Last updated $Date: 2008-10-28 13:44:31 $
Martti Kuparinen <martti.kuparinen@iki.fi>
http://www.iki.fi/kuparine/comp/ubuntu/en/install.html
This is how I installed and configured my PC running Ubuntu 8.04.
[ Please note that this page is also available in
Finnish ]
[ See also
My Ubuntu Server Installation with VMware Server,
My Ubuntu UML Installation,
Hard Drive Encryption in My Ubuntu Installation
and
Encrypted directories with EncFS in My Ubuntu Installation
]
This document and the installation helper script have been tested on Ubuntu 8.04. The script works with the following Ubuntu releases: 8.04 and 8.10.
Start by fetching the installation CD image from the Ubuntu download page. Personally I want to use the text-based installation so I used the "Alternate install CD" image. Make sure the MD5 checksum matches with the published value before burning the ISO file or the installation may fail. Reboot with the new installation CD and follow the instructions to install Ubuntu.
Before installing think few minutes how to divide the hard disk into multiple filesystems. In my opinion it's important to have a separate filesystem for /home so it's even possible to reinstall the whole system without moving your personal data to some temporary location before reinstall. I have two identical 250 GB SATA disks. See this page how I configured RAID1 to have some protection agaist disk failures.
Most the following steps can be performed automatically by saving this install.sh script on your home directory and running it inside a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal). It is safe to run the script multiple times if you need to abort it at some point.
wget http://www.iki.fi/kuparine/comp/ubuntu/en/install.sh sh install.sh
Currently the install.sh script does not install and/or configure the following applications so these must be done manually by following this document:
Login to the newly installed Ubuntu system and select
Applications > Accessories > Terminal.
Modify /etc/apt/sources.list and update your newly
installed system. With these settings you have more applications available
for download and install. Replace fi with your country code
(fi = Finland, se = Sweden, ...) in the following example to access the
closest national mirror.
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list ## MAIN AND RESTRICTED REPOSITORIES deb http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted deb http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security main restricted deb http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates main restricted deb-src http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted deb-src http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security main restricted deb-src http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates main restricted ## UNIVERSE REPOSITORY deb http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe deb http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security universe deb-src http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe deb-src http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security universe ## MULTIVERSE REPOSITORY deb http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse deb http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security multiverse deb-src http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse deb-src http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security multiverse ## CANONICAL REPOSITORY deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy partner ## MEDIBUNTU REPOSITORY deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free deb-src http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
Next install the following programs. The following commands should be executed on a terminal window (Applications > Accessories > Terminal).
## Some public keys cd /tmp wget http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg sudo apt-key add medibuntu-key.gpg ## Language support (fi = Finnish, se = Swedish, ...) sudo aptitude install language-pack-fi language-support-fi sudo aptitude install language-pack-gnome-fi ## RealPlayer sudo dpkg -P realplay sudo aptitude install helix-player mozilla-helix-player ## Acroread sudo aptitude install acroread sudo aptitude install mozilla-acroread sudo aptitude install acroread-plugins ## Multimedia Codecs sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras sudo aptitude install gstreamer0.10-pitfdll sudo aptitude install w32codecs # 32-bit sudo aptitude install w64codecs # 64-bit rm -rf ~/.gstreamer-0.10 gst-inspect-0.10 ## DVD playback sudo aptitude install libdvdcss2 sudo aptitude install libdvdnav4 sudo aptitude install gxine sudo aptitude install libxine-main1 sudo aptitude install libxine-extracodecs sudo aptitude install libxine-ffmpeg sudo aptitude install vlc sudo aptitude install mplayer ## CD/DVD burning sudo aptitude install k3b-i18n ## Java plugin sudo aptitude remove icedtea-gcjwebplugin sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin ## Thunderbird sudo aptitude install mozilla-thunderbird sudo aptitude install mozilla-thunderbird-enigmail ## Compilers and manual pages sudo aptitude install build-essential manpages-dev ## NFS, NIS and NTP sudo aptitude install nfs-common sudo aptitude install nis sudo aptitude install ntp ## Rootkit detection sudo aptitude install chkrootkit rkhunter chkrootkit rkhunter --checkall
Next install and configure SSH server to allow only your normal users to login.
