(Eoan Ermine with CPU-X and Nautilus running nicely)
In this traditional article special for Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermine you will find my suggestions and recommendations in 3 parts, work (including date/time adjustments, productivity tools), non-work (including extensions, podcasts, RSS, codecs), and system maintenance (including CPU-X, repository setup, auto-backup). I also have suggestion for you wanting Global Menu on this Eoan Ermine OS at the end. Adjust it once and use freely everyday. Finally, I hope Ubuntu 19.10 will be your best tool you could imagine to use without worry. Happy working!
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On Ubuntu 19.10: Download Links | Install Guide | Review | GNOME 3.34 | Unity Desktop
Part 1. Work
This part will help you to adjust Eoan to suit basic things for daily works.
Your time:
Go to System Settings > Details > Date & Time > select your region > OK. This step might be skipped when you installed the OS.
Communication:
- Telegram Desktop, download it from desktop.telegram.org and extract it and double-click the 100MB file named Telegram there. See list of Telegram of GNU/Linux communities.
- Riot/Matrix, as I wrote last January, Riot is available on Ubuntu either from third-party PPA (DEB) or Snapcraft (Snap).
- Tor + DNSCrypt, as I wrote as well few days ago, this is the combo for our security and privacy online.
(Telegram from official website works perfectly on Eoan (see the tray icon?))
Creativity:
Do you know that Ubuntu has all replacements to commercial-proprietary software like Photoshop, CorelDRAW, QuarkXPress, and Paint Pro? The replacements are GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, and Krita, respectively. And especially Krita, it's also a replacement to Flash MX as it is capable to make 2D animation. And how about MS Paint? Yes, Ubuntu already has simple tool like that namely Kolourpaint.
Command to install them all in one go:
$ sudo apt-get install gimp inkscape scribus krita kolourpaint
More complete list of creativity software you can find at Ubuntu Studio Tour so you can install any tool you want.
Screenshot tool:
This one is special for myself and writers who need Shutter with its amazing editing capability. Since 18.10 it has beed removed from Ubuntu repo, but fortunately thanks to LinuxUprising website, we now have PPA for 18.10 up to 19.10.
(Shutter, thanks to LinuxUprising effort, works very well on Eoan)
Part 2. Non-work
In this part you will find things not directly related to work but more fun, including user interface adjustments, network and CPU indicators, themes, MP4 codec, as well as podcasts and RSS feeds.
Grouping!
Now we can group apps. Simply drag and drop one app onto other app in the start menu. One among the advantages is it makes our menu looks a lot more shorter and tidier.
Extensions:
They can be divided in 2, browser's and system's.
Firefox addons:
- uBlock Origin, to block ads in every website.
- HTTPS Everywhere, to force all connections to use secure, encrypted, connections instead of non-encrypted ones.
- Mastodon Simplified Federation, as I mentioned few days ago, a skipper to ease our interactions with people at Mastodon.
- Startpage.com, as per October PrivacyToolsIO community recommends this search engine and I find myself use it as easy as Google everyday.
- Invidition, so you could watch all YouTube videos and download them without running JavaScript on your browser and without being tracked.
GNOME addons:
- Simple Net Speed, by bijignome, to show download/upload speed.
- Vitals, by corecoding, a CPU indicator that also shows temperature and RAM stats.
(CPU/MEM indicator, Up/Down indicator, and tray work on Eoan)
Podcast!
Our community loves podcasts, the radio-like audio broadcasting. Many groups of GNU/Linux users broadcast their reviews and talks in audio forms routinely and some of them are very popular, say Ubuntu Podcast and LINUX Unplugged as examples. You can listen to many podcasts and subcribe to them with Rhythmbox Audio Player installed by default.
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To subscribe a podcast: copy an RSS feed > click Podcasts section under Library on Rhythmbox > right-click > New Podcast > paste RSS feed link in the textbox > click Search > click Subscribe.
List of interesting podcast RSS feeds links:
- Ubuntu Podcast
- Ubuntu Security Podcast
- MintCast (Linux Mint)
- LINUX Unplugged
- Choose Linux Show
- Destination Linux
- Linux For Everyone
- Simply Elementary (elementary OS)
(LINUX Unplugged has special podcast issue for 19.10)
RSS Feeds:
You can download my list of RSS Feeds (.opml file) and import it on Thunderbird. With this, you can subscribe to official news of Ubuntu, KDE, GNOME, and many other GNU/Linux projects.You can add more RSS feeds as you wish and then export your own OPML file to share with your friends.
MP4 codecs:
In fact, 19.10 does not include MP4 support but fortunately we can install it easily so we can play videos and get video thumbnails on file manager.
$ sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-libav
Tweak Tool:
To switch themes and extensions easily, we use GNOME Tweak Tool:
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-tweaks
For example, if you wish to help old people using Ubuntu computer:
- Enlarge desktop icons, choose Large from Desktop Icons under Extensions section
- Enlarge fonts, make interface font 12px
- Show pointer clearer, enable Pointer Location under Keyboard section and change cursor into Redglass under Appearance section
- White theme, change desktop theme to Adwaita instead of Yaru
- White panels, change G.S.T. to light theme such as XONE
Themes:
There are many interesting desktop themes including icon sets available for us. By using Tweak Tool, we can install theme like below easily.
3. Maintenance
In this part you can have unique things to keep your system nice and you would like it.
CPU-X
It's like CPU-Z except it runs in GNU/Linux and it's free software. It's available in portable format (no install, just click to run the program) AppImage here.
Privacy Settings
It is located under System Settings > Privacy and you can enable, for example, automatic deletion of your file manager's Recycle Bin.
Change Repository Mirror
I live in Indonesia, for example, so I switched my mirror from United Kingdom to Indonesia instead, so I will get faster download speed when installing apps. One more example, in Indonesia I would love to choose Kartolo Datautama Surabaya's mirror as it's the fastest one and the most stable repo for me right now. For your own country you should know by yourselves.
Automatic Backup
Ubuntu Eoan supports auto-backup to Google Drive. This means it also supports auto-backup to a network server / a local folder. For the former, you must login first by using Online Accounts menu under System Settings. Although I recognize how convenience the former, I recommend the latter if you have your own local server. This autobackup feature allows you to determine the frequency for everyday or once a week.
Further Readings
I have several things prepared for you Eoan user if you like:
- Eoan Unity desktop, if you like Ubuntu to have global menu
- Download Eoan + all variants, if you don't have it yet
- GNOME 3.34 overview, my review of the desktop of Eoan
- Communities, my collections of GNU/Linux discussion places you could follow at Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, and Mastodon
(Global menu on Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermine, do you like it?)
Enjoy Eoan Ermine!
This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.