WOW! Ubuntu 18.04 is a welcomed upgrade from 16.04, from aesthetics to functionality you can really tell there’s been plenty of thought put into this release! I’ve been running Ubuntu as my primary desktop workhorse for a number of years now — since 11.04.

My top apps

These are my top apps I always install on a fresh installation…

  • SciTE is a useful lightweight and customisable text editor, it also handles large files fairly well too!
    sudo apt install scite
  • Artha is an offline English thesaurus based on WordNet, with hotkey support to quickly see a definition of a selected word and synonyms — it’s a time saver!
    sudo apt install artha
  • KeePassXC is a cross-platform port of KeePass Password Safe, an awesome open source password manager.
    sudo apt install keepassxc
  • ClipIt is a lightweight and fully featured clipboard manager.
    sudo apt install clipit
  • SmartGit is a Git client with support for GitHub Pull Requests+Comments and SVN.
    sudo tar -xzf smartgit-linux-18_1_3.tar.gz -C /opt
    ./opt/smartgit/bin/add-menuitem.sh
    sudo tar -xzf jre-8u171-linux-x64.tar.gz -C /opt
    echo 'jre=/opt/jre1.8.0_171' >> ~/.smartgit/smartgit.vmoptions
  • meld is a visual diff and merge tool.
    sudo apt install meld nautilus-compare
  • Chrome
  • Android Studio
  • Visual Studio Code
  • Virtual Box

Tips & tricks

  • You can record your entire desktop with Gnome’s built-in screen recorder. Simply hit CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + R — Read more @ Tips on Ubuntu.
  • Span desktop wallpapers across multiple monitor setups (e.g. dual), install GNOME Tweaks. Navigate to Appearance -> Background -> Adjustment -> Spanned.

I’ll periodically update this post as I continue to enjoy and learn more with Ubuntu 18.04!

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