Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Tweaks

Recently installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) in one of my home machines and had to perform few tweaks to get it to a state that was quite appealing as a developer's desktop.

The following are some of the tweaks:

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS uses the Unity desktop and the configuration options are not easily accessible. This is where the Unity Tweak Tool comes in handy.

To install the Unity Tweak Tool, issue the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

The following Figure-1 illustrates how the Unity Tweak Tool looks when launched:

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS by default does not install any capability to decode and play MP3 audio files, support for Java, or enable the Flash plugin.

To fix these limitations, install the Ubuntu Restricted Extras by issue the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS by default does not enable the ability to decode and play DVDs.

To fix this limitation, issue the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install libdvdread4

$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Install Synaptic Package Manager

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS by default does not install the Synaptic package manager.

To install the Synaptic package manager, issue the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install synaptic

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS by default does not install the Wireshark protocol analyzer.

To install the Wireshark protocol analyzer, issue the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install wireshark

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure wireshark-common

$ sudo adduser $USER wireshark

Reboot the system for the changes to take effect.

To install custom wallpapers, issue the following commands:

$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/backgrounds/custom

$ sudo cp *.jpg /usr/share/backgrounds/custom

$ cd /usr/share/gnome-background-properties

$ sudo cp trusty-wallpapers.xml custom-wallpapers.xml

Modify the contents of the file custom-wallpapers.xml to reflect the custom wallpaper files.

Reboot the system for the changes to take effect.

To install the Oracle Java 8, issue the following commands:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

Add External Applications to Unity

When we manually install applications (such as downloading and manually installing Eclipse), it will not be searchable via Unity.

To manually add an installed application for search in Unity, issue the following command:

$ sudo gnome-desktop-item-edit /usr/share/applications/ --create-new

Executing the above command will launch the following dialog box as shown in Figure-3:

Filling the details in the dialog box and clicking the OK button will create a shortcut in Unity that is searchable.

Once we manually download and install Eclipse, the Eclipse menu items will not show up.

The following Figure-4 illustrates the problem:

To fix this problem, issue the following command:

$ sudo vi /usr/share/applications/Eclipse.desktop

Change the line Exec=/home/bswamina/Products/eclipse/eclipse to Exec=env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 /home/bswamina/Products/eclipse/eclipse and save the contents. This will fix the problem.