We have done plenty of “what to install after installing Ubuntu” articles previously, but this time round, I am going to save you all the trouble and introduce you to a script that can automate plenty of stuffs for you. Ubuntu Start is a bash script written by Alin Andrei that aims to help you to overcome the “what to install” block. It performs a series of tweaks and allows you to choose extra applications to install. Truthfully speaking, it is not a polished script. The only great thing about it is that it WORKS!. It doesn’t cover every single thing you need/want, but it covers the necessary tweaks and installation for your Ubuntu machine, especially Ubuntu Lucid. Note: 1. This script only works for Ubuntu Lucid 2. There is no uninstallation method for the tweaks, so use it at your own risk. Ubuntu Start is divided into two stages. The first stage will perform some of the system tweaks while the second stage will install some of the commonly used applications.
Running Ubuntu Start
The script requires zenity to run. If you have not installed zenity, here’s the command to do so. Download the script from Launchpad. (Go to the Launchpad page, right-click the link and select Save As).
Updated: There is a change in the file structure, so here is the new step: Once you have downloaded the script, extract it to your Home folder.
Go into the Ubuntu-10.04-start folder. Right click on the ubuntu-10.04-script file and select Properties. Go to the Permissions tab and ensure that the box “Allow executing files as program” is checked.
In the terminal, run the following command: A window will appear to allow you to choose the tweaks you want.
Tweaks that I recommend are:
Moving the window buttons to the right Change Update Manager behavior Disable the GDM login user list Remove ubuntu-docs fix apt-get update delay for Google repositories Automatically mount NTFS partition add additional repositories (required for step 2)
The rest are optional. When you are done with your selection, click OK. The script will proceed to perform the tweaks. Once the tweaks are done, it will proceed to the next stage where it will prompt you to install extra applications
Here is where you can choose the applications that you want to install. Personally I installed the following:
GIMP VLC CCSM Codecs and extras Dropbox Google Chrome WINE Skype Ubuntu Tweak
This script does not cover every single application out there, but it includes Ubuntu Tweak, which you can use it to tweak your system further. Again, click OK when you have done your selection. Now, just sit back and relax.
What’s next?
As I mentioned earlier, this script is not polished. I would advise you to run Ubuntu Tweak after running this script to further tweak your system.
If you have used this script and like it, share your experience in the comments. Update: Ubuntu-restricted-extra is not included in the start script, so you might want to run the installation via the command: Image credit: [- Benja -]
