A Beginner's Guide To Ubuntu¶

What is Ubuntu LTS?¶

Ubuntu is an african word meaning humanity or humanity towards others. It also qualifies a philosophy which encourages community equality, the distribution of wealth and the appreciation of individual uniqueness.

In this spirit, the UK-based company Canonical Ltd develops and releases the eponymous Ubuntu operating system, an open source Debian-based Linux distribution. Ubuntu is released every six months, with long-term support (LTS) releases every two years. At the time of writing, the latest LTS release is Ubuntu 22.04, which is supported until April 2027.

Ubuntu comes in many official and inofficial flavours, each packaging different desktop environments with their own distinctive look and feel: Ubuntu GNOME (default), Ubuntu Mate, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, elementaryOS, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Zorin OS and so on. In this chapter, we'll review the official Ubuntu flavor, featuring the GNOME desktop environment.

Ubuntu Live USB & VirtualBox¶

The easiest way to discover Ubuntu GNOME is to run it alongside your current operating system, for example using a Live USB drive or VirtualBox. If Ubuntu isn't to your liking, you can simply switch back to Windows or macOS.

How to install Ubuntu¶

Start to like Ubuntu? Want to permanently install it on your computer? Great! Just perform some preliminary checks and follow the installation instructions below.

The GNOME Desktop¶

After signing in, the so-called GNOME Desktop will load. Below a quick overview of the various GNOME Desktop elements.

Top BarDockApp LauncherDesktopTerminal

The top bar provides quick access to:

• Activities: click on the Activities button on the top left of the screen to access open windows and workspaces, or search for apps, files and folders. Alternatively, perform a three-finger upward swipe on your touchpad to access the Activities overview
• Clock, calendar & appointments: view the current time and date, a calendar and a list of your appointments
• System properties: manage system properties such as sound, screen brightness, network connections, power mode, microphone status during calls, session log out, etc.

Notice that you can add a battery percentage indicator via Settings ‣ Power ‣ Suspend & Power button.

By default, the dock appears on the left side of the desktop. It displays:

• Pinned apps: quickly access your favourite apps. To pin an app to the dock, simply right-click on its icon in the App Launcher or in the dock (when it's running) and select Add to Favorites. Notice that icons in the dock can be re-arranged to your liking
• Running apps: access currently running apps. They are displayed in the lower half of the dock
• Mounted volumes & Trash: access your drives or the Trash bin

Fine-tune the dock's appearance under Settings ‣ Appearance ‣ Dock: reduce the dock size by disabling the Panel mode, move the dock to another location on the desktop, auto-hide the dock, modify the icon size or hide mounted volumes and the Trash icon.

To enable minimise-on-click, which allows you to click on an app icon in the dock to minimise or restore the corresponding window. Simply run the following command in the terminal:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock click-action 'minimize'

The App Launcher provides access to all installed apps:

• Open the App Launcher: click on the nine-dot-icon on the bottom left of the destkop, or perform two consecutive three-finger upward swipes on your touchpad
• Scroll through the App Launcher: scroll horizontally through your apps with the mouse, or a two-finger left/right swipe on your touchpad
• Rearrange icons: simply drag and drop app icons to rearrange them to your liking

Many aspects of the GNOME Desktop can be customised in the Settings ‣ Appearance menu:

• Window style: select a system-wide light or dark theme, and choose from 10 different accent colours
• Icons: adjust the icon size or position on the Desktop, and show or hide the personal folder
• Files & Folders: open the file manager to drag & drop files or folders to the Desktop

You can fine-tune multitasking via the Settings ‣ Multitasking menu:

• Hot Corner: touch the top-left corner to open the Activities overview
• Active Screen Edges: drag windows against the top, left and right screen edges to resize them
• Workspaces: choose between a dynamic or fixed number of workspaces. To switch workspace, access the Activities overview or App Launcher as described previously, or perform a three-finger right/left swipe on your touchpad

You can also record screenshots and screen recordings by pressing the PRNT SCRN button.

Finally, you can disable animations via Settings ‣ Accessibility ‣ Seeing.

