Installation of Ubuntu (11.10 onward)

Go to Ubuntu home page, download the software and burn into a CD. Insert the CD, and boot your PC or laptop from the CD, and follow the installation instruction. You can opt to install a dual-boot system with Ubuntu and pre-existing Windows. The installation CD can also be used for recovery: reinstall Ubuntu without erasing existing files in your home directory.

Installing Useful Packages

A useful command-line tool for installing software packages is Advanced Packaging Tool (APT). To update the list of packages, do    sudo apt-get update To upgrade the installed software, do    sudo apt-get upgrade To install a software package, e.g., build-essential,, do    sudo apt-get install build-essential After installing, you may want to put it into the package manager for clean, easy removal later:    sudo apt-get checkinstall For more information, refer to apt-get online documentation. The following are useful packages that are not installed by default.

Useful Packages

To find appropriate Ubuntu packages, use the online package search. The following is a list of useful packages that are not installed by default. g++ Compiler    sudo apt-get install build-essential CMake and CCMake    sudo apt-get install cmake

OpenGL    sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev The package freeglut3-dev contains OpenGL utility toolkit development files. Installing freeglut3-dev also causes other dependent packages to be installed and upgraded automatically, such as - libgl1-mesa-dev: OpenGL API - GLX development files - libgl1-mesa-glx: OpenGL API - GLX runtime - libglu1-mesa: Mesa OpenGL utility library (GLU) - libglu1-mesa-dev: Mesa OpenGL utility library - development files - libx11-dev: X11 client-side library - mesa-common-dev: Developer documentation for Mesa To check whether OpenGL is using hardware acceleration, install mesa-utils and run glxgears.

Useful Information

Nvidia Driver Newer nVidia GPUs for laptops, such as GT 525M and later models, come with Optimus technology for power saving. Unfortunately, nVidia drivers do not support Optimus in Linux. Installing these drivers can cause problems such as system freezing at booting, suspending, hibernating. One way to work around the problem is to use Bumblebee.

Global Menu Bar Ever feel annoyed by Ubuntu's global menu bar? Here's an easy way to disable it:    sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt