubuntu 14.04 (as of right now) and then log in for the first time.

The big problem with the default set up is the graphical interface – it is called Unity and it makes the best case for “Why you should always stay with windows”

First step to clean up unity is to remove the “shopping” lens action which will constantly try and get you to buy stuff from Amazon when all you want to do is start up a program.

apt-get remove unity-lens*

sudo apt-get purge libzeitgeist-1.0-1 python-zeitgeist zeitgeist-core  zeitgeist-datahub zeitgeist

The next step is get a completely new alternative to Unity

apt-get install gnome-shell

Then you’ll need to log out of your current session and, before entering your password, click on the nondescript circle type thingee after choosing your user name from the list.

Select “GNOME” from the list and log back in.

To start up programs hit the “Windows” key and start typing what you’d like run.

The next thing you should do is go to
https://extensions.gnome.org/

and install a few tweaks to gnome that will help – there are a bunch to try and they are easy to install and uninstall so you can play with stuff.

Most importantly is to fix the “ALT_TAB” action because they screwed that up royally by segmenting /types/ of programs so if you have multiple terminals up it can take seconds to switch between them if you forget the “ALT_`” keypress.
Use this plugin to normalize that:
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/

Here is a picture of the extensions I happen to have installed right now:

Install a clipboard manager that allows you to combine the “mouse highlighted” clip buffer and the “CTRL-C” buffer.
apt-get install parcellite
(This is a great thing… hit CTRL-ALT-H and it’ll give you a copy paste history so you can redo)

Install Google Chrome:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:saiarcot895/chromium-dev
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Install VirtualBox and openssh-server
apt-get install virtualbox virtualbox-dkms openssh-server

Besides binding your Terminal (My favorite is called roxterm) to a handy one button launch (F4) and getting your web browser up to snuff