The terminal is an interface to execute text based commands. It's sometimes called shell, console, command line or prompt. Many new users are put off by the terminal, as it's often associated with some obscure code hacking. In fact, using the terminal is not that hard and can be much faster than navigating the graphical interface. Open the terminal with the shortcut CTRL + ALT + T, or click on the Activities button on the top left and search for Terminal. Here some reading material to become a terminal-ninja:

• Cheat sheet with most used terminal commands
• Another cheat sheet with most used terminal commands
• Yet another cheat sheet with most used terminal commands
• Couple of useful Ubuntu terminal commands
• Full book on the Linux Command Line

Remove Snap & install GNOME Software Center¶

As of Ubuntu 20.04, the traditional software center has been replaced with Snap, a new technology to deliver applications bundled inside one single file. If you prefer reverting back to the GNOME Software Center, follow the detailed instructions below.

sudo systemctl disable snapd.service
sudo systemctl disable snapd.socket
sudo systemctl disable snapd.seeded.service

snap list

Name                        Version             Rev     Tracking            Publisher       Notes
bare                        1.0                 5       latest/stable       canonical       base
core20                      20220318            1405    latest/stable       canonical       base
firefox                     99.0.1-1            1232    latest/stable/...   mozilla         -
gnome-3-38-2004             0#git.1f9014a       99      latest/stable/...   canonical       -
gtk-common-themes           0.1-79-ga83e90c     1534    latest/stable/...   canonical       -
snap-store                  41.3-59-gf884f48    575     latest/stable/...   canonical       -
snapd                       2.54.4              15177   latest/stable       canonical       snapd
snapd-desktop-integration   0.1                 10      latest/stable/...   canonical       -

sudo snap remove --purge firefox
sudo snap remove --purge snap-store
sudo snap remove --purge gtk-common-themes
sudo snap remove --purge gnome-3-38-2004
sudo snap remove --purge snapd-desktop-integration
sudo snap remove --purge core20
sudo snap remove --purge bare

sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/
sudo rm -rf ~/snap

sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd

sudo gedit /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref

# This file prevents snapd from being installed by apt
Package: snapd
Pin: release a=*
Pin-Priority: -10

sudo apt update
sudo apt install gnome-software

sudo gedit /etc/apt/preferences.d/firefox-nosnap.pref

# This file enables re-installing Firefox after removing snapd
Package: firefox*
Pin: release o=Ubuntu*
Pin-Priority: -1

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
sudo apt update

sudo apt install firefox

sudo rm /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref

sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-snap
sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak

Ubuntu privacy settings¶

Under Settings ‣ Privacy, users can fine-tune privacy-related aspects such as connectivity checks, location services, history, access to external devices, screen locks or diagnostic reports. More details below.

GNOME Tweaks & Extensions¶

As detailed previously, Ubuntu 22.04 and the GNOME Desktop are highly customisable: wallpapers, notifications, light & dark themes, accent colours, multitasking, power profiles, etc. GNOME Tweaks pushes customisation even further: lock screen background, location of windows control buttons, startup applications, etc. GNOME extensions on the other hand add functionalities such as weather, network speed, desktop quarter-tiling, etc. More detailed instructions below.

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks
sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-manager

Ubuntu bug reporting¶

Apport is Ubuntu's bug reporting system. It intercepts crashes and files bug reports. You might want to turn it off for privacy reasons. More detailed instructions below.

sudo rm /etc/cron.daily/apport
sudo apt purge apport

Ubuntu codecs¶

Codecs tell your computer how to read video or audio files. For legal and ethical reasons, some Linux distributions don't include all multimedia codecs. Sometimes it's therefore necessary to install additional codecs to view particular file formats. More detailed instructions below.

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) partner"
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Ubuntu graphic drivers¶

The vast majority of Linux distributions ships with open source graphic drivers out of the box. While this is sufficient to run standard applications, it's often not enough for gaming. To install proprietary graphic drivers, click on the Activities button on the top left of the screen and type Additional Drivers. Choose the correct graphical driver (most of the time, it's the default option) and restart your system.

How to update Ubuntu software¶

Perform regular software updates and install the latest security patches, bug fixes and application upgrades. Below more detailed instructions on how to update Ubuntu from the command line.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt autoclean
sudo apt clean

How to upgrade Ubuntu releases¶

Beyond software updates, you might want to upgrade Ubuntu from one release to the next, for example from Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to 22.04 LTS, or from 22.04 LTS to 22.10 non-LTS. More detailed instructions below.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

lsb_release -a

sudo gedit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

sudo do-release-upgrade -d -f DistUpgradeViewGtk3

lsb_release -a

Support¶

For further details or questions, refer to Ubuntu's documentation, Ubuntu's tutorials, Ubuntu's wiki or ask Ubuntu's beginner-friendly community for help.