If your system has usernames jane and john make
sure /etc/ssh/sshd_config has these lines.
Launch Applications > Accessories > Terminal.
Modify the settings and restart the SSH server.
sudo aptitude install openssh-server sudo gedit /etc/ssh/sshd_config Protocol 2 ... PermitRootLogin no ... AllowUsers jane AllowUsers john sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart
Sometimes you may need to limit which hosts can contact the SSH server. Restrictions can be implemented by using the /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny files. The next allows connections only from trusted networks.
sudo gedit /etc/hosts.allow # Allow SSH from my own networks sshd : localhost sshd : 10.0.0. 192.168. sshd : .mydomain.com .mydomain.net sudo gedit /etc/hosts.deny # Deny everything by default ALL : ALL : severity auth.info
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card (I have GeForce FX 5200) it might be a good idea to install the accelerated driver for X. Otherwise the screen might be the bottleneck when using graphics intensive applications like DVD players and games.
sudo aptitude install nvidia-glx-new
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection
Older NVIDIA graphics cards require the nvidia-glx-legacy package. The easiest way to find out which is required: install first nvidia-glx-new and if the graphical login screen does not appear then remove nvidia-glx-new and install nvidia-glx-legacy.
In some cases you may have to fetch the driver source code from the NVIDIA's web pages and compile the required driver yourself.
wget http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/173.14.12/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.12-pkg1.run sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.12-pkg1.run
For ATI cards, type the following commands:
sudo aptitude install xorg-driver-fglrx sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg ## Select the "fglrx" driver instead of "ati" sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf ## Make sure you have the following settings Section "Device" Identifier "ATI Graphics Adapter" Driver fglrx" Option "VideoOverlay" "on" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" EndSection
After reboot you can test that the accelerated driver is really used with the following command:
glxinfo | grep -i direct direct rendering: Yes
At work I also have NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (with one DVI and one VGA connector) and two 20" Dell 2007FP TFTs. As I write code during day time it's nice to have two monitors side by side forming a big desktop, one for writing code and compiling the code, and the other for debugging with DDD and network monitoring with wireshark. I got TwinView working with this xorg.conf file.
VMware Workstation is a commercial virtualization software which enables you to run Windows on your Linux PC.
sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-generic tar xzf VMware-workstation-6.0.5-109488.i386.tar.gz -C /tmp cd /tmp/vmware-distrib sudo ./vmware-install.pl
VMware Server is a free software which enables you to run Windows on your Linux PC. See a separate document how I installed VMware Server. Please note that unlike with VMware Player, you can create virtual machines with VMware Server.
VMware Player is a free software which enables you to run Windows on your Linux PC. This needs an existing virtual machine which can be created with the non-free VMware Workstation, with the free QEMU and with the free VM Builder.
Note: VMware Workstation installs also the VMware Player so these steps are only needed if you don't have a VMware Workstation installed.
VMware Player 2.x is not yet available for Ubuntu as a .deb package so you need to install it manually. Start by fetching the required .tar.gz file from the VMware Player download page.
tar xzf VMware-player-2.0.5-109488.i386.tar.gz -C /tmp cd /tmp/vmware-player-distrib sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Even though Ubuntu does not listen to any non-localhost ports by default I want to limit how my PC is visible to others. This is done by using the standard iptables firewall which is included in the Ubuntu installation. You could of course install Firestarter or GuardDog from the Synaptic package manager but I prefer a simple textfile-based solution.
Download this firewall script to your Desktop and modify it according to your network settings.
gedit ~/Desktop/firewall sudo cp ~/Desktop/firewall /etc/init.d/firewall sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/firewall sudo ln -sf ../init.d/firewall /etc/rcS.d/S42firewall sudo /etc/rcS.d/S42firewall restart