First Thing To Do

[Krymzn]

When I finish installing Ubuntu what is the first thing I should do?
Apart from take a tour.

[pane-free]

I go to the command line and

apt-get update && apt-get remove brasero && apt-get install (favorite text editor) (aptitude) (favorite burner app)

et cetera -- but this is a matter of personal preferences. Then,

Suggest creating two accounts for yourself -- one User account, one Administrator account.
Former to use online and with most-used apps; latter to administer the system. Look at Group memberships, especially Default settings on User account. In Advanced under Administrator account, you may want to enable everything. You will most likely have to do some research online with the User account to get the gist of how to do these things.

Ubuntu is a big pain to get how I want it, one of the major reasons I do not use it.

I would not suggest using one of the scripts out there labeled á la “First things to do after installing Ubuntu” !! Unless, of course, you don't mind having to do a reinstall of the OS.

Also, go to Synaptic and choose the best server for your area.

When you get apps choices where you want them, use aptitude to do a sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

[ (sorry, I forgot about sudo in the first compound command) I like this option better than apt-get dist-upgrade and apt-get autoremove ]

Once satisfied with all the options you choose, suggest downloading Clonezilla and using it to ghost your hard drive, so it can be restored quickly and easily. Something will happen eventually that will make you glad you did this!

Oh yeah! Learn the command line, especially APT !! LOL !

Freedom to do as you please carries a burden, doesn't it?!

[wjack2010]

I recommend installing "nano" it's a brilliant text editor:

"sudo apt-get install nano" then it'll take 1-2 minutes to install

Then I'd make sure you've got any other pieces of software you may need, aswel as all passwords changed to your own personal ones.

[kreso93]

Those are some great tips above. I gonna install nano, to check it out.

[Akendo]

When you start using Linux, try to bring to the desktop what you are used to!

Then:

Suggest creating two accounts for yourself -- one User account, one Administrator account.
Former to use online and with most-used apps; latter to administer the system. Look at Group memberships, especially Default settings on User account. In Advanced under Administrator account, you may want to enable everything. You will most likely have to do some research online with the User account to get the gist of how to do these things.

This maybe looks great on Windows Systems, but Ubuntu has already a Account for this. It's called "root" and you should simply enabling it, when you need it! Anyhow, the concept of sudo is that your able to become system administrator without having an extra Account for this.

Ubuntu is very good a changing to the right permissions and will ask automatically for permission. Adding a extra "Administration" account is on a Unix-based system nonsense.

Get in touch with the concept of sudo, make sure(!) that you understand that! sudo is coming only before command that will access system resource, like installation of a program via apt-get.
need sudo

sudo apt-get update #To get you sources updated

ping -c 2 www.google.de

Don't let sudo become a part of the everyday use! It's something you need when it's needed!

Don't force yourself to something on the system. When something is not working, go google something and then ask.
Linux can become very quick frustration. Be sure not getting lost during that work. Else you see yourself quick rebooting to windows.

Feel free to ask anytime, any question!

so far
Akendo

[Krymzn]

thanks for the tips I will get nano and learn the command line.

Anything else?

[lucasbytegenius]

First thing I do is get Ubuntu up to date before anything happens, and then I install Google Chrome, and then browse the Software Center for stuff.

[supuhmeatboy]

Visit the Ubuntu Software Centre and grab some interesting things. Most of the software are free and are really helpful to use. First thing I would suggest to get is get chromium, which is a substitute for Google Chrome for Linux Based systems and is equally as fast for web browsing.

[pane-free]

@Akendo When you start using Linux, try to bring to the desktop what you are used to! . . .

Ubuntu is very good a changing to the right permissions and will ask automatically . . ."

trusting ubuntu to do all things correctly is not wise

"Get in touch with the concept of sudo, make sure(!) that you understand that! sudo is coming only before command that will access system resource, like installation of a program via apt-get.
need sudo"

since when does one need sudo?!
one needs sudo as one needs virtuality!

ping -c 2 www.google.de

Aha! I was wondering where that arrogance came from! LOL!

"Feel free to ask anytime, any question! "

@OP

I'm glad you are learning GNU/Linux. Since you have chosen ubuntu, make the most of it.

As you can see, all are free to express their opinion here -- some just need to learn civility some more. It must be genetic . . .

[timothywcrane]

My opinion is that the first thing that anyone should do when installing a new distro is to bring up a complete list of all of the programs that are installed on your PC and decide on which ones you will be unlikely to ever use and uninstall them. With the emense availability of free software available, it is quite easy to get a glut of programs on you computer that you will not ever use, and especially if they load upon startup, this will slow your system down for no reason and leessen your user experience. This has been touched upon in the posts above, but I will not go into what I think is useful and what is not, as that is a personal decision. This will also free up some disk space to allow you to do what I would consider the second thing onyur to do list, which is to check out the different desktop environments so that you can decide what look and feel you are most comfortable with. i have long been a fan of the Enlightnement destop. The third thing I would do is install Virtulbox, so that you can install a second OS to use for testing purposes, so that you can experiment to your hearts content without touching your primary OS.

PS. I would also recommend reading all of the man pages and how-tos ASAP if you are new to Linux in general