Make Linux Ubuntu Focal Fossa 20.04 LTS as your default Operating System.

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In this article you will see the things to do After installing a fresh Linux  Ubuntu 20.04 LTS operating system in a dual boot configuration with  Microsoft Windows 10.In short this article helps you to make your Ubuntu desktop as your daily driver and make switching from windows to linux easy.

Remember in this article we are not going to make Linux ubuntu a very beautiful and ultimate feature packed we are just making it capable so that it can replace Microsoft Windows Operating system. Students who are willing to use Linux as their daily driver for programming languages, this article will help them to use Linux system as their daily driver and they will be able to code on Linux. Those people/students who are not involved in computer science stuff(like programming, building a website or Android app development etc.)  can also use ubuntu and its basic tools( like the alternative of Microsoft paint,task manager the horizontal bottom taskbar,etc  just like Windows has), so that they don't have difficulty in switching from any other operating system to Linux Ubuntu.

When you freshly install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS your desktop screen,most probably,looks like this.


All the application installation and system tweaks is done in a beginner friendly manner, if you are new to linux environment, no problem, you can easily do everything mentioned here without having the deep knowledge of Linux based Operating Systems. All you have to know is to install Ubuntu on your machine successfully.

Here,

  • we tweak some system settings
  • customise how our desktop looks, by changing
    • application-themes
    • icon-packs
    • wallpapers and many more.
  • install some useful application to do all the day to day basic tasks.
  • Install some great Extensions that increase your productivity to some extent.
After going through this article your desktop looks like this:


Prerequisite : You need to have a good internet connection and depending upon your system speed and configuration it will take less than 10 to 15 minutes to complete all these tasks. If you are an absolute beginner then it will take up to 30 minutes to do all these things but once you have done everything listed in this article successful,  you are ready to use Linux as your daily driver.


Below is the list of all the things we are going to do-

STEP 1 : Open the terminal (or press Alt+Ctrl+t) and paste the highlighted commands one by one and press enter.
$sudo apt update
        $sudo apt upgrade
$sudo apt autoremove
$sudo apt install synaptic dconf htop lmsensors neofetch nethogs guake
SETP 2: In Case you don't know what these statements mean and wondering what task those program do after installing? Keep reading this article, by the end of this article you will be able to understand each of the statements mentioned above.

Now, Let's understand what each term means:

1. sudo : The sudo command allows you to run programs with the security privileges of another user (by default, as the superuser). It prompts you for your personal password and confirms your request to execute a command by checking a file, called sudoers , which the system administrator configures.

2. apt : apt(advanced package-management tool) is a command-line utility for installing, updating, removing, and otherwise managing deb packages on Ubuntu, Debian, and related Linux distributions.

3. update : sudo apt-get update simply makes sure your list of packages from all repositories and PPA's is up to date. If you do not run this command, you could be getting older versions of various packages you are installing, or worse, dependency issues. So before installing any application program or packages always run this command.


4. upgrade : Run sudo apt-get upgrade to install available upgrades of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources configured via sources. list file. New packages will be installed if required to satisfy dependencies, but existing packages will never be removed.


5. autoremove : apt-get autoremove will remove those dependencies that were installed with applications and are no longer used by anything else.


6. synaptic : If you don't want to use terminal for installing new software you can use synaptic package manager. 

Synaptic is a lightweight GUI front end to apt package management system used in Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint and many other Debian/Ubuntu based distributions. Basically, everything that you can do using the apt-get commands in the terminal can be achieved with Synaptic.


7. dconf : dconf is a low-level configuration system and settings management tool. Its main purpose is to provide a back end to GSettings on platforms that don't already have configuration storage systems. It depends on GLib. It is part of GNOME 3 and is a replacement for GConf.


8. htop : Htop is the improved version of the top command-line utility. Using the htop utility, the user can view the crucial details about the Ubuntu system such as CPU running processes, memory utilization, load average, PID's, etc.


