I installed Ubuntu minimal 16.04 Daily Build and I selected the Xubuntu Minimal Installation option.
The personalization of Xubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus
1. Upgrade the system
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
2. Install additional drivers
Go to Settings – Additional drivers and choose from what is offered; If nothing appears here, you must manually install the video drivers.
3. Install useful tools
sudo apt-get install gksu synaptic gdebi gedit
Synaptic is more useful and better than the classic Software Center. Gedit is a text editor that I like it more than Mousepad (Xubuntu’s default text editor). gksu helps us run graphically some tools as a superuser (for example, the gksudo thunar command will allow opening and using the Thunar file manager as root). Gdebi allows local installation of pre-compiled .deb packages for Ubuntu, also solving the dependencies.
4. Reduction of swap usage. Computers with little RAM tend to access too much memory on the hard drive, which results in a slow operating system. We check the current setting with the command:
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
The result is probably 60. We will fix this problem. We write the command:
sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
Copy and paste the following 2 lines into the opening file:
# Decrease swap usage to a more reasonable level
vm.swappiness=10
After restarting the computer, the result of the /proc/sys/vm/swappiness command should be 10. Swappiness is set to 10 for 1GB of RAM or more, and 5 for less than 1 GB of RAM.
5. Accelerate the graphical interface
A .gtkrc-2.0 file is created in the home directory. Paste the following lines in this file:
gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0
gtk-menu-popdown-delay = 0
gtk-menu-bar-popup-delay = 0
gtk-enable-animations = 0
gtk-timeout-expand = 0
gtk-timeout-initial = 0
gtk-timeout-repeat = 0
Save, close and Logout/Login for changes to take effect. Now, all graphic elements (menus, buttons) should be faster.
6. Installing Internet programs
Open Synaptic and search for the following packages:
• Chromium (browser)
• Firefox (browser)
• FileZilla (FTP Client)
• Thunderbird (client email)
• Deluge (client torrents)
To install the Google Chrome browser, download the appropriate .deb package fron the Google Chrome website and install it later with gdebi. Google Chrome comes with the built-in flash player (Pepper Flash Player). To install this plug-in for Chromium:
sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree
To install Flash Player for Firefox:
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer
Opera Installation:
• download the .deb package from Opera’s website and install it with gedbi
Vivaldi installation:
• download the .deb package from Vivaldi’s website and install it with gdebi
7. Install Gnome System Monitor
Gnome System Monitor is a simple tool for monitoring process and resource usage (processor, memory, hard disk).
sudo apt-get install gnome-system-monitor
8. Install office suite
We will install LibreOffice:
sudo apt-get install libreoffice
9. Install multimedia programs
Clementine installation
Clementine is a multiplatform audio player. The package is in the official Ubuntu warehouses and it can be found in Synaptic.
10. Install Oracle Java from PPA
I prefer Java Oracle at the expense of IcedTea.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa: webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer
11. Install plugins for Thunar
Thunar is the default XFCE file manager.
sudo apt-get install xfce4-goodies thunar-archive-plugin
xfce-goodies contains additional software for the XFCE desktop: xfburn (for burning DVDs), sensors and other useful plug-ins.
thunar-archive-plugin is a plugin that allows creation and extraction of archives inside the Thunar file manager.
12. Installing graphical tools
From Synaptic you can also install Pinta, MyPaint (similar to Windows Paint) and GIMP. Whoever wants, can also install Inkscape.
13. Install Master PDF Editor
Master PDF Editor is a complete application for viewing and editing PDF files on Linux. Download the .deb package and install it with Gdebi.
14. Autologin in Xubuntu 16.04
Xubuntu comes with LightDM as display manager. To enable logging without the system asking for a password, we have to create a file called 50-myconfig.conf in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/ where the following lines will be pasted:
[SeatDefaults]
Remember-user=username
Remember-user-timeout=delay