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Ubuntu Workstation Build

1.   Introduction
1.1   Software Repositories
1.2   Essential Stuff
1.3   Workstation Security
1.4   Hardware Stuff
1.5   Fonts
1.6   Internet Stuff
1.7   Encryption Stuff
1.8   Audio and Video Playback and Encoding
1.9   Restricted Stuff
1.10   CD, DVD and Blu-Ray Stuff
1.11   Graphics and Photos
1.12   3D Modeling and CAD
1.13   Gnome Applets
1.14   Nautilus Extensions
1.15   Network Tools
1.16   Maps and GPS
1.17   System Utilities
1.18   Backup and File Synchronisation
1.19   Database Management and Design
1.20   Office Applications
1.21   Genealogy
1.22   Misc. Utilities
1.23   Eye Candy

Introduction

I have scripted most of this in the past, but I have recently moved to 64-bit Ubuntu so I am documenting my typical workstation build. This is a work in progress.

I do the stuff below after an install of Ubuntu Desktop 8.04 including an initial package update and Nvidia restricted drivers enabled.

This document is a work in progress and currently a bit messy and dis-jointed, it will improve over time

Here are some pages which offer similar setup suggestions...

Software Repositories

My Ubuntu Build requires that the Ubuntu repository configuration is exactly as described below.

Essential Stuff

These are the things I can't do without. 

 sudo aptitude install curl ntp screen tree

Development Tools

 sudo aptitude install build-essential checkinstall libstd5++ subversion meld sagasu tidy bless spe bluefish

Although the above tools are useful, I typically do most development using Eclipse.

Archive and File Compression Utilites

 sudo aptitude install arc arj cabextract lha p7zip p7zip-full p7zip-rar pax rar sharutils unrar unzoo vim zoo

File Systems

 sudo aptitude install davfs2 nfs-common sshfs

Mail Utilities

This installs a nullmailer which I configure to relay (securely) through my mail server. 

 sudo aptitude install nullmailer mailutils

To configure a remote mail to send via edit '/etc/nullmailer/remotes' and add something like the following. 

 mail.example.org smtp --user=YOUR_USERNAME --pass=YOUR_PASSWORD

Also make sure you have something sane in '/etc/mailname' for your fully qualified mailname.

Workstation Security

Anti Virus

Anti Virus for seeing what my Windows users have just been infected with ;-) 

 sudo aptitude install clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam

Firewall

Ubuntu Hardy introduced the Uncomplicated Firewall (ufw) and it is program for managing a netfilter firewall. It provides a command line interface and aims to be uncomplicated and easy to use. Gufw is a GUI for the ufw, so it can be even easier to use. 

 wget http://launchpad.net/gui-ufw/main/0.0.6/+download/gufw_0.0.6-all.deb
 sudo gdebi gufw_0.0.6-all.deb

In the past I used Fire Starter, but not anymore. The information in the page below is out dated and no longer maintained.

References

Hardware Stuff

I have nVidia graphics cards and some of my machines still have infrared ports. 

 sudo aptitude install nvidia-settings irda-utils

We use ReadyNAS devices at work as backup units so I need RAIDar.

We have Supermicro Server with integrated IMPI modules, therefore I also need the Supermicro IPMI View.

Fonts

Microsoft Fonts

 sudo aptitude install msttcorefonts

Mac Fonts

This will download and install the Mac fonts which includes AppleGaramond, Aquabase, LITHOGRL, Lucida GrandeLucida, Maclucon MacGrand. 

 wget http://ubuntu-debs.googlecode.com/files/macfonts.tar.gz
 tar zxvf macfonts.tar.gz
 sudo mv macfonts /usr/share/fonts/
 sudo fc-cache -f -v

Other Fonts

 sudo aptitude install xfonts-terminus

Internet Stuff

Firefox and Thunderbird

Other Browsers

99% of the time I use Firefox but I also need to test the website I develop and therefore install additional browsers to cater for that. 

 sudo aptitude install epiphany-browser epiphany-extensions opera

Chat, IM, Blogging and FTP

I blog, chat online and FTP files. 

 sudo aptitude install filezilla pidgin-plugin-pack pidgin-otr pidgin-themes liferea xchat-gnome blogtk gajim skype

Encryption Stuff

 sudo aptitude install seahorse gcipher

Audio and Video Playback and Encoding

Audio and Video Tools

This tools are required so I can create scripts to convert or create audio/video files. 

 sudo aptitude install flac faac faad ffmpeg gpac lame liba52-0.7.4-dev mencoder mjpegtools mkvtoolnix mp3gain mp3splt mpeg2dec mpeg4ip-utils mpeg4ip-server mpgtx toolame transcode vorbis-tools x264

I also use the Nero AAC encoder as it produces better results than faac, for more details see the URL below... 

 wget http://ftp6.nero.com/tools/NeroDigitalAudio.zip
 wget ftp://ftp6.nero.com/tutorials/nerodigital/audio_encoder/NeroDigitalAudio_tut_eng.pdf
 unzip NeroDigitalAudio.zip
 chmod 755 linux/*
 sudo mv linux/* /usr/local/bin/

MP3 Encoding Profile

Non Free Video Codecs

Currently I don not install this package, I am testing to see if I can live without it. Basically this installs w32codecs or w64codecs or ppccodecs depending on your hardware platform. 

 sudo aptitude install non-free-codecs

Video Players

Although I use Totem (with Gstreamer) for most viewing I do like to have other video players available to overcome the occasional playback issue. That said, I always use VLC for watching DVDs. 

 sudo aptitude install gnome-mplayer gxine vlc

I use Real Player to watch and listen to streaming media, mostly from the BBC.

Video Editors

 sudo aptitude install avidemux kino

Audio Player

I found that the DLNA/UPnP plugin failed to start in Ubuntu Hardy, this is a known bug due to a package dependency. Simply install 'python-coherence' to fix the problem. 

 sudo aptitude install python-coherence

References

Audio Editors

 sudo aptitude install audacity tagtool

Media Servers

I run DLNA Servers on my workstations so I can access "shared" media from my PS3.

Restricted Stuff

Get the audio and video codecs you really needs along with Sun's JVM, Adobe Flash, commercial DVD playback, IA-32 compatibility layers and other good stuff.

'libflashsupport' is a support library for sound output of Flash 9 with pulseaudio which can prevent Firefox from locking if you try to run more than one type of audio at the same time as flash. 

 sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras libdvdcss2 libflashsupport

CD, DVD and Blu-Ray Stuff

Ubuntu Hardy ships with Brasero as the default CD/DVD burning application, which is great. However, I need some other CD/DVD/Blu-Ray tools to do everything I want.

Blu-Ray

I have a Blu-Ray reader/writer which can also read HD-DVD. Sadly the UDF 2.50 driver is missing from the kernel shipped with Ubuntu Hardy so we need to compile it manually.

ISO Tools

ISO Master enabled me to poke about inside .ISO files. 

 sudo aptitude install isomaster

AcetoneISO2 is a feature-rich and complete GUI application to manage CD/DVD images such as ISO BIN NRG MDF IMG and do plenty of other stuff too. 

 wget http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/acetoneiso2/acetoneiso2_2.0.2_amd64.deb
 sudo gdebi -n acetoneiso2_2.0.2_amd64.deb

Furius ISO Mount is an ISO, IMG, BIN, MDF and NRG image management utility for Gnome. There is not currently a 64-bit version of the Furius ISO Mount therefore I need to build from source. 

 sudo aptitude install build-essential mono-gmcs fuseiso libgtk2.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil
 wget http://www.marcus-furius.com/files/FuriusIsoMount/furiusisomount-0.8.4.0.tar.gz
 tar xzvf furiusisomount-0.8.4.0.tar.gz
 cd furiusisomount-0.8.4.0
 ./configure
 make
 sudo make install

Furius ISO Mount should now be installed and available under Applications -> Sound & Vision.

References

VCD/DVD Authoring

 sudo aptitude install dvdauthor vcdimager subtitleripper subtitleeditor gnome-subtitles

I use DVDStyler to author home made DVDs but it is not in the Ubuntu repos so we need to download and install the package provided by GetDeb.net.

amd64 version for Hardy 

 wget http://www.getdeb.net/download/2605/0
 sudo gdebi -n dvdstyler_1.6.2-0~getdeb1_amd64.deb

i386 version for Hardy 

 wget http://www.getdeb.net/download/2604/0
 sudo gdebi -n dvdstyler_1.6.2-0~getdeb1_i386.deb

References

While Brasero is very good I also use Nero Linux 3 to re-author projects at work which might have been created on Windows. 

 sudo gdebi -n nerolinux-3.5.1.0-x86_64.deb
  • Start Nero and enter your serial when prompted.

DVD Ripping

Graphics and Photos

 sudo aptitude install netpbm imagemagick dia-gnome inkscape hugin agave gcolor2 gpaint gnomescan gnome-photo-printer camorama metapixel

3D Modeling and CAD

 sudo aptitude install blender qcad

Gnome Applets

 sudo aptitude install glipper netspeed ontv lock-keys-applet music-applet sensors-applet service-discovery-applet
 sudo chmod +s /usr/bin/cpufreq-selectory

Nautilus Extensions

 sudo aptitude install nautilus-actions nautilus-gksu nautilus-image-converter nautilus-open-terminal nautilus-sendto nautilus-script-audio-convert nautilus-script-collection-svn nautilus-script-manager nautilus-wallpaper

Network Tools

VPN and SSH Stuff

I VPN and SSH into stuff so add the VPN client support to Network Manager and SSH connection and tunnels managers. 

 sudo aptitude install network-manager-openvpn network-manager-pptp network-manager-vpnc nscd gstm ssh sshmenu sshmenu-gnome

There are some bugs in Ubuntu Hardy that relate to DNS resolution when VPN'd via PPTP. See the references below for details, but what we are doing here is changing the order of preceedence that resolv.conf uses to decided which DNS servers to references. By default PPP interfaces (what PPTP uses) are almost the lowest priority so therefore when you try and use peer DNS through a PPTP tunnel resolv.conf is still using the DNS servers that apply to your other interfaces.

Change the resolv.conf interface order. 

 sudo nano /etc/resolvconf/interface-order

The default configuration, looks like this... 

 lo.inet*
 lo.dnsmasq
 lo.pdnsd
 lo.!(pdns|pdns-recursor)
 lo
 tun*
 tap*
 eth*
 ath*
 wlan*
 ppp*
 *

Change it to this... 

 lo.inet*
 lo.dnsmasq
 lo.pdnsd
 lo.!(pdns|pdns-recursor)
 lo
 tun*
 tap*
 ppp*
 eth*
 ath*
 wlan*
 *

References

SSH Intrusion Prevention

 sudo aptitude install fail2ban

Network Administration

 sudo aptitude install gip wireshark kismet nessus nessus-plugins nessusd zenmap

GIP doesn't create a menu item automatically. 

 sudo nano /usr/share/applications/gip.desktop

Add the following, the save the file and exit. 

 [Desktop Entry]
 Encoding=UTF-8
 Version=1.6.1-1
 Name=GIP
 Comment=Internet Protocol Calculator
 Exec=gip
 Icon=/usr/share/gip/calculator.png
 Terminal=false
 Type=Application
 Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;

Remote Console

Maps and GPS

  sudo aptitude install gpsdrive googleearth

System Utilities

 sudo aptitude install hardinfo gparted terminator ubuntu-tweak

'hardinfo' looks for '/usr/lib/libz.so' when running the CPU ZLib tests, so we need to create a symlink. 

 sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3 /usr/lib/libz.so

Backup and File Synchronisation 

 sudo aptitude install conduit gnome-vfs-obexftp grsync unison unison-gtk

References

Database Management and Design

 sudo aptitude install emma glom

Office Applications

 sudo aptitude install planner gnucash

gLabels

The version of gLabels in the Ubuntu Hardy repositories is very old and doesn't work properly anymore. Therefore I grab the 2.2.1 build from André Klitzing's PPA.

First download the version for your system.

64bit 

 wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/misery/ubuntu/pool/main/g/glabels/glabels_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_amd64.deb
 wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/misery/ubuntu/pool/main/g/glabels/glabels-data_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_all.deb
 sudo gdebi glabels-data_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_all.deb
 sudo gdebi glabels_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_amd64.deb

32bit 

 wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/misery/ubuntu/pool/main/g/glabels/glabels_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_i386.deb
 wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/misery/ubuntu/pool/main/g/glabels/glabels-data_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_all.deb
 sudo gdebi glabels-data_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_all.deb
 sudo gdebi glabels_2.2.2-1~hardy1~andre1_i386.deb

References

Genealogy

 sudo aptitude install gramps

Misc. Utilities

 sudo aptitude install convertall

NFO Viewer

 wget http://download.gna.org/nfoview/1.2/nfoview-1.2.tar.gz
 tar zxvf nfoview-1.2.tar.gz
 cd nfoview-1.2/
 sudo ./setup.py install

References

Eye Candy

Love your desktop and it will love you back.

$Id: UbuntuBuild,v 1.91 2008/10/01 07:04:25 martin Exp $

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