9. lmsensors : lm_sensors is a free open-source software-tool for Linux that provides tools and drivers for monitoring temperatures, voltage, humidity, and fans. It can also detect chassis intrusions.


10. neofetch : Neofetch is a CLI system information tool written in BASH. Neofetch displays information about your system next to an image, your OS logo, or any ascii file of your choice. The main purpose of neofetch is to be used in screenshots to show other users what OS/Distro you're running, what Theme/Icons you're using and etc.


11. guake : Guake is a terminal emulator that's tailored for GNOME desktop with a top-down design. It is a dropdown terminal and can activated by  pressing any configured hotkey . By default F12 is the hotkey/shortcut.


11. nethogs : NetHogs is an open source command line program (similar to Linux top command) that is used for monitor real time network traffic bandwidth used by each process or application. Type command   $sudo nethogs -d 1  "-d 1" means refresh interval of 1 second.


Upto here, you have installed only basic command line utilities which you can use for monitoring the system,network,and many more. In the next step we are going to tweak the looks of our desktop.

Installing Gnome Extensions

STEP 1: Open your default browser and open URL: https://extensions.gnome.org/ and install the Gnome Shell Extension. 


STEP 2 : Now when you click "Click here to Install Browser extension" it will take you to chrome's web store page and prompts you to add the extension to your browser.Click "Add to Chrome" 


STEP 3: After clicking above button, it prompts to add extension . Allow it by pressing "Add Extension".


STEP 4: After successful Installation of Extension this message will pop in the top right corner of your screen.



STEP 5: Now, go to the Gnome Shell Extensions(Click here to open)  and Search for "Panel OSD" 


STEP 6: Click on the first listed option and Toggle on the the Switch in the top right:


STEP 7: It prompts for confirmation like this, Click on "Install"


STEP 8: Now go to Installed Extensions Page(or Click Here) located on the centre-top  :


STEP 9: On Installed Extensions Page , click on the settings icon and loacted on the right side and adjust the sliders, to correctly position your screen notification spot, in the way you like.



STEP 10: In the same way install all the extensions listed below and tweak the settings according to you: 

Install User Themes

Go to the gnome-look.org and download any theme you like as shown here:
After Selecting the theme scroll down you will find "Files" tab Click on it and download the flavour/variant you like the most.

After Downloading it do to the download folder locate that file and right clicking on it will pop a menu, select "Extract Here" from the pop-up menu.
After extracting you will get a folder in the same directory that have same name as that of the theme you have downloaded:

Now, cut the folder and go to your home directory and create a folder named ".themes". And paste the copied file into that folder.

NOTE: After creating the folder the folder might not visible to you because the folders having name that starts with "."(dot/period) is hidden by default. To view that folder check the option, for show hidden file, available on the top right position in your File Manager/Explorer.
After pasting the file open Gnome "Tweaks" from your application menu and go to "Appearance" tab and in application Theme select the theme you've copied before.

Now Every thing is set and your gnome desktop is ready to use a your daily driver.

Some Usefull Applications (Optional) 

Here is the list of some applications if you are interested, you can install these programs from snap store or download their 
respective packages(deb/tar) form their official websites:
  • Android-Studio/IntelliJ-Idea/Pycharm
  • Visual-Studio-Code/Sublime-Text-Editor
  • Flutter-SDK
  • Google-Chrome/Chromium/Brave
  • VLC-Media-Player
  • Telegram/Signal-Messenger
  • ThunderBird/Springmail-Email-Client
  • GIMP
  • Pinta/Krita
  • WineHQ
  • WALC-Unofficial-WhatsApp-Desktop-Client
  • Libre-Office/Free-Office-Suite
  • Kdenlive/LightWorks-Video-Editor
  • Balena-Etcher
  • Ventoy
Above listed applications are not for everyone, but they are perfect for University Students persuing Computer Science Courses.

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