Ubuntu First Impressions

These are notes based on Image 0.99 (May 12/2006). This is a list of tasks Lawrence needed to do early on. Maybe we can get some of these into the latest image.

Shortcuts on Panel

• Added the Terminal Icon to my Panel:
  • Applications -> Accessories
  • right-click on Terminal
  • Choose "Add this launcher to panel"
• Did the same thing for Thunderbird
  • configured Thunderbird to read my mail from mail.cs

Install Printer

• see: https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/view/CF/UbuntuInstallNotes#Setup_printing

Firefox extensions

• Firefox needed flash extension installed - and it seems to be a pain to do so. - should be fixed in 1.0 image
• haven't checked Java yet - see Flash

Setting up BookIt (Oracle Calendar)

• Go to the IST BookIt Downloads page
• Click on the Oracle Calendar x.y.z for Linux link
• Save to Disk (it will go to the Desktop)
• open a Terminal session
• cd Desktop
• tar -xzf cal_linux_*
• cd OracleCalendar_inst
• ./text_install.sh
• I just accpeted the defaults from there, which put the software in my $HOME/OracleCalendar and a link in $HOME/bin
• to run OracleCalendar, enter: ~/bin/ocal&
• for notes on first-time configuration, see: IST's setup notes

Change my default path to include $HOME/bin

• after installing OracleCalendar, I needed $HOME/bin in my path
• in .bashrc added to the end: PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH

Fix ssh to connect to Solaris machines quickly

• I added the following to the aliases section in my .bashrc
  • alias ssh='ssh -X'

Auto Lock Screen

• System -> Preferences - Screensaver (2nd one!)
• check "Lock screen when Screen saver is active"
• Screen saver was set to "Random" after 10 minutes (which is fine for me)
  • except I've noticed that most of the items listed don't work - so it's usually blank
  • set it to "Cosmos" instead

Add keyboard shortcuts

• I like to have something like Ctrl-Alt-C to pull up the Calculator or Ctrl-Alt-T to bring up a Terminal window

Access to NetApp filespace

• probably need to use smbclient somehow

Recovery from KVM failure

-- LawrenceFolland - 15 May